Old Mozart, old pianos
To the Editors:
I have just read Samuel Lipman’s “Old Mozart and the New Past” (March 1992), and I think it warrants a response—not a refutation, but rather an account of the grounds that have led me to do what I do. What comes across most strongly in Mr. Lipman’s article is incredulity: how can anyone choose to play (or to listen to, for that matter) the eighteenth-century Viennese fortepiano, an instrument with such obvious tonal and expressive drawbacks?
I don’t believe in responding to reviewers; as I like to put it, “We players have our jobs, the audience has their job, and the reviewer has his job.” Recently, however, I was told by two very different musicians (Roger Norrington and György Sándor) that one should sometimes write reviewers—not to rebut what they have said but to enlighten them, to help them in their endeavors. This is what this note will attempt to do.
There are some aspects of Mr. Lipman’s review I cannot address, and others I believe I can. Since I do not know him, I may be interpreting wrongly what he says on page 31, but he seems to say that the development of the Steinway from what it was one hundred years ago to a more brilliant piano today is an “improvement”; the new Steinway is better. The only other modern piano mentioned is the German Steinway, said to be mellower and more old-fashioned; we seem to understand