A Messiah to send Hippites rushing for the smelling salts ?

[Richard Barrett]

I think it's highly likely that composers would have wished the sustaining power of early pianofortes to have been greater.

"I think it's highly likely" - that says it all. Do you know of any statement by any composer of the time that bears this out? If not, it's really just your own prejudice talking. On the other hand there's evidence from the music - for example Beethoven's frequent use of closely-spaced chords in the low register, which require quite some fancy footwork to get them to sound clear on a "modern" piano. Composers don't write for nonexistent instruments. I might wish that the trombone could play a low B, but that doesn't mean trombonists of the future with their even moderner instruments ought to stick in a few low Bs because that's what I would have wanted.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think it's highly likely that composers would have wished the sustaining power of early pianofortes to have been greater.

Some of them, possibly. But the lack of sustaining power of the Harpsichord didn't stop composers from writing rather splendid Music for it - not even those with access to the Organ (whose sustaining power is much greater than that of even the later pianos). Interesting, too, that Beethoven didn't write note values longer than a semibreve in slower tempi in his solo Piano Music; often it's a case of later performers wishing that his Music had greater opportunities to sustain notes (turning the opening crotchet of the Pathetique Sonata into breves, for example).

[ahinton]

"I think it's highly likely" - that says it all. Do you know of any statement by any composer of the time that bears this out? If not, it's really just your own prejudice talking. On the other hand there's evidence from the music

That's it; that IS the "statement" - or rather what substitutes for one in the obvious absence (to which you draw attention) of words from the composer along the lines of "I wish that the piano would do X, Y & Z and so if I keep writing for it as though it could then one day someone will ensure that it will". Of course composers didn't actually say things like that (or at least I'm unaware of an example of it, but the very actions of early 19th century pianos were simply not up to some of what Liszt and Alkan in particular nevertheless threw at them and the absence of iron frames rendered the instruments susceptible to the risk of creaking under the pressure of Liszt playing some of his more demanding pieces on them.

for example Beethoven's frequent use of closely-spaced chords in the low register, which require quite some fancy footwork to get them to sound clear on a "modern" piano.

It's interesting that you mention that, because I find that such instances can sound clearer on certain "modern" pianos than they do on the instruments of Beethoven's time; the same goes for Alkan whose penchant for writing chords of at least three notes in the piano's lowest octave might well have been inspired in part by the example of Beethoven, whom he revered (sufficiently so to compose a massive cadenza for Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto from which most pianists nevertheless shy away!)

Composers don't write for nonexistent instruments.

No, indeed they don't, yet a particular problem arises with pipe organs still in use whose compasses are less than what's now generally regarded (at least in UK) as "standard", namely 61 notes in the manuals and 32 in the pedals, in that works that call for that "full compass" use have at best to be adapted in performance on instruments with shorter compasses (the most frequently encountered being 56 or 58 in the manuals and 30 in the pedals) or at worst avoided altogether; even the magnificent Willis instrument at Hereford Cathedral whose tonal qualities have been widely admired has only 58 notes in the manuals and 30 in the pedals.

I might wish that the trombone could play a low B, but that doesn't mean trombonists of the future with their even moderner instruments ought to stick in a few low Bs because that's what I would have wanted.

Well, I presume that you'd not write what a trombone can't give (and in any case in the instance that you mention you could call for a contrabass one and hope to get it as you might do with the even more endangered species contrabass clarinets), but the usable registers of many instruments have expanded somewhat over time as their players have become ever more technically adept; would even Berlioz have dared to write a passage akin to the notorious clarinet one towards the close of Till Eulenspiegel? - and, on the other hand, haven't most bassoonists long since ceased to blanch at the opening solo in Le Sacre?

[ahinton]

Some of them, possibly. But the lack of sustaining power of the Harpsichord didn't stop composers from writing rather splendid Music for it - not even those with access to the Organ (whose sustaining power is much greater than that of even the later pianos).

True as that is, I think it fair to say that what was once expected of either harpsichord or early pianos didn't especially differ much before the days when Beethoven specifically used the word "Hammerklavier" in the title of one of his late sonatas, whereas thereafter the harpsichord was used less and less in new music whereas the piano underwent fundamental design and manufacture changes in order to accommodate the more challengin (for the instrument) music of the likes of Chopin, Liszt and Alkan.

Interesting, too, that Beethoven didn't write note values longer than a semibreve in slower tempi in his solo Piano Music; often it's a case of later performers wishing that his Music had greater opportunities to sustain notes (turning the opening crotchet of the Pathetique Sonata into breves, for example).

It's interesting indeed, although his chosen note-values are ineresting in themselves; one has only to consider, for example, the use of crotchets in his Scherzi written in 3/4 time. That said, I'm not sure what Beethoven would have thought (if indeed he ever harboured such thoughts) during his final years about where the piano as an instrument might be going in terms of expansion of its expressive capabilities...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Composers don't write for nonexistent instruments.

Are you sure about that? Check the scoring of Bach's Brandenburgs, and you will find great difficulty in finding all the instruments.

Also, where do you find a non-transposing flute that plays B flat below middle C in the 3rd movement of Tchaikovsky's 3rd symphony?

[doversoul1]

Richard Barrett #43

Thank you. This explains the matter much more rationally.

[Richard Barrett]

Are you sure about that? Check the scoring of Bach's Brandenburgs, and you will find great difficulty in finding all the instruments.

Also, where do you find a non-transposing flute that plays B flat below middle C in the 3rd movement of Tchaikovsky's 3rd symphony?

Which are the nonexistent instruments Bach wrote for? It may not always be clear which instrument he intended (as in "corno da tirarsi" in several cantatas, which seems to have been some kind of slide trumpet) but if you're claiming that he wrote for instruments he didn't have at his disposal I would have to ask for some evidence of this.

