Old and new instruments

[verismissimo]

I do agree with you. I have never on these boards advocated the use of 'originals'. It has often occurred to me that if an 18th c.
'original' survives in any sort of playable condition ( especially a keyboard instrument) then it's a sure sign that it's probably not a very good one! An excellent one would have been 'played to death'.

It depends on the instrument and just as much on having a first-rate restorer. The latter are in short supply!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Realistically, if you want the sound of a period instrument, it makes more sense to play on copies. Mozart never played on 250-year-old instruments - only brand-spanking new ones.

But having heard Christian Blackshaw playing Mozart at Snape Maltings on a modern Steinway, I find it difficult to imagine anyone reaching the same inner depths of the music on a period piano e forte.

Possibly not (although it is in the nature of the finest performers to surprise us with what we would never have imagined) - but perhaps a performer on a late 18th Century instrument might easily produce different aspects of those "inner depths" (as well, of course, as getting the "outer" colours closer to what Mozart might have expected)?

[Sir Velo]

But having heard Christian Blackshaw playing Mozart at Snape Maltings on a modern Steinway, I find it difficult to imagine anyone reaching the same inner depths of the music on a period piano e forte.

Clearly you've never heard Kristian Bezuidenhout or Ronald Brautigam. I recommend a course of both to remedy that deficiency.

[David-G]

Clearly you've never heard Kristian Bezuidenhout or Ronald Brautigam. I recommend a course of both to remedy that deficiency.

Well said Sir V. I am going to hear Kristian Bezuidenhout playing Mozart in Hatfield next weekend.

[Bryn]

Clearly you've never heard Kristian Bezuidenhout or Ronald Brautigam. I recommend a course of both to remedy that deficiency.

There are indeed many musicians who can offer great depth in their performances on instruments either built in days or yore and more recently competently restored, or on modern copies by specialist builders such as Paul McNulty. Let's not forget the likes of Staier, Bilson, Beghin, Schornsheim et al.

[Richard Barrett]

I would maintain that instruments have improved over time

That old one!

Instruments have certainly made use of technological innovations in various ways, but mainly they've developed alongside the music that was written for them: as composers' and performers' priorities have changed, instruments have changed with them (for example to make a sound more suitable for larger performing spaces, or to facilitate a wider pitch-range, etc., with a reciprocal effect on composers of course). So surely if one holds that instruments have improved over time, surely it's logical to claim also that music has improved over time as well... which wouldn't have been an unusual claim to make in past centuries maybe, but I don't think anyone would say that now, would they?

And while it's often asserted that instruments have improved over time, this "improvement" is generally deemed to have stopped at a certain point, usually around the late 19th/early 20th century, whereas the logic of improvement over time might be thought to imply that a digital synthesizer is an "improvement" on the keyboard instruments which preceded it. Again, I don't think very many people would make such a claim, but wouldn't it be a logical claim to make, based on the opinion quoted?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That old one!

Oft repeated because it may be true. The technological improvements are often designed to enable greater subtlety of response to the performer. The human voice already has this, but technology can actually impede its flexibility. Electronic instruments often have imposed limitations - features that designers are constantly striving to overcome. Electric pianos, for instance, are fakes that attempt to mimic the real thing.

[Richard Barrett]

The technological improvements are often designed to enable greater subtlety of response to the performer.

Firstly, I don't think that's true actually. A baroque violin has at least as much subtlety of response as a "modern" one, although at a narrower dynamic range more suited to the venues it would be heard in and the music it would play. Secondly, note that I didn't mention the electric piano. When I mention electronic instruments I'm not talking about imitations of acoustic ones but about (princially software) technologies which reflect once more the priorities of composers interested in new musical resources, with new possibilities, in the same sort of way as someone like Wagner was in the 19th century; but I still wouldn't speak in terms of "improvements".

But my main point was that if instruments are regarded as having "improved" surely it's a logical step to think that the music they play has "improved" too, and this point you haven't addressed.

[MrGongGong]

Oft repeated because it may be true. The technological improvements are often designed to enable greater subtlety of response to the performer. .

