Classical-era Performance Practices
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Most pianists today are taught to play Classical-era music in ways that would sound quite unfamiliar to Mozart and Beethoven.
So, let’s look at three aspects of this Classical-era performance practice. Experimenting with these concepts — rhythmic flexibility, pedaling, and improvisation — can open up a wide range of expressive possibilities in your playing.
RHYTHMIC FLEXIBILITY
Today, we tend to talk about music in terms of singing. But, in Mozart and Beethoven’s era, musical expression was compared directly to human speech.
If Classical-era music is speech-like, why would we play it metronomically? We don’t speak that way.
And, Leopold Mozart’s treatise explains that a certain rhythmic flexibility is implied underneath every slur.
“The slight sustaining of the first note must not only be made agreeable to the ear by a nice apportioning of the slightly hurried notes slurred on to it, but must even be made truly pleasant to the listener.”
Time is one of the most important expressive tools Classical-era pianists had, so rubato — the subtle speeding up and slowing down of time within individual phrases — is a vitally important gesture. Yet, modern pianists are often discouraged from using rubato in Classical-era music.
There’s also tempo rubato — when the accompaniment, usually in the left hand, remains relatively steady, while the right hand moves more freely above it.
So, try abandoning mathematical precision in favor of a more uneven, yet more expressive, shaping of phrases.
PEDALING
What do you think: did Classical-era pianists use more pedal or less pedal than today?
My somewhat cheeky answer is that they used both more and less pedal. Let me explain.
We learn from Hummel that pianists were judged by how much they could communicate musically without relying on the pedals. Unlike modern pianists, Classical-era pianists did not rely on the pedal for legato playing or for a sustained sound. This enabled them to treat pedals more like special effects.
“Every player should indulge in the use of [pedals] with the utmost moderation... neither Mozart, nor Clementi, required these helps to obtain the highly deserved reputation of the greatest and most expressive performers of their day.”
So, in general, they used much less pedal than pianists today.
But, when Classical-era pianists did use pedals as special effects, they often used them very liberally for large sections of music — even without changing the pedal.
So, in that sense, they used much more pedal than pianists today.
For example, by modern standards, the pedal markings in the opening bars of the third movement of the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata are very confusing. Beethoven instructs the player to lift the dampers for extended periods of time, even through dissonances. This was possible due to the fortepiano’s straight stringing and lightweight construction.
If pianists are not relying on the