I can't speak for Tchaikovsky, but everyone makes mistakes sometimes - when I was working as a copyist for Peter Maxwell Davies I had to call him up and ask what to do about a low B flat in the violas...

[ostuni]

Are you sure about that? Check the scoring of Bach's Brandenburgs, and you will find great difficulty in finding all the instruments.

Well, there's disagreement about just what Bach meant by fiauti d'echo in no.4, but performers today routinely use 2 F treble recorders, or a G and an F, and the music doesn't feel markedly different from his scoring for recorders in his cantatas. I really can't think of any other 'problem' instrument in the Brandenburgs - what did you have in mind?

[ahinton]

It's really a myth that "great composers" (and why only "great" ones?) writing beyond the capabilities of existing instruments have been the driving force behind changes in instrument construction. Bach for example never wrote beyond the capabilities of the instruments at his disposal, but indeed composed for their specific characters in a way which is often lost in translation to the more homogeneous-sounding "modern" instruments. Violins underwent changes in construction in the 19th century to a large extent to make them louder for larger performing spaces, and very many changes in instument construction took place for similar reasons. As many "great" composers lamented the losses in sound quality that accompanied the spread of valved brass instruments as rejoiced in their new capabilities, and in general every gain in this or that quality when the construction of instruments has changed has been accompanied by a loss in some other quality. New instruments like the saxophone have been invented by instrument makers independently of composers, although in this case the instrument has been enthusiastically taken up in many areas of music.

Whilst no one would seriously suggest, I think, that composers have been "the driving force behind changes in instrument construction", the 19th century piano examples that I cited surely suggest that at least some of them have been "a driving force behind changes in instrument construction; what other factors might you see as accounting in some way for those changes in 19th century piano design and manufacture that were contemporaneous with some of the more demanding of the piano writing and playing of Chopin, Liszt and Alkan?

Instruments are still being developed today. The "contraforte", for example, is a new contrabassoon devised by Guntram Wolf and Benedikt Eppelsheim which improves on the dynamics, intonation and fingering simplicity of the traditional instrument. No composer has been involved in its invention. The Redgate-Howarth oboe has been developed by the oboist Christopher Redgate, who realised it together with the manufacturer Howarth and then commissioned composers (including myself) to write for its new capabilities, including a stable fourth octave and expanded microtonal capabilities. These are more typical examples of how instruments are developed.

Yes, indeed - the lupophone and all that - and also the tubax, the contrabass version of which is also manufactured by Eppelsheim and which, whilst it doesn't have quite the power and tonal richness of the contrabass sax, is a good deal less unwieldy and difficult to navigate, has a standard baritone sax mouthpiece and so is a practical substitute for it (rather as is the contraforte for the traditional contrabassoon). As far as I am aware, no composer has been directly involved in the inventions of any of these instruments and in fact it's perhaps rather surprising that few yet seem to have taken sufficient interest in them to want to write for them! So yes, some composers did inspire such developments while a good many others didn't.

So thinking in terms of "what composers would have wanted" generally doesn't describe the real-life relationship between composers and instruments, however attractive and understandable it might be to people for whom the sound of "modern" instruments is the norm against which everything else falls short.

But mightn't that become - or at least be thought to risk becoming - an issue with the "modern" wind instruments to which you and I have drawn attention, at least in terms of their use in music composed long before their initial manufacture? After all, I wouldn't like to think that anyone be inclined to assume that those new oboes or the contraforte have been designed only for use in music to be written after examples of them have been made available (I won;t include the tubax in this because it's not as though there's a heap of repertoire for the contrabass sax - even Hindemith somehow contrived to omit to write a sonata for one!).

As to what composers might want or have wanted, there's the additional factor that what some of them might have wanted in 1825 could well have differed from what they'd have wanted in 1880.

[ahinton]

when I was working as a copyist for Peter Maxwell Davies I had to call him up and ask what to do about a low B flat in the violas...

What did he tell you?!...

[doversoul1]

... what other factors might you see as accounting in some way for those changes in 19th century piano design and manufacture that were contemporaneous with some of the more demanding of the piano writing and playing of Chopin, Liszt and Alkan?

Only a tentative guess but I imagine the change in the way music was heard. i.e. from private entertainment to public concerts, and at ever larger venues. You could almost say that it was at least partly the commercial power that was aiming at a larger audiences. This seems to me to be particularly relevant to the piano.

[ahinton]

Only a tentative guess but I imagine the change in the way music was heard. i.e. from private entertainment to public concerts, and at ever larger venues. You could almost say that it was at least partly the commercial power that was aiming at a larger audiences. This seems to me to be particularly relevant to the piano.

Well, undoubtedly the rise of the public concert and of performances at larger venues effected such a change, although performances in salons didn't just suddenly die out; that said, one might ask whether it was the possibility of performances before larger audiences and in larger performance spaces that influenced composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Alkan to make the demands of the piano that they did or whether such demands emanated solely from their respective imaginations and the large hall big audience factor either grew out of that or was at least a factor in enabling their realisation.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, there's disagreement about just what Bach meant by fiauti d'echo in no.4, but performers today routinely use 2 F treble recorders, or a G and an F, and the music doesn't feel markedly different from his scoring for recorders in his cantatas. I really can't think of any other 'problem' instrument in the Brandenburgs - what did you have in mind?

Yes - we might not know exactly what Bach had in mind, but that's not evidence that he didn't, and was creating Music for a non-existent instrument.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wonder if "Echo Flutes" are at all related to "Pan Pipes"?

[vinteuil]

ho ho ho!!!