Page 201 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Romantic Piano Music
We’ve all banged away on a piano at one time or another. Some of us may have had piano lessons requiring endless finger exercises, accom- panied by our mother’s prediction: “Some day you’ll thank me for this.” But did you ever stop to think about how the piano came to be?
The first piano was constructed around 1700 as an alternative to the harpsichord, as a way of giving more dynamics and shading to the mu-
sical line. Mozart was the first composer to use the piano exclusively, beginning around 1770. His was a small instrument with only 61 keys, a
frame made of wood, and a weight of only 187 pounds (see Figure 9.7).
A century later, spurred by the new technology of the Industrial Revolu-
tion, the piano had grown into the 88-key, cast iron–framed, 1,200-pound
grand monster that we know today. Iron had replaced wood, strings had
become thicker and stronger, and foot pedals had been added. On the
right side was the sustaining pedal, which enabled strings to continue
to sound after the performer had lifted his or her hand from the corre- sponding keys. On the left was the soft pedal, which softened the dynamic level by shifting the position of the hammers relative to the strings. Finally, in the 1850s, the Steinway Company of New York began cross-stringing the piano, overlaying the lowest-sounding strings across those of the middle register, and thereby pro- ducing a richer, more homogeneous sound. By the mid-nineteenth century, all the essential features of the modern piano were in place—the essential design of the piano hasn’t changed in 150 years.
As the piano grew larger and more expressive (Figure 11.6), it became some- thing of a home entertainment center. In the days before television and video games, the family could gather around the piano to while away the evening hours. Every aspiring middle-class home had to have a piano, both for family enjoyment and as a status symbol—the high-art instrument in the parlor signified to visitors that they had entered a cultured home. Parents made sure their children, espe- cially the girls, received lessons, and publishers, eager to profit from new en- thusiasm for the piano, turned out reams of sheet music for pianists of all skill levels.
Spurred by the sudden popularity of the piano, a host of virtuoso per- formers descended upon the concert halls of Europe. What they played— rapid octaves, blazing chromatic scales, thundering chords—was usu- ally more a display of technical virtuosity than musical substance. Today these entertainers would be entirely forgotten had not several also been gifted composers.
Franz Liszt (1811–1886)
Franz Liszt was not merely a composer and pianist—he was a phenomenon, perhaps the most flamboyant artistic personality of the entire nineteenth cen- tury. Handsome, supremely talented, and equally self-confident, he strutted across the stage as the musical sex symbol of the Romantic era (Figure 11.7). He could also play the piano like no other. Between 1839 and 1847, Liszt gave more than a thousand concerts, from Ireland to Turkey, from Sweden to Spain,
Figure 11.6
A large, concert grand piano once owned by Franz Liszt and now in the Liszt Museum in Budapest, Hungary. The instru- ment was made by the Chicker- ing Piano Company of Boston (the largest U.S. piano manu- facturer before the appearance of the Steinway Company) and shipped overseas to Liszt as a celebrity marketing tool: “If Liszt plays a Chickering, so, young American, should you!”
romantic piano music 179 Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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Figure 11.7
The young, charismatic Franz Liszt, the preeminent pianist of the Romantic era
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SuperStock/SuperStock © Craig Wright
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