1.“Mozart Letters and Documents – Online Edition", published by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Salzburg (https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/briefe/letter.php?mid=1419&cat=3 [accessed December 28th 2023]).
2. Robert D. Levin, “Mozart and the keyboard culture of his time” Min-Ad: Israel Studies in Musicology Online (2009): 10. See also: Michael Latcham, “Mozart and the Pianos of Gabriel Anton Walter,” Early Music 25, no. 3 (1997): 382-402.
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The fortepiano was invented around 1700 in Florence, Italy, by harpsichord builder Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731). Unlike the
harpsichord, which produced sound by plucking the strings, the fortepiano produced sound by striking the strings with hammers,
making it possible to create dynamics. In the 1730s, Gottfried Silbermann (1683-1753) began making fortepianos in Germany
based on Cristofori's designs and fortepiano-making spread to England and France.
The fortepiano, which Mozart used around 1788 when he wrote the Piano Concerto No. 26 K.537, was made by Anton Walter
(1752-1826). Mozart purchased this instrument around 1782 and used it until he died in 1791. Viennese fortepianos had a mechanism
called "Viennese action", which was different from that of Cristofori's piano (“English action”). The most significant difference is that the
hammer structure itself is attached the the keys, and when the keys are depressed, the hammers spring up and produce sound. These
instruments have a lighter touch and a brighter sound. Mozart's piano was a typical piano of the time, with five octaves and weighing 85
kilograms, which is quite delicate compared to modern pianos. It was frequently transported for concerts in and around Vienna. Leopold
Mozart (1719-1787) visited his son in the spring of 1785 and wrote to his daughter about it: “Your brother's fortepiano has been taken
out from the house to the theatre or another house at least 12 times since I've been here.”1 The pedals were initially equipped with
hand stops to raise the damper but were later modified to be knee levers. Michael Latcham has argued that it was part of a grand
remodeling in 1805, after Mozart's death.2 Mozart never wrote any pedal markings in his notations, and how he used the pedals is still a
mystery.
In the 19th century, the piano industry underwent remarkable development, and as demand increased, it moved towards mass
production. The standard range of the piano was five octaves until the end of the 18th century. After the year 1800, the range gradually
increased, and foot pedals became standard on Viennese pianos around 1810 (English pianos had foot pedals even before that). As
playing techniques developed, so did the demands on the piano regarding touch. Pianists began to compete with each other’s virtuosity
in rapid succession, trills and other ornaments. In response to this demand, a revolutionary action was invented in 1821 by Pierre Erard
(1794-1855) called “double escapement”, which allowed for the repeating of the same notes more rapidly. Therefore, by the time
Reinecke came into the world in 1824 and started playing the piano, the instrument was already quite different from the one owned by
Mozart. For example, in the video, I played a six-and-a-half-octave fortepiano made by Johann Nepomuk Tröndlin (1790-1862) in 1828,
which is in the collection of the Grassi Museum in Leipzig. His piano was loved by Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, and was used in
the Gewandhaus until 1860; perhaps the instrument played by Reinecke at his debut in Gewandhaus in 1843 was also a Tröndlin's piano.
Fortepianos were increasingly strung with stronger and stronger strings, and the use of metal frames to withstand them became
common. The transition to the modern piano was completed in the latter half of the 19th-century with the introduction of the full cast-
iron frame, combined with cross-string and a comparatively powerful touch mechanism.
When listening to Reinecke's arrangements of Mozart's piano concertos and his recordings, the difference in the instruments they
were played on is a point that cannot be ignored. We fortepianists play Mozart on the fortepiano because there is something that we
can do quite naturally on the fortepiano of the time, which we cannot reproduce well on the modern piano without an extra awkward
effort. What is very interesting is that Reinecke also mentions in his book that the pianos he plays are different from those of Mozart's
time, which we will look at in a later chapter. He must have spent his long life with the evolution of the piano, sensing what new things
the instrument had gained and what it had lost. Importantly, he did not try to reproduce the sound that Mozart heard on the modern
piano but rather worked to reproduce Mozart's spirit using the full potential of the modern piano.
Videos from above:
- Johann Nepomuk Tröndlin's fortepiano (1828), Grassi museum in Leipzig, October 5, 2023
- Andreas Stein's fortepiano(1828), owned by Clara Schumann, in Schumann hause in Zwickau, October 6, 2023
- Blüthner(1853), Grassi museum in Leipzig, October 7, 2023
Next: Chapter 1.3 Piano rolls