Chickering
Kawai
Petrof
Pleyel
Schimmel
Steinway
Yamaha
Young-Chang
BRENDEL
A number of extracts from Alfred Brendel’s book ‘Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts’
(Robson Books, 1976) are set out, in slightly edited form:
‘Beethoven’s piano works pointed far into the future of piano building.
Those performances that are historically most correct are not always the ones that leave
us with the most cherished memories.
Beethoven notates the pedal only when he wishes to obviate misunderstandings or when
he is aiming at unusual effects.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century no distinction was made between “ritardando”
and “ritenuto”.
The practice of conducting concertos from the first violin part survived into the twentieth
century.
The projection of simplicity can be a very complex business. An exceptional reservoir of
nuances, even though they may remain unused, and a considerable degree of sensitivity
and inner freedom are required. Otherwise the result is not simplicity but emptiness and
boredom.
We follow rules to make the exceptions more impressive.
Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Ries said of Beethoven’s instructions:
“If I missed something in a passage, or played wrongly the notes and leaps he often
wanted me to bring out strongly, he rarely said anything; but when I fell short as regards
expression, crescendos, etc., or the character of the piece, he got exasperated because, as
he said, the first was an accident, but the other was a lack of judgement, feeling or
attentiveness. The former happened to him quite often too, even when he played in
public.”
Only a few of Schubert’s major instrumental works were published during his lifetime.
Not only in his piano works does he expand previous dynamic limits to ppp and fff.