A Conversation with Fortepianist Daniel Adam Maltz, Part Two
A Conversation with Fortepianist Daniel Adam Maltz
Part Two
In the first part of our interview (https://lennycavallaro.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-fortepianist) Daniel Adam Maltz discussed the fortepiano, an instrument quite different from the contemporary piano. This was the “piano” of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, the true giants of the classical period.
LC: How long you have considered yourself a fortepianist?
DM: I think it’s reasonable to say “around six years.”
LC: During that time, you have obviously learned a great deal about how the fortepiano sounded, how it was played, and how composers would have written for it. Moreover, you have also become involved with how the instruments were tuned at the time. In fact, you have an intriguing quote (by Ingomar Rainer) on your website: “… what you said about the clearness also has to do with equal temperament or so-called pure temperament. So, if you tune these pianos in strict equal temperament, it will not sound good; it will not sound very nice. It sounds a little bit dirty. If you tune it in one of these unequal temperaments which were common in the 18th century in Vienna, it sounds really nice. But when you try to tune a Steinway or a Bösendorfer in one of these unequal temperaments, this is catastrophic.” I can certainly appreciate that statement from the modern perspective, but please tell us a little more about the period instruments and the temperament you are using.
DM: Tuning is such a fascinating subject that we could discuss it for many hours. I think it’s one of the most important elements when we talk about artistry on these instruments.
When I was a student, I was taught that prior to the advent of equal temperament, keyboards were tuned to play in one key and would sound okay in closely related keys, but once we got a certain distance from the home tonality —
LC: We would encounter an out-of-tune interval called the “wolf.”
DM: Right. The performer would have to retune to play in another key. Presumably someone came along and invented equal temperament, Bach wrote the Well-Tempered Clavier to celebrate (and popularize) this new tuning system, and everybody lived happily ever after.
It’s a nice story, but it’s not true. It probably arises from a misunderstanding of the German title, Das wohltemperierte Klavier, which actually means “well-tempered clavier,” not “equal-tempered”! This gigantic misunderstanding is really just a translation error..
LC: Indeed. However, let’s look at something more specific. The interval of a third on an equal-tempered piano is not nearly as pleasant as it is on an instrument tuned in a well-temperament.
DM: That’s right; the equal-tempered third is definitely “wide.” A pure third will thus sound flat to a contemporary musician.
I use a temperament called Kirnberger III, but there are many such temperaments. They enable the performer to play in every key, but not every key is equal. It’s based on the circle of fifths, and with the Kirnberger III temperament, I have seven acoustically pure fifths — not tempered at all, but based on natural acoustics — and then five fifths that are tempered. What that means is that, for example, in Kirnberger F to C, B-flat to F, E-flat to B-flat, and so on are all acoustically pure fifths, while C to G, G to D, D to A, and so on are tempered fifths.
With equal temperament, one can theoretically take a piece and transpose it to any other key, but with Kirnberger III or other such systems, one cannot make that type of transposition, because the intervallic relationships are not the same. This led to “key characteristics,” which have been extensively researched by the late Dr. Rita Steblin. The idea is that each key has its own character and its own intrinsic emotional capacity, prompting some people to write down descriptions of the different keys — e.g., that C Major is the key of innocence and childhood.
Composers of this period felt quite strongly about these key characteristics. Thus, transposition wasn’t an option, because to do so — to take the piece from one key to another — would ruin the inherent character of the piece itself.
I find this fascinating, and key is absolutely crucial to the music. However, what we’ve done (by making everything equal temperament and transposable) is that we’ve stripped away all this color and the characteristics between keys. Why did Mozart modulate to that key? Well, because that key is extremely “narrow" and “crunchy,” and it produces an emotional effect. It is truly a captivating subject, and I’m very passionate about it.
LC: This concept opens up so many emotional possibilities. I remember that years ago I read something about how Beethoven had particularly strong feelings about the key of A-flat.
DM: On that score, let me tell you about something that was very much in vogue at the time. People from the British Isles would send folk songs to the great masters in Europe (e.g., Haydn and Beethoven) to arrange, and these jobs paid quite nicely. Nevertheless, when Beethoven got one particular tune in a key with four flats (either A-flat major or F minor), he wrote back that the affect of the song was hardly suitable for that key. The indication was amoroso, but he thought that it would sound barbaroso in the original key!
What we learn from this anecdote is that to Beethoven, the key could change the internal aspect of a piece so significantly that it could take something amorous and make it barbaric! Key truly was very important, in that it could change emotional intent, and for that reason, he insisted on arranging the song in another key.
LC: Fascinating! Now, this almost invites a return to Glenn Gould, who wrote about taking one movement of a Bach partita, transposing it into another key, and adding it to the partita of that key. Of course, he never did it, and my “gut feeling” is that it probably would not have worked.
DM: Well, that type of thinking arises from a person who was born in the reign of equal temperament and likely never considered anything outside of it. Equal temperament is the musical language today.
LC: For the most part, I agree with you. Nevertheless, we should note that Bach transposed works from one key to another quite often. For example, the Sonata for Flute and Clavier in B Minor became the Sonata for Oboe and Clavier in G Minor.
DM: Perhaps we can hold the discussion on Bach in abeyance. When I talk about transposition today, I look at songs. This is the area where transpositions are most likely to arise. A given work may be outside of the singer’s range, so it is transposed, and this will work with equal temperament, because nothing is really changing. However, in the classical period, such a transposition would have violated the aspect of the key, so it was frowned upon. It would have been preferable for the singer to have rewritten the passages with notes beyond his/her range than to have changed the key. This probably sounds strange to people today, but at the time, the key was almost more important than the melodic line.
LC: That’s a staggering concept!
DM: Yes, and a strange yet powerful notion: rewrite the melody but leave the key alone. I mention this, because I love doing Lieder [art-songs — ed.], but given the smaller range of my keyboard, if you were to transpose the key, I might very well run out of notes in either the bass or the treble.
LC: Yet sometimes the music is much easier, particularly for the pianist, when we do transpose. For example, “Das Wandern,” from Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, was originally scored in B-flat, which is rather difficult for the pianist, yet it’s so much easier in another key.
DM: You’ll have to take that up with Schubert!
*****
Part Three of what will now be a five-part interview with Daniel Maltz will be published tomorrow!
Daniel Adam Maltz’s website: https://www.danieladammaltz.com/
His YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/danieladammaltz
His Podcast (Classical Cake): https://www.danieladammaltz.com/classicalcake