The modern flute VS the Shakuhachi

nope, not true
the Shakuhachi is capable of more subtle response and nuance at the "expense" of massive volume and projection

Electric pianos, for instance, are fakes that attempt to mimic the real thing

Surely they ARE real electric pianos ?

and (as Richard points out) i'm not sure that the "limitations" of Supercollider or Max MSP are any more significant than the inability of the modern clarinet to play chords ?

But my main point was that if instruments are regarded as having "improved" surely it's a logical step to think that the music they play has "improved" too, and this point you haven't addressed.

I was wondering this too ?

[Hornspieler]

But my main point was that if instruments are regarded as having "improved" surely it's a logical step to think that the music they play has "improved" too, and this point you haven't addressed.

I was wondering this too ?

I would not say "improved" but I would say that the possibilities of what can be written have been increased by the development of the instruments' scope.

HS

[Richard Tarleton]

Alan Walker, Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847, p. 287

Not until the great firms of Steinway and Bechstein produced their powerfully reinforced instruments in the 1860s did Liszt's repertoire of the 1840s come into its own. Necessity was the mother of invention.

Liszt composed things which were not possible or only barely possible on the instruments of the time. Composition in his case ran ahead of instrumental development.

Just a thought.

[Richard Barrett]

I would not say "improved" but I would say that the possibilities of what can be written have been increased by the development of the instruments' scope.

Indeed. But at the same time other possibilities diminish, as you, being a brass player would no doubt be aware; and given that this is the case wouldn't it be more appropriate to speak of both instruments and music evolving rather than "improving"? And this also applies to an example like Liszt writing music that was impossible to play on the pianos of his time (though a concrete example or two of this might be useful! because I'm not aware of specific impossibilities in Liszt's piano music) - any changes in piano construction subsequent to this could be just as easily be described as "adaptations to Liszt's specific needs" (which then might be taken up by other composers) rather than "improvements", no?

[Richard Tarleton]

Indeed. But at the same time other possibilities diminish, as you, being a brass player would no doubt be aware; and given that this is the case wouldn't it be more appropriate to speak of both instruments and music evolving rather than "improving"? And this also applies to an example like Liszt writing music that was impossible to play on the pianos of his time (though a concrete example or two of this might be useful! because I'm not aware of specific impossibilities in Liszt's piano music) - any changes in piano construction subsequent to this could be just as easily be described as "adaptations to Liszt's specific needs" (which then might be taken up by other composers) rather than "improvements", no?

I'm no expert so can only refer you to Walker, op. cit. - the chapter titled "Liszt and the Keyboard". Walker explores the subject, referring to examples like repeated notes in La Campanella and Tarantella. It sounds as if Erard was scrambling to keep up, so yes your last sentence applies.

[Hornspieler]

It isn't an exact science. Adding valves to horns was probably an "improvement". But the Vienna Philharmonic regards the later double horn as a retrograde step in terms of the actual tone of the instrument.

I've just been watching a programme called "Mozart Gala" on SkyArts2.

A reduced Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Harding, in a delightful selection of Mozart arias.

In one of them, the soprano soloist was accompanied by a two-horn obligato throughout. Superb playing - and they were both using rotary valved full double Alexander horns.

I'm sure that Mozart himself would have been delighted with the result.

As I get older, I become more and more convinced, EA, that "Nostalgia is not what it used to be".


HS

[Richard Barrett]

I'm sure that Mozart himself would have been delighted with the result.

And I'm sure you're sure, but, at the risk of stating the obvious, we shall simply never know whether Mozart would have preferred his music to be played on instruments he didn't write it for and indeed never saw or heard, and maybe it's a little arrogant of us to presume we do. On the other hand, the reason I would prefer the piece in question to be played on natural rather than valved horns isn't particularly because they're more "authentic" but because I prefer the sound they make in music written for them. That music wasn't written with the later ideal of timbral consistency between registers in mind, but a more heterogeneous view of instruments, singly and in combination, which indeed has more in common with much of the music composed today than it has with the orchestral repertoire for which "modern" (ie. turn of the 20th century or so) instruments were developed.