Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music

Foreword by Malcolm Bilson; Preface: About Performance Practices; Acknowledgments; Sources of Figures; Introduction: Using This Book; Abbreviations I. Background for the Study Point of View; Invention and Gradual Acceptance of the Piano; The Musical Need; Cristofori's Invention; The Piano's Ultimate Triumph; Some Influences on Performance; Music and Rhetoric; Empfindsamkeit (Sensibility); Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress); Haydn and Mozart; Beethoven and the Rhetorical Spirit; Beyond Beethoven; The Musical Score; Changes in the Classic Era; More-Recent Developments; The Composers and Their Pianism; Haydn; Mozart; Clementi; Beethoven; Czerny's Observations on Beethoven Performance II. The Fortepiano circa 1780-1820 General Characteristics of Construction; Expansion of Keyboard Compass and Instrument Size; Changes in Range and Construction; Beethoven's Extension of Range; The Problem of 'Note Restoration'; Tone and Touch; 'Mutations': Hand Stops, Levers, and Pedals; English Versus Viennese Fortepianos; Actions and Sounds; Attempts to Modify the Viennese Action; Four Classic Composers and Their Fortepianos; Composer-Performers and Piano Makers; Haydn, Mozart, and Clementi; Beethoven; Instruments Played for This Study; Viennese Instruments; German Instruments; English Instruments; Personal Observations III. Dynamics and Accentuation Playing Classic Period Music on a Modern Grand Piano; Notation and Interpretation of Dynamic Indications; Introduction; Orientation to Composers' Notation and Unfamiliar Terms; The Scope of Forte and Piano; Concinnity of Dynamics and Form; Filling in the Missing Dynamics; Terraced and Graduated Dynamics; Repeats; Repeats in Sonata-Allegro Form; Inner Repeats in the Minuet or Scherzo Da Capo; Evolution of Calando and Related Terms; Origin: Use by Haydn and Mozart; Clementi's Definition and Usage; Use of Calando by Beethoven, Hummel, and Czerny; Qualitative (Dynamic) Accents; Indications for Accents; Composers' Uses of Accent Indications; Rinforzando; Types of Accentuation; Accentuation in Beethoven's Music; The Annotations to Cramer's Etudes; The Annotations to Etudes IX and XII; Schindler and Beethoven; An Assessment of the Annotations to Cramer's Etudes IV. Use of the Pedals The Damper Pedal: Introduction; Types of Pedaling; Rhythmic Pedaling; Syncopated or Legato Pedaling; Stylistic Use of the Damper Pedal; Contemporary Descriptions and Uses; Planning Appropriate Pedaling; The Development of Pedal Indications and Their Ambiguities; England and France; Germany and Austria; Special Effects by Beethoven, Dussek, Clementi, and Others; Indications that Create Distinctive Timbres; Indications that Highlight Form; The 'Moonlight' Sonata; Adjusting Early Pedal Indications to the Pianoforte; The Una Corda Pedal V. Articulation and Touch Introduction; Nonlegato, Legato, and the Prolonged Touch; Nonlegato, Tenuto, and the Heavy and Light Execution; A Shift toward More Legato; Legato and Legatissimo Touches Described in Tutors; The Prolonged Touch; The Language of the Slur; The Expressivity of Short Slurs; Longer Legato Goups and Slurs; Do All Slurs Indicate Attack and Release?; Dot, Stroke and Wedge VI. Historical Technique and Fingering Point of View; Specific Functions of Technique; Role and Position of the Arm and Hand; Finger Technique; How to Practice; Staccato Touches; Playing the Incise Slur; Repeated Notes, Octaves, and Glissandos; Summary; Increasing Technical Demands; Clementi's Introduction and Gradus; Beethoven's Exercises and Other Fragments; Fingerings by Clementi and Beethoven VII. Ornaments Introduction; Appoggiaturas and Other One-Note Ornaments; Identification; The Short Appoggiatura; The Long Appoggiatura; Afternotes and Grace Notes; Afternote and Anticipatory Performance of Other Short Ornaments; The Trill; Overview; Evolution of the Trill Start; The Trill Start in Works of Haydn, Mozart, and Their Contemporaries; The Trill Start in Works of Beethoven; The Short Trill and the Schneller; The Mordent; The Turn and the 'Quick' Turn; Haydn's Notation of Turns and Mordents; Interpretation of Haydn's Turn 'over the Dot'; Early and Anticipatory Turn Realization; Beethoven's Ambiguous Placement of the Turn Sign; The Inverted Turn; The Trilled Turn; The Double Appoggiatura; The Slide; The Arpeggio; Improvised Ornamentation VIII. 'Mixed Meters' and Dotted Rhythms Mixed Meters; The Theory; Application of the Theory IX. Choice of Tempo Elements in Tempo Choice; Interaction of Meter, Note Values, and Tempo Headings; Practical Results of These Customs; Additional Elements in Tempo Choice; The Basic Tempo Groups; Contemporary Descriptions; Which Was the Slowest Tempo?; Diminutive Terms; Andante and Andantino; The Changing Allegro; The Meaning of Assai; Increasing Individualization of Tempo; The Metronome; Beethoven and the Metronome; Problems Related to Beethoven's Metronomizations; Universal Problems of Metronomization; The 'Hammerklavier' Sonata; Six Metronomizations of Beethoven's Sonatas; The Haslinger Gesamtausgabe; Czerny and Moscheles as Metronomizers; The Gesamtausgabe and Czerny's Other Metronomizations Compared; Tempo Trends in Europe; Czerny's Metronomizations of the 1840s and 1850s; Moscheles's Metronomizations; Comparison with Czerny's Conclusion; Fast and 'Moderate' Minuets; Beethoven's 'Moderate' Minuets: His Metronomizations, Extrapolated Tempos, and Present Practice; Extrapolation of Other Tempos; For Beethoven; For Clementi Appendix A: Theoretical Tempos of Quantz and Turk; Appendix B: Six Sets of Metronomizations for Beethoven's Piano Sonatas X. Flexibility of Rhythm and Tempo Introduction; Rhetorical Accentuation by Agogic Means; Agogic Accentuation of Notes; Rhetorical Rests; The Fermata; Ritardando and Accelerando; Sectional Change of Mood and Tempo; Eighteenth-Centry Tempo Rubato; Freely Shifting Contrametric Rubato; Contrametric Rubato by Uniform Displacement; Contrametric Rubato in the Piano Works of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven; Descriptions of Contrametric Rubato in French Tutors; Tempo Flexibility as Tempo Rubato; Early Evidence of Agogic Rubato; Agogic Rubato in the Piano Works of Haydn, Mozart, and Clementi; Agogic Rubato in the Piano Works of Beethoven's Piano Music XI. Performing Beethoven's Bagatelle Op. 126, No. 5 Use of the Instrument; Dynamics and Accentuation; Slurs, Articulation, and Fingering; Pedaling; Tempo Choice and Tempo Flexibility; Repeat of the Middle Section; Critical Report Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index Plates and Charts Plate I Two Fortepianos Played for This Study; Plate II Excerpt from the Holograph of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 53, Rondo; Plate III Excerpt from the Holograph of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 111/ii; Plate IV Excerpt from the Holograph of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 26/i, Var. 2; Plate V Ludwig van Beethoven, Bagatelle in G major, Op. 126, No. 5, First edition Chart I Apparent Uses of the Damper Pedal or Knee Lever in the Classic Period; Chart II Likely Choice of Touch for Harpsichord, Clavichord, and Fortepiano Music until about 1790; Chart III Comparison of Four Metronomizations of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas