Introducing Mozart's Fortepiano — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:03So this is a fortepiano, this is the predecessor of the modern grand we know
2. 0:08and love so much today. It's obviously much smaller and this
3. 0:14instrument has black and white keys the other way around. This is a copy of an
4. 0:18instrument originally made in 1785 by a maker called Matthias Heilmann in South
5. 0:23Germany and it's absolutely the sort of instrument that Mozart would have
6. 0:30played. In fact Mozart would have played it towards the end of his life, he was actually
7. 0:36probably more of a harpsichordist in the early parts of his life and even
8. 0:41Beethoven and it's hard to think of this very small sound that big piano concerto
9. 0:46would have been played on this and it really changes the way we think about
10. 0:51the music. It's got very small leather covered hammers and we've got a
11. 0:58wonderful array of special effects that these instruments do as well.
12. 1:03This particular one doesn't have pedals but what it does have are three knee levers under
13. 1:08the keyboard. It gets all a bit complicated but here we have a device
14. 1:13called a moderator and what that does is it pushes a strip of cloth in between
15. 1:18the leather hammers and the strings so if I press it with my right knee this
16. 1:23strip comes into play and it gives me a very veiled, muted sound.
17. 1:34Then next to it we have the sustain mechanism which is the same as the right
18. 1:40pedal on the modern piano. Now obviously it gets a bit complicated because
19. 1:44instead of pressing down with your right foot you press up with your left knee
20. 1:49and this does get very complicated.
21. 1:54The sound carries on forever. There's quite a difference though in the way that we use
22. 1:59the sustain, it's a special effect here rather than something we use throughout
23. 2:04a piece of music and this gives us a rather wonderful tone colour and Haydn
24. 2:09calls for it in one of his sonatas that we just open the pedal and just let
25. 2:18the sound ring on and I think certainly that was very much a part of piano
26. 2:23technique right through, including Mendelssohn, they would use the pedal as
27. 2:27a special effect rather than just using it throughout as a means of playing
28. 2:32legato, it relies a lot more on finger dexterity and finger touch.
29. 2:37Then the third knee lever on this instrument is a real special effect and I'm
30. 2:42sorry to all my colleagues in the bassoon section because this gadget is
31. 2:46called the fagotto or the bassoon and what it does is it pushes little leather
32. 2:50covered strips of brass into contact with the bass strings and gives you this
33. 2:54really quite nasty noise
34. 2:59Now the interesting thing is we have no idea what they use that for they
35. 3:04probably used it for dance music, they probably used it for sort of special
36. 3:09effects, the best thing I can think of is...
37. 3:17...which is a little bit raucous and horrible so as I say I do apologize to my
38. 3:22bassoon colleagues who don't play anything like that.
39. 3:25Most of the time.
40. 3:39So here we have the Viennese piano action, it's a really really simple thing
41. 3:45where we have a key and then this tiny little hammer here. As we press the key
42. 3:53the whole action is lifted and this little beak at the back catches the
43. 3:59hammer and flicks it up. So yes it's a it's a wonderful expressive
44. 4:10tool and it gives us much better control of the dynamics that people that
45. 4:15Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven write. It is a much more appropriate sound world.