Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum What would Chopin play? (was bright vs dark)

I, as a technician, would like to hear from the pianists that play Chopin; which style of instrument do you think produces the most musical result when playing this music? The older delicate ones with their nuance and subtle charm, or the modern stage cannon that can really make a big show of it?

Just wondering...
Regards,

Here are some quotes of Chopin about his preferences about pianos:
"All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here."

Leaving the "bright vs dark" tone thread, for this side discussion of Chopin's music and the comparisons of old pianos and new ones. They have very different sounds.

I think the more pertinent question could be "What would Chopin play if given a choice between a 1850 Pleyel or a 2012 Steingraeber, or even the (now generic) sound of a stage-ready, happily lacquered-up Steinway D ?"

We listen to his music on a far wider variety of instruments than he ever did, and it is easy to distinguish between the modern piano, with its attack-defined clarity, and the earlier instruments that produced the note without such emphasis on the higher overtones.

I, as a technician, would like to hear from the pianists that play Chopin; which style of instrument do you think produces the most musical result when playing this music? The older delicate ones with their nuance and subtle charm, or the modern stage cannon that can really make a big show of it?

To me, it isn't so much a question of should we prefer what Chopin played upon, but rather, would Chopin have chosen the modern "stage cannons" if they were available to him? That question is equally as valid.

Greetings,
I don't like to use the word 'should'. I asked of the pianists , " which style of instrument do you think produces the most musical result when playing this music? "

One problem with this question is that most of us have absolutely no idea what the pianos Chopin might have played on really sounded like when they were new (or nearly so). We know only what they sound like today. And, in terms of comparison with so-called “modern” pianos, that is often not very good.

Even if well cared for, a century and a half of time takes its toll. Hammer resilience changes and soundboard panel stiffness changes. Strings age. We can make broad assumptions about how their voice has changed; the balance between the attack sounds and the sustain rate—i.e., there will be a stronger attack with the fundamental and lower partials dying out at a faster rate than when new—but none of us really knows from firsthand experience what that tone was really like on the day Chopin sat down to play. What is safe to assume is that the sounds he heard coming from the piano were nothing like the sounds we hear today. So when we make assumptions about what kinds of pianos he would have liked today they are just that, I think, assumptions. And if we go only by the evidence of our ears those are often based on faulty evidence.

Given a reasonable knowledge of basic piano design and construction theory we can extrapolate some and assume that the original sound of these pianos would have had a little less abrupt attack sound, a little slower decay rate (longer sustain) and a little more energy in the higher partials.. We can make these assumptions but, until someone makes an accurate copy of an early Erard or Pleyel these will remain just that: assumptions.

What we can say with certainty is that the remaining examples of these instruments no longer sounded the way they sounded in Chopin’s day. We can also say with certainty that no recording of any of these pianos will give us sounds anything like those of the originals.

Given all this we can also say with some certainty that—given their lower-tensioned scaling and lighter, (probably) more resilient hammers—the original sounds of these instruments would have been considerably less loud, the attack would not have been as sharp and I suspect the decay rate would have been much slower (longer sustain). We also know that, properly regulated, the touch and feel of the actions is lighter, quicker and more precise.

I believe modern pianists have the right to interpret the music composed by these musical masters as they see fit given the realities of modern pianos. Just as I, as an audience member, should have the right to walk out when the performance turns offensive. As it did a few years ago at a sadly memorable performance at one of our PTG annual conventions. Admittedly, the piano was not one of the all-time greats—a S&S D fully fitted with some of those happily lacquered-up hammers you mentioned and a nicely dead soundboard—but when the pianist got to his Chopin piece and started pounding on the keys with enough animal force to lift his butt off the piano bench while sending very un-pianistic crashing sounds bouncing around an acoustical disaster of a room at painful sound pressure levels it is (was) time for me to leave. If enough people leave these “performances” perhaps both the pianists and the instrument makers will take the hint.

ddf

Del, is it possible to build an exact copy of a Chopin-prefered Pleyel given materials available today?

No "stage cannons" for Mr Barabino, methinks.

So what piano does he perform on?

The question was what type of piano produces the most musical result when playing Chopin.

But my point was that Barabino apparently performs on a "stage cannon"(not a fair term I think, but used in the OP) although you said "No stage cannons for Mr. Barabino".

As I'm on a YouTube recordings spin, here for comparison are Horowitz and Menahem Pressler who was named last week as one of Fifty Great Pianists in the current BBC Piano Season.
"It's very intimate now" says Horowitz, but I would you say his piano is the most musical for Chopin, as the OP asks?