Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum The Late Romantic Piano v The Modern Piano

Somwwhat OT, but here is a modern Yamaha with Alexandre Tharaud playing Bach concerti with period instruments.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/js-bach-keyboard-concertos-mw0002202773

There are a number of youtubes as well under Alexandre Tharaud Bach.

This was never true nor considered "ideal" historically speaking.

From early hapsicords to modern forte piano in its many various stages variety, not uniformity was the spice of life.

"One size fits all" may seem ideal to some from a practical point of view, but not to dedicated artists.

Everyone preferring a slightly different paint brush to do his/her art...

Norbert

Norbert, if you are quoting me you are misunderstanding my words. My statement supports variety, the test is if it is "musically satisfying". Does the performance convey the emotional information in a sound structure outlined by the composer-is the test.

Ed foote, and everyone else, read "after the golden age" by Kenneth Hamilton.

In purely practical terms, its good that there are pianos like Steinway that can perform the whole repertoire convincingly even if its not a perfect solution for everything. Perhaps from the modern bunch you'd prefer bosendorfer for Mozart and bluthner for Beethoven, and perhaps bechstein for mid to late romantic, and yamaha or Fazioli for baroque and contemporary, but as a practical performer its good we have some one size fits all.

My attempts to typify the late romantic piano sometimes leave me thinking, "A piano is a piano, is a piano."

While I'm gathering my thoughts on that conundrum, here is Liszt's Vallée d'Obermann played by Shaun Tirrell on a Mason and Hamlin CC-94 to set against Tomas Dratva's performance on Wagner's old Steinway that Liszt liked to play. The performances sound poles apart but do both satisfy Ed McMorrow's test of being "musically satisfying"? "Does the performance convey the emotional information in a sound structure outlined by the composer"?

What would be interesting is to hear Shaun Terrill play Vallée d'Obermann on a Steingraeber. Instead Pianocraft have put up his performance of Liszt's transcription of Isolde's Liebestod. Makes me think Steingraeber might just carry off Joe's prize for the piano for all seasons.

Here's a little bit of ear candy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNXpCP1OjHM

Thanks, Marty, Erard 1890. Some Chopin and Liszt too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-lj6g8U4b8

I find the tone of that piano rather ugly...kind of the opposite of sweet or singing. Almost like a metallic thud. I realize others obviously think differently, but frankly I have yet to be impressed by any of these old pianos.

For me the most important thing is what I'd simply and somewhat vaguely call beauty of tone, and I find modern pianos far more satisfying in this area. I am far less interested in things like whether the registers have a different tone, if the bass notes are incredibly clear, or other qualities that those who prefer older instruments seem to value.

Have to come back here on this forum after many months of absence simply to agree with pianoloverus this time.

Watching and listening to Yves Henry - a proponant of period instruments - I always do prefer his Chopin preludes played on the contemporary Pleyel as compared to the 1838 Pleyel:
Yves Henri - Chopin etudes - Pleyel 2004 vs 1838

But of course this is merely my preference.

schwammerl

These two comments bring up an interesting point.

That is, "historic" instruments, or basically "historic" anything, is the embodiment of lots of research, and lots of speculation...its unavoidable. The interpretations of historic ways of doing anything, like anything else go in and out of vogue.

Is the way these instruments sound now, with 150 year old everythings the way they sounded when Chopin or whomever wrote for them?

I can see that, given the type of structure the instrument used to produce sound,certain portions of the tonal profile probably sound reasonably similar to the way it sounded originally. But then on the other hand, 150 year old hammers, or reproduction hammers...or 150 year old wire or reproduction wire...only sorta maybe.

I also find the tone of the Viennese mid-century instruments strident in a way I find improbable as to assume it was the original intent. Particularly knowing how a piano is such a tonal moving target, to assume the voice has not shifted at all in 150 yrs is a bit hard to believe...and strict conservation is at odds with messing with the sound to try and "improve" it, should something sound off the modern ears...the whole thing becomes a bit of a neural loop if you think about it too hard.

I don't get that stridency from pianos prior to the period the thread is discussing...but then again Withindale likes this sound...so whose to say???

Jim Ialeggio

Even if it's strictly OT listen to this amazing performance on an 1844 Pleyel Chopin used to play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEIZnclrFvY.

