Silvano G. Bernasconi plays Table Fortepiano of 1780 - Mozart 's Fantasia N. 1 in D minor KV 397

http://www.silvanobernasconi.ch How was the Mozart's piano sound? This Table Fortepiano signed "Johannes Pohlman Londini fecit 1780" with original strings (Diapason 415), takes we back to the first age of this instrument.
Oldest intrument from the collection of ancient instruments founded by the pianist Silvano Giuseppe Bernasconi, this Table Fortepiano is more sonore then the Clavicorde, that he studied with Christopher Hogwood.
The discovery of the new keyboard with leather's hammers, created by the Padovan Luthier Bartolomeo Cristofori about in1700, was published by Scipione Maffei in 1711 ("gravecembalo col piano et forte"), later describet by Lodovico Giustini da Pistoia ("de cimbalo di piano e forte detto volgarmente di martelletti") and represents an important expressive conquest: the Table Fortepiano was later also very diffuse and here it's possible to listen the soft sound producted by this keyboard (often impossible to restore as for example that belonged J.Ch.Bach)
The lute effect (lever system that compress all the strings ) was in common usage to alternate the double musical phrases.

Category:

Music

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• ONDA
• PRODUCTION

[ONDAPRODUCTION]

your instrument sounds good... but towards the end must be studied better...

[tastogiusto]

Wunderbares Instrument, großartig gespielt. Was halten Sie von meinem Instrument?

[Clavichordist]

@VelikyRostov9

You sum this up nicely. You should visit the Frederick Collection some day in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. Google the place because YT doesn't like web links.

[VelikyRostov9]

@Clavichordist I very much agree with you. While the modern piano found it's true voice in impressionistic writings of Debussy and Ravel, for any expression otherwise the modern grand has a stiltingly vanilla gooey totalitarian quality about it that is quite repellant... not to mention that the attack and immediacy of a modern grand is as slow as a 100 year old arthritis sufferer.

[Clavichordist]

@spacesciatto

Well even the older "modern" pianos such as a 1907 Blüthner is not a fortepiano. This is a full-sized 9-foot concert grand that sounds much better than the modern beast. In the older times, the manufacturers took pride in the differences between their pianos instead of masking them so they all sound the same. The modern piano also has a bigger and heavier action too, which makes them ungainly and beastly sometimes to play.

[spacesciatto]

@Clavichordist I can't say if modern piano is inferior to the older, o vice versa, they were born in different historical periods. Sure we're used to listen to this music played on modern pianos, which are the result of an "evolution" motivated by taste transformations. I totally agree with you about the timbre richness of fortepiano, but maybe it has more expressiveness limits in comparison to the modern one. But at the end it's still a question of taste... :)

[Clavichordist]

@spacesciatto

I wouldn't consider this instrument inferior to the modern piano. The modern piano is inferior to the older piano! There are so many shortcomings with the modern piano, which make grossly over powered and underwhelming tone wise. The older instruments had timbre differences between the registers where the modern instrument is homogoneous!

[spacesciatto]

Sounds coming directly from more than two centuries ago... Really charming. Sometimes I wonder how great masterpieces could be composed on so "primitive" instruments, compared to the present... This makes that geniuses greater, if possible.

[VelikyRostov9]

I love the sound of this instrument: Dangerous, reedy, and edgy in the bass and teonr, the alto and soprano areas have a haunted songbird-like quality. The contrast of the two elements is extremely pleasurable to my era. The tone is very interestingly a mix of percussive and wind instrument with a dramatic overringing and a lovely implication of spatial dimension. Thank you for the post.