A Conversation with Fortepianist Daniel Adam Maltz, Part Three
A Conversation with Fortepianist Daniel Adam Maltz
Part Three
[Part Two of this series can be found at https://lennycavallaro.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-fortepianist-2a7, and it provides the link to Part One.]
LC: Another example of transposition from one key to another once again came from the pen of Franz Schubert: the composer’s “Auf dem Strom” [“On the River”]. I performed it once with a singer who couldn’t quite hit the high “B,” so she asked me to transpose it from E Major to E-flat — really not that hard to do, since whether one is playing with four sharps or four flats, the notes on the page are exactly the same. However, from what you are telling me, such a transposition would have seemed horribly inappropriate to the composer.
Now, while Schubert is perhaps most famous for his Lieder, I noticed that you have recorded a number of Beethoven’s relatively neglected art songs with Stephanie Houtzeel (from the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera), and you discussed these works with her on one of your podcasts. This, of course, segues to my next topic. I’d like to ask you about those podcasts and — if I may — make a major plug for your excellent series, Classical Cake. In fact, I first became aware of you through an extraordinary interview you did with Dr. Rita Steblin, in which she certainly presented a compelling argument: that Countess Josephine von Brunswick was the “immortal beloved” of Beethoven’s mysterious letter, and that Minona may in fact have been their child. Alas, we’ll never know.
So, getting back to your podcast, what is the focus of your content?
DM: The podcasts are, of course, a labor of love. I found myself in the city of Vienna, learning so much, and having so many wonderful experiences. Quite simply, I wanted to share, and the idea was to create a podcast interview series that could dive deeply and specifically into Viennese classical music from the perspective of Vienna and also from the perspective of historical performance.
LC: Marvelous, and so necessary, since this is not an area about which the public is particularly well-informed. I think it’s wonderful that you are doing the podcast, because anything that increases awareness of the art to which you are dedicating yourself is a magnificent gesture.
You are obviously quite at home in your adopted city, but you certainly leave Vienna to concertize. Please tell us about your tours.
DM: I am really thankful for the career I have and regularly perform 50-60 concerts each year. This season, I’ll be concertizing in the USA and Canada. Of course, it is such a joy to be able to play live concerts again, as I’m sure all musicians can agree. After the lockdowns precipitated by COVID-19, it is so wonderful to be able to sit in a room, communicate musically, and share the experience of the music again. There is nothing like live performance, and let us hope we don’t have to go through the lockdowns and streamed concerts again!
LC: Did you do any streamed concerts?
DM: I was one of the few who chose not to. I really feel strongly about the power of live music: being in a room and experiencing the audience and that type of communication. I simply could not replicate that effect playing for a camera. I find it completely unfulfilling, so I put my focus elsewhere. I’m very passionate about maintaining the integrity of live performance, and even in those live appearances, I don’t record. To me, recording is something quite different. I do it, of course; I have a CD coming out next year, but I must keep the two separate, and I think it is important to do so.
LC: I agree with you. I played a total of one streamed concert, and I have no desire to do another!
DM: It was devastating for those who make their living by performing when all the concerts around the world were cancelled, Some of my colleagues did enjoy being able to sit at home and play for themselves, but I need the audience, and I desperately wanted the opportunity to perform “live” in a concert setting.
LC: Then you must feel an enormous difference between live performance and the recording studio.
DM: There is an inherent “extra ear” in the room when one records — the performer’s own critical ear. We have all heard recordings and grown accustomed to what they should be, so we have to find a balance. We must try to be just as expressive as we might be on the concert stage, but at the same time we must also be hypercritical and aware of what is happening. The musician cannot let the slightest extraneous details slip on that recording. Of course, we all do multiple takes, and that’s why we have the editing process, which results in the antithesis of live performance. Moreover, we experience the music quite differently when we merely listen, as opposed to when we listen and watch. From these factors the challenge arises: to maintain that high level of precision we find on the recording with the type of freedom that we must have in a live performance.
LC: No argument there, but if I may pick up on your use of “ear,” I would like to ask you more about the evolution of the fortepiano from the late 18th century — the instrument of Haydn, Mozart, and the young Beethoven — through the period of late-Beethoven and the overlapping Schubert. I understand that as his ears failed and he spiraled toward deafness, Beethoven took extraordinary measures to capture some vestiges of sound.
DM: Indeed. It is very interesting to note that a number of English and French instruments made their way into Beethoven’s hands. What traits did they have that might have made them preferable to the Viennese instruments also available at that time? Most famously, Beethoven received a Broadwood in 1817 —
LC: …by which date most authorities believe he was completely deaf!
DM: Yes, but we can also observe the extraordinary measures he took to try to hear anything whatsoever. Here in Vienna, one can travel to his places of residence — or other places: Eisenstadt, for example. We can see instruments that Beethoven once played, and the great lengths to which the poor man went to hear his music are difficult to fathom. For example, there’s an organ in the Haydn house in Eisenstadt, and Beethoven apparently drilled a hole into the side of it. This enabled him to stick in a metal rod into the instrument and bite down on that rod so that he could feel the vibrations in his cranium. He also attempted to have a sound chamber built around one of his pianos. When he stuck his head into such a chamber, he could sometimes pick up the vibrations going on all around him.
We know that Beethoven wrote letters to Nannette Streicher, perhaps the best-known fortepiano manufacturer in Vienna at the time. She was the daughter of Johann Andreas Stein, the famous piano builder, and took over the business. She was also a very close friend of Beethoven, and she was buried right near him. As he grew increasingly deaf, the composer sent her impassioned letters, asking her to make her instruments louder — for example, with four strings in the treble. By all accounts, the English and French fortepianos were louder, and while Beethoven presumably liked them for various reasons, it is unlikely that any of them were musical reasons! His concerns were practical; he wanted to be able to “hear" his music, to whatever limited extent possible. Bottom line: perhaps a deaf man’s views of the quality of an instrument are not the best ones to consider!
However, we can see that idiomatically, even to the end of his life, Beethoven was writing music that is still particularly suited for the Viennese fortepiano. For example, I recorded some of the Op. 126 Bagatelles — among the last pieces he wrote for piano [published 1825] — on an instrument from 1805, which is to say closer to a Mozart-era fortepiano, and they worked remarkably well, because those were the last “piano sounds” Beethoven had in his head.
LC: He was certainly deaf before 1820, and some sources indicate as early as 1814. I suppose we can guess that most of what he “heard” when he wrote the Bagatelles was “sound memory,” although from what you shared above, it is not unreasonable to suppose he could still pick up some things vibrationally, which was probably not great for his teeth, but the composer had far more serious health problems, to say the least.
In our next installment of this interview, we shall learn how an understanding of the fortepiano clarifies many of the “problems” we encounter with Beethoven’s piano music.
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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