Beethoven & the English Pianoforte
The following article was originally presented in the album booklet of the album: Beethoven: Waldstein & Appassionata Sonatas, available on CD & Streaming
This article gives an overview of the concept behind the album, and the research and artistic choices which contributed to its production. This album was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts
Artistic Concept
Performing on the Broadwood at Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
In this album, the Canadian fortepianist Anders Muskens presents piano sonatas by Beethoven on an original historical fortepiano from Beethoven’s time, built by John Broadwood & Sons in London circa 1806. This instrument is made in the English manner common around the year 1800, and its design is significantly different from modern pianos and even those built in Vienna concurrently. This particular Broadwood was restored in Amsterdam by Paul Kobald during 2022, and originally resided in the Colt Clavier Collection. Its inaurgural concert, featuring the same program, was given at Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on 26 June 2022. The recording is presented with support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Why play this music on a historical instrument rather than a modern piano? I personally believe that what makes Beethoven’s music very special is its rawness in its expression of human pathos: the manic excitement, the tumult, the struggle, the frustration, the desperation and despair, but also its boldness – it sferocity, bravery, and the heroism! Beethoven is not innocuous – his music needs to provoke, to challenge our notions of what we think classical music is and what it can achieve. These wonderful historical instruments, when working, can produce that rawness and vitality that Beethoven must have strove for, in a way that no modern instrument seems to manage to achieve convincingly. I hope that these qualities will be apparent on the Broadwood, bearing in mind that it is a 200 year old instrument!
Performing on the Broadwood at Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
As a professional fortepiano player, it is extremely captivating for me to play on many different historical instruments and showcase their magnificence and colors through public performance. I almost no longer perform on modern piano and focus now exclusively on historical keyboards, including historical fortepianos, harpsichords, and clavichords whose variety in color and capabilities are like the bottomless sea, satiating a vivid imagination. This lies in contrast to the uniformity I associate with the “standardized” modern piano sound, and certainly I find that aspects of this repertory fit to the historical instruments much more effectively, and I find myself better able to convey my ideas with the fortepiano. This is not only in service to the field of historically informed performance, which I advocate, but also for the sheer joy of the possibilities on historical keyboards. Beethoven and his fellow contemporaries wrote for the possibilities of the instruments they knew in their time: they did not write music for instruments with vastly different designs that were developed hundreds of years after their deaths, and I believe that the music they wrote works very effectively on the fortepiano.
Although it becomes increasingly common to present the music of the Viennese classicists on historical keyboard instruments especially with the increasing popularity of early music culture and the historically informed performance scene, I have noticed that still many members of the public have never experienced Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven in this way and have misconceptions about it. The fortepiano’s “rustic” quality, delicate wooden construction, attack and transparency of tone, light and fast keys, and special effect pedals will bring audiences to a completely new sound world that transports one to another time and place. I wish to show colors and ideas that are impossible on a modern piano and demonstrate how the characteristics of these piano compositions perfectly suit such an instrument, which has significant historical relevance. This will help the public appreciate the sounds of the fortepiano of the Classical and Romantic-era and should provide a completely new perspective of well-known repertoire.
Music must fundamentally move the passions of listeners. In the prevailing theories of the period when Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven worked, the various emotions, or affects, present in the composition must be brought to life in performance, and must be experienced by both the performer and the audience alike. This expressive communication is only possible when the performer thinks like an orator: an eloquent rhetorician who inspires powerful sentiments in listeners via their delivery. According to James Burgh in his treatise on eloquence from the late eighteenth century, “the hearer finds himself as unable to resist, as to blow out a conflagration with the breath of his mouth, or to stop the stream of a river with his hand. His passions are no longer his own. The orator has taken possession of them; and, with superior power, works them to whatever he pleases.” I have been exploring how performers were able to embody such concepts in this period and hope to use these techniques in my own “rhetorical approach” to performance.
Fortepiano by John Broadwood & Sons c. 1806 used in the recording
The English Pianoforte
Recording at the Nikomedeskirche in Tübingen
The invention of the English-style grand piano is typically credited to Dutch harpsichord maker Americus Backers, who possibly apprenticed with the famous North German keyboard builder Gottfried Silbermann in Freiburg. During this period, the predominant public-concertizing keyboard instrument was the harpsichord, but the all-new pianoforte was slowly gaining popularity across Europe. In London, small domestic square pianofortes whose design is often attributed to Johannes Zumpe had gained a great deal of acclaim after being promoted by Johann Christian Bach in public concerts during the 1760’s. Concurrently, Backers immigrated to London, and soon developed a new piano mechanic mounted into an English harpsichord case: later termed the “English lever action.” He later exhibited his new design during February 1771 in London, and it was met with approbation. Its mechanics differ substantially from the fortepianos built by Stein or later Viennese builders like Walter, favoring a much more powerful sound, resonance, and innovative pedals: one for raising the dampers, and the other for shifting the keyboard to change the number of strings struck by the hammers. This is often called the “unca corda” pedal, and depending on how far it is depressed, 3, 2, or 1 string can be actuated with the unstruck strings resonating sympathetically. These pedals are present on the Broadwood used in this recording (albeit with a divided damper lift pedal to separately lift tthe treble and bass dampers), and the “una corda” pedal can be used to prdouce strikingly delicate harp-like tones. Backers’ design patterns immediately became popular and would be replicated by other builders of the day, primarily in England and France: including John Broadwood, Robert Stodart, and the Longman & Broderip company in London; and Sébastien Érard and his followers in Paris. These instruments also influenced the London Pianoforte School of composers: J.C. Bach, Clementi, Dussek, Cramer, Field, Pinto, and others. Austrian composer Joseph Haydn became acquainted with English pianos in 1792 during his visit to London, and borrowed a Broadwood from Dussek. He later brought an instrument back to Vienna in 1795 (a Longman & Broderip) where his then student, a young Ludwig van Beethoven, encountered it. Seemingly soon, Beethoven became interested in the English-style instruments. Beginning with the acquisition of his Érard piano in 1803, Beethoven’s piano writing would consequently undergo a marked and deliberate stylistic change, suited to the new possibilities offered by these instruments. Beethoven also acquired his own Broadwood instrument in 1817, although by this time he was very deaf.
Inspired by this history, this program explores Beethoven’s relationship with the English pianoforte, showcasing its unique possibilities compared to Viennese fortepianos (it goes without saying that it is markedly different from performances on modern piano.) Included are two “heroic” sonatas written shortly after the acquisition of his Érard, with many features that leverage advantages of the English-style instruments.
Through this recording, Anders Muskens not only revives historical authenticity but also actively engages listeners in a dialogue with Beethoven's own artistic environment. By showcasing the nuanced expressivity and distinct sonic palette of the English fortepiano, Muskens invites audiences to rediscover familiar works from a fresh perspective, deepening appreciation for Beethoven’s innovative compositional voice and reaffirming the significance of historically informed performance practice in contemporary musical interpretation.
Review
The attached review below was made by Early Music America.