Piano compositions by Mozart and Beethoven were written for the fortepiano – an early piano much different from the Steinways invented 100+ years later than the fortepiano. Guest Ingomar Rainer explains how fortepianos influenced classical music and their impact on today’s pianists.

In this episode, you’ll:

• Encounter the keyboard Instruments used in the time of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven

• Hear pieces performed on harpsichord, fortepiano, and pianoforte (modern piano) to better appreciate their differences

• Understand how the unique characteristics of each instrument influenced classical music composers

• Learn what techniques pianists should keep in mind to inform their playing on modern instruments

For the best experience, please watch the video at the top of the page.

Episode Transcript and Timestamps

DANIEL ADAM MALTZ: Grüß Sie from Vienna, Austria. Welcome to Classical Cake, the podcast where we discuss topics relating to Viennese classicism while enjoying one of Vienna's delicious cakes. I'm your host, Daniel Adam Maltz.

Today we're talking about the keyboard instruments used by the First Viennese school composers: Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert.

My guest is professor Ingomar Rainer, an organist, harpsichordist, pianist, and conductor. He is also chair of Historical Performance Practice at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Professor Rainer, thank you for joining me today.

INGOMAR RAINER: You're welcome.

Featured cake: Apfelstrudel [0:53]

MALTZ: Today's dessert requires no introduction as it is Vienna's most popular pastry, Apfelstrudel (apple strudel).

And, I am telling you from experience that unless you've visited Austria, you have never had apple strudel like this.

Let's dig in.

Unique characteristics of the harpsichord [1:10]

MALTZ: So, we know that Haydn's early keyboard works were written for the harpsichord. What are the unique characteristics of the harpsichord?

RAINER: To be more precise, the early Haydn sonatas are written for harpsichord and/or clavichord. The main characteristic of both these instruments is that you are in direct contact between key and string. You have to play really with the feeling to pluck a string.

So, these are two different instruments. They have just in common that they have strings and keys. [The harpsichord] is a different instrument mainly in the qualities of articulation, not only in the dynamic possibilities but that it could never become an instrument for concerts. Because even for a little room like this, you're just at a distance of five, six meters. And the new fortepiano had these qualities, but on a larger scale for bigger rooms, for halls later. And that was one of the main reasons I think that it became so quickly popular and used by composers.

MALTZ: To summarize, the main difference from the harpsichord to our fortepiano and eventually what we refer to as the pianoforte is the mechanism that actually makes the sound.

RAINER: Yeah.

MALTZ: So the harpsichord and the clavichord I've heard were plucked by the plectrum or some other method and that the fortepiano became hit with a hammer and this sort of caused that transition.

Sound differences between a harpsichord and fortepiano and modern piano [3:47]

MALTZ: So how did these characteristics with the harpsichord, the sound world, because of that plucking of the clavichord… how would you describe that sound being different than that of a fortepiano or to a modern pianoforte?

RAINER: It's the difference of playing a harp or a guitar. And the other is really like playing a xylophone or a marimba, etc. So this intimate contact with the string, with bringing a string into vibration is very different.

MALTZ: And the sound is somewhat thinner or dryer.

Interpreting music for the harpsichord / clavichord on the modern piano [5:51]

MALTZ: As we interpret music that would have been written for the harpsichord or clavichord on the modern pianoforte, what techniques should we keep in mind to inform our playing?

RAINER: One very important thing I think which came with the development of English and French pianofortes in the 19th century is the pedal, the damper pedal, the right pedal. You read even in late piano methods, like Hummel's from 1830, that the ideal pianist was still regarded as somebody who had no pedals, who made everything only with fingers. And with touch.

On the harpsichord, we have no other chance. We have to work only with fingers. We have to work musically only with time.

And the problem is how can I, for example, on a modern piano work with only fingers and how far can I go. And where is the border to say I cannot get the same thing from this instrument?

I can try to in the sense of Bach, in the sense of Haydn, or Mozart to find something other with dynamics and on the other side with more use of rubato techniques.

MALTZ: Before we go on… because you brought up the clavichord. The technique which is unique to the clavichord is this sort of vibrato technique that you can get...

RAINER: Yeah, because you are really in steady contact with the string.

MALTZ: ...on the string. And you can move the key and it makes a sort of vibrato technique.

RAINER: Exactly.

MALTZ: This is something that is completely impossible to recreate on any other keyboard instrument, right?

RAINER: Exactly. Nevertheless, on the modern piano, it's possible to create a similar effect with much pedal and with very quick repetitions of tones. But it is just a fake of a real vibrato.

MALTZ: Right. And so we talked about that. It was — correct me if I'm wrong — about the mid-18th century, that this overlap from harpsichord to fortepiano was occurring. And so this means that really the majority of keyboard works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert can be interpreted on the fortepiano.

RAINER: Yeah.

Unique characteristics of the fortepiano [7:13]

MALTZ: So what are some of the unique characteristics that this instrument gives us?

RAINER: That's just the dynamic range. For the first time, you have a certain dynamic range which allows not only to make dynamic changes for one or two listeners, but for a public, and this was of course sensational.

Because for the first time also in a broader sense, you have the possibilities to make accents, to make phrasing measures like dynamic accents, really in a very short interval. And, if you look in the first written works for these new instruments, you have a lot of dynamic indications. You have a lot of articulation indications which you don't have in Bach, for example.