Yves Henry doesn't know nothing about how sounded this instruments. This restoration is really of a very bad quality. Hammers are restored with leather in order to reproduce the sonority of a Pleyel.Problem with leather is that in 5 years aproximate it becomes hard and doesn't offer a good sound but a hard sonority. In order to avoid this Ignace Pleyel et Cie replaced leather with rabbit hair in c.1840 and the material used were a high quality felt applied with no tension that didn't changed the sonority (All this information comes from many writtings contemporany to Chopin period. The kind of leather and how its been aplied is not a good referent and if the intention of the restorer is to reproduce the sonority of an old Pleyel (wich is not a good sonority because all materials are in bad shape)I have to say that they go through a wrong way.

The felt Pape (Wich uses rabbit hair and other ingredients in the building of felts) were quickly replaced by wool felt because of the new inventions and commercial demands of pianos in year 1850, so is there in those 10 years where we can find a good approximation of the sonority of Pleyels of Chopin period, in the felt d'invention Pape. As this is felt and not leather (Wich doesn't get hard with the pass of the time if not used...)we can get a very accurate result of the original sonority of Pleyels and other period instrument of 1830-1849 period from some fortepianos that still has got Pape's felt like hammers from Gioachino Rossini's Pleyel fortepiano.

If you look at some videos of this piano:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5H_4wP5dv4 you won't be judging this sonority because the hammers of this Pleyel had been changed and are now of some kind of romantic wood felt made by an european brand wich are in my sense too hard.

During this post I've linked to you some videos with a still not definitive but nearly aproximate sonority of Chopin period fortepiano.

A general comment about recordings: They Do Not, nor can they ever, represent the true sound of a piano. For any of us to comment on the quality of an instrument that has been posted on this forum is pointless. The quality, position and phasing of the microphones, the quality, and rate of the ADC, the quality and rate of the codec used to reproduce the sample, the quality of the DAC, and finally, the quality of the amplifier and the sound reproducer all affect the sound. If any of you have actually heard live or played the instruments being posted here, then your opinion matters, and it should be noted that your perception of a recording of the same instrument that you have heard live will be biased ( your brain will make the recording sound the same as the live experience). Note that I too posted a link to a recording, so I am as guilty as the rest of you in proving pointless evidence.

I played all the pleyels from the videos I posted !!

Although, depending on your point of view, recordings may not be ideal or even close to ideal, I think the alternative would be trying to just use words to describe tone(this is even less ideal IMO)or only discussing a piano's tone when people are actually there to play the piano in question. So I think there's very little choice in this matter.

If someone creates a video with idea of promoting some piano I think it's their responsibility to make a video that is as honest and accurate as possible. If they create a poor video that makes the piano sound poor, I don't see how they can really complain if people don't like the piano's sound.

Without the use of recordings, this discussion would not even be possible. The general characteristics of various instruments can still be identified with modern, and even simple, recordings. Audio technology has come a long way since the 1950's. One can easily hear the difference between a wooden flute and a metal instrument. One can even hear the difference between silver or platinum. The same holds true for the basic tonal structure of different pianos. Recordings are a valid means of comparison.

I disagree. Much of the discussion that goes on here at PW speaks of the characteristic sound of a particular piano brand, all without the use of recordings. The assumption is made, when discussing that particular piano, that the participants have played that brand and are aware of the characteristic sound. No recording need be posted to help the discussion along.

That is simply because modern instruments are available to play and form one's own opinion. Earlier instruments are simply not available to make a personal assessment. In the US, instrument museums are rarely just down the street to go and form an opinion from direct experience. Also, the European brands from that era, Erard, Pleyel, etc., are not common commodities.

You are quite correct. While I accept that we can glean from a recording the essence of the sound of a piano, due to confirmation bias if we already know the instrument live, the recorded sound of one particular 19th C Peyel is not going to help one discern the actual live sound of that piano to the extent that one can, as is being done in this thread, make a value judgement of that piano relative to other, including modern, pianos.

I know from my own recordings of my own piano that the resultant sound, when played back electronically, is nothing like the sound when sitting at and playing the actual instrument. Most of the recordings of the same brand and make (in my case, a M&H BB) that I have listened to here on PW and on the web, sound almost identical to my own recordings, yet they do not actually sound like the actual instrument. This is both good and bad. Bad because we can't simulate the real instrument, and good because we can't simulate the real instrument.

Much is lost throught recordings, if I love how that Pleyel sounded in videos, in the reality ,a concert with a Pleyel pianino is an experience like drinking the best wine you ever drunk! The sonority is as dense as the good flavour of a wine... nice for hearth...