History of the pianoforte and pianoforte players

by Oskar Bie

Haydn received more from the clavier than he gave to it. He transferred to the orchestra the clavier-forms of the time, and thus pointed out to it the path to the symphony. Without doubt the modern symphony, in the first instance, is to be traced to the clavier pieces of Philip Emanuel Bach; and Haydn, to whom fell the task of the intermediary, was the first to put the rich development of this chamber-music to practical use. Clavier and orchestra always advance in mutual rivalry, treading on each other’s heels. In Haydn it was the clavier that aided the orchestra; in Beethoven the orchestra aided the clavier; Mozart, standing between, gives to each its own.

Thus it is that Mozart has given much, and much of its special character, to the clavier. This equilibrium—and Mozart is always the very personification of equilibrium—is most striking in his piano-concertos, which justly enjoy the renown of having created an epoch in this class. Especially remarkable is the C minor concerto, in which the piano experienced one of its chief emancipations. On one side stood the orchestra, on the other the instrument, and yet neither of these two great rivals loses anything of its essential nature; rather, they owe to this very rivalry many of their best effects. When clavier and orchestra address and answer each other; when the clavier intertwines itself with the strings and the wood, and they in turn blend with the clavier; when in the running strife each sounds in its own style and gives birth to a natural variation of phrases and to delicate alterations of the constituent forms; all proceeds in accordance with that self-evident logic which, at such critical points in artistic history, naturally dispenses with internal laws.

Mozart is the great virtuoso who, even as a boy, was the astonishment of Europe. It is not to be expected that he should content himself with the intimate reflectiveness of the pianoforte; he drags it out into the great world; he needs the concerto-form just as he needs great concert halls. The new pianoforte, with its fuller and more subtly expressive tones, is precisely adapted to his aims, and he is the first to launch the pianoforte on its decisive career. With his triumphal progresses the popularity of the new instrument was not likely to decline. The great enchanter leaves the tiny victories of the spinet far behind; his public recitals in hired halls, which henceforward become more and more popular, demand new feats. He has to work on bold lines; he has to bring into use the special features of the instrument he adopted; the rippling scale-passage, the variety of tone, the forte, the pianissimo, the hundred gradations between these extremes, the altogether new possibilities of sentimental expression which were now at the disposal of the public performer. But amid all the intoxication of the concert hall, the virtuoso remains an artist; the idol of the hour retains his deeper feeling. As he was only truly himself when, after the furore of publicity, he touched the notes in solitude or before a few friends, so in his concertos, behind the external glitter, a romantic soul lies hidden. In the beautiful Romance in the D minor Concerto, for example, the soul looks out on us with a wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten intensity.

In almost all his pieces Mozart composes according to the bidding of the moment. He is an “occasional” composer. In the concertos the occasion was his own appearance on the stage. In the duets and double pianoforte pieces he found the occasion in his association with his sister. From this species of performance he drew new effects. The D major sonata for two pianos stands alone in the skilful and effective blending of the two instruments. His four-handed sonatas are astonishingly successful in the individualisation of the hands, and started a numerous class of clavier-pieces which have been too often misused. We shall not appreciate such duets, if we take the clavier as a diminutive orchestra.[109] But here again Mozart has been unwilling utterly to sacrifice combined effects to individual demands.

Beginning of Mozart’s A minor Sonata. Royal Musikbibliothek, Berlin.

Through the ravishing chamber-music in which, especially in the quintett for oboe, clarinet, horn, fagotto and pianoforte, the splendid treatment of the pianoforte with regard to the wind deserves notice; through all the melodious pieces for piano and violin, the trios, the quartetts; to the numerous smaller clavier-pieces, the fashionable variations, the relics of the suites, the scattered fugues, the fantasies so rich in variety; we follow Mozart to the eighteen pure piano sonatas, which are the very miniature mirror of his unfailing musical invention. We shall treat them in chronological order, for here for the first time we perceive a distinct development which renders such treatment the most natural and advantageous.

At first we meet the daring harmonies and enharmonic changes by which every innovator makes himself notorious, and which draw on him the first severe criticisms. But there is not yet the concentration of later works. A light counterpoint runs through the whole, a conscientious treatment of the themes, which bears witness to sound training. A striking feature is the unforced inventiveness in motives, which succeed one another in unfailing profusion. Intellectual themes, as for example in the B flat major, remind us of Philip Emanuel. The form becomes more distinct, the rules of sonata-arrangement more rigid. But it is not till we reach the A minor (1778) that the full brilliancy of form is seen. This piece has all that wonderful proportion and balance even in the smallest parts, which was, and remained, Mozart’s most peculiar characteristic. Proportion in the well-balanced opposition of themes in all three divisions, in the liveliness of the piquant semiquaver runs, which already leave Scarlatti far behind, in the brilliant and yet simple execution of the last movement—proportion, indeed, is everywhere.

After 1778 our impressions deepen. The D major is the creation of Mozart’s indestructible caprice. The motives become ever more tuneful, more speaking: in the C major we hear the phrases as though sung; we seem to hear words with pauses for breath, as from a distant exquisite opera. The melodies run after each other, and—what is so typical a feature of Mozart—it is by this that our attention is held rather than by any inner development of the themes.