MALTZ: As far as the articulation goes, I've found in my exploration with playing the fortepiano, that it's even clearer or easier to make clear an articulation than on the modern piano.

RAINER: Oh yes.

MALTZ: You say is this because of the strings on the fortepiano being straight strung as opposed to the cross strung. This sort of creates this clarity and intimacy of the sound in which every articulation that you attempt to really changes the piece in a drastic manner.

RAINER: But what you said about the clearness also has to do with equal temperament or so-called pure temperament. So if you tune these pianos in strict equal temperament, it will not sound good, it will not sound very nice. It sounds a little bit dirty. If you tune it in one of these unequal temperaments which were common in the 18th century in Vienna, it sounds really nice.

But when you try to tune a Steinway or a Bösendorfer in one of these unequal temperaments, this is catastrophic.

Fortepiano influence on composers [9:58]

MALTZ: And so all these things on the fortepiano now, how did these unique characteristics influence what composers were writing at the time?

RAINER: I think you can study the piano works of the Vienna classic masters and you will see how it affected them.

As a colleague said to me. If Bach would have heard his music on a modern Steinway, he would be very fond of it. Perhaps, perhaps. But, I think he would have composed quite other things than he did.

We can see in the Mozart sonatas, in the Haydn sonatas how they really took a maximum from this instrument. Beethoven goes one step further because he really forces these instruments to give everything they can, shortly before breaking strings, etc.

MALTZ: So, keeping all this in mind… we talked about how the harpsichord sound is influenced by its plucked nature of the string. How the fortepiano was… now we're getting closer to the modern piano in that we're using a hammered mechanism. And it's fair to say that the fortepiano took over in popularity because now we had something that could be used as a concert instrument.

RAINER: Absolutely.

Differences between a fortepiano and modern piano [11:01]

MALTZ: Even though this piano we have behind us that was built in 1800 in Vienna, that's the concert instrument of the time… It's still a different sort of sound world than we have from Bösendorfer or Steinway. And so what are these differences and what causes them?

RAINER: The qualities of intimacy, of very soft, very intimate colors and everything. And for me, the main problem is that you have an action which, for example, in the hammers of these early fortepianos have five grams. We have now 30 – more than six times the weight. And so we have on one side a capacity and a possibility of real orchestral force of real orchestral tone. On the other side, the loss of intimacy.

Alberti bass, intimacy, and ornaments on the fortepiano and modern piano [12:43]

RAINER: Musically we have the problem. For example – you know this very well – in Mozart sonatas are very often these Alberti basses: accompaniment in the left hand. This becomes, if played on a modern piano, it would become thick. It would become loud. It would become too important. On the old pianos, it is just right.

MALTZ: I've certainly discovered as I've become more and more enthusiastic about the fortepiano is this intimate nature. It should be approached as something completely different.

You know, it is a different world and these pieces somehow make a little bit more sense when you look at them from the fortepiano they would be written for.

RAINER: And, these characteristics make, for me, a lot of musical experiences which are not possible on our contemporary instruments.

The other problematic side is ornaments. Ornaments on a modern piano are rather clumsy or they become something too present, too close to us and not ornaments.

MALTZ: We've talked a little bit about how pianos throughout the 19th century – just to sort of quickly bring us up to the modern piano – evolved and got bigger and louder. This is just to satisfy public demand and to satisfy the music that was now being composed for them. Is that correct?

RAINER: Yeah, I think so.

MALTZ: For example, you know, it would be tough to imagine Rachmaninoff performed on anything but a Steinway.

RAINER: Yeah.

International standards [15:45]

MALTZ: So the Viennese piano manufacturer, Bösendorfer, continued making Viennese action pianos into the early 20th century, but eventually the English style of piano manufacturing won out. Because of this standardization of style, of action, of piano, are we losing this concept of a Viennese sound to an English… or French… or the idea of an American sound? Are we losing this to a broader international standard?

RAINER: General problem, no? Thirty years ago when I [turned] on the radio, I could say after two minutes, this is an orchestra from America, this is an orchestra from France, this is an orchestra from Czechoslovakia, this is a German orchestra, this is an Austrian orchestra. Even with small details, you could hear style, very distinct style, in every formation.

In the meantime, it is impossible for me to say by hearing this orchestra is an American one, this is an Austrian one. I was even shocked myself by hearing in Japan a very, very perfect performance of a Schubert symphony and I was convinced it was an American orchestra, but it was a Viennese orchestra. So, the internationalization brings a sort of unique sound, of unique aesthetics all over the world and I think we lose a lot.

In my profession here, I used to keep in mind just these questions. Vienna style, what's Vienna sound? How can we work on keeping some memory of these possibilities we had once and we gave up for a more perfect on one side, but on the other side, poorer landscape of sounds in this world.

MALTZ: Yeah, perhaps less interesting at times.

RAINER: If I hear a Beethoven symphony in New York the same as in Tokyo I think it's not very exciting.

MALTZ: Yeah. I think that's what's important to realize as we're focusing in on the First Viennese School composers that this concept of the Viennese sound and the Viennese instruments would have made a huge impression on their music.

These composers, especially Beethoven and Mozart are in the standard repertoire that every pianist around the world will encounter, but perhaps not every pianist around the world has encountered a Viennese instrument to even think about how that would affect the music itself.

Professor Rainer, thank you for joining me today. Although these considerations are outside of what pianists are normally taught, they are key to our understanding and interpretation of Viennese classical music.

RAINER: You're welcome.