Liszt was born sixteen years before Beethoven’s death.
This brings us to Franz Liszt (1811-1886). These changes transformed a delicate instrument into an incredibly powerful beast that can replace an orchestra but that at the same time retains the gentleness of its ancestors. The biggest differences between the pianoforte and fortepiano (the modern piano) are, first, that the frame the harp strings are tied to is not wooden but metal the low-tension strings have been replaced with high-tension ones the instrument has a range of two additional octaves (14 extra white keys) and the hammers are covered with tightly compacted felt instead of leather. He complained to the piano manufacturer that pianos wore out very fast. At one point he had broken 78% of the strings in his piano. Beethoven was one of the early adopters and beneficiaries of the piano’s evolution and played an important role in the evolution of the instrument. This transformation had a major impact on the music that was composed and, in a musical feedback loop, composers impacted the instrument. But from the late 1700s to the early 1800s the piano underwent a significant transformation. Mozart died in 1791, just as the fortepiano (or simply, piano), the instrument we are all familiar with, was starting to emerge. Think of Mozart’s piano concertos or sonatas, which were written for pianoforte. Each note is very clear and distinct, and the pianoforte has still not completely lost the sound of the harpsichord. The sound of the pianoforte is different from the sound we accustomed to hearing today: it is lighter, and the instrument did not have a double escape mechanism and thus could not repeat sounds rapidly – it speaks instead of signing. This is the instrument used by Mozart and the young Beethoven. The frame that held the strings was still wooden, and the strings were held at low tension. In fact it was called a harpsichord – think of it as a harp (wooden frame with stretched strings) with a keyboard.Īround 1700 the harpsichord gradually transformed into a pianoforte, which had the same look as the harpsichord, but instead of the strings being plucked they were hit by little leather-wrapped hammers. Though the earlier instrument had a similar shape and had a keyboard, its interior plumbing was completely different. The piano you see today in concerts hall or in private homes was not always like that. I don’t think you can talk about Liszt without talking first about the evolution of the piano. Listen on: iTunes | Google Podcasts | Onlineįranz Liszt was a Hungarian composer and pianist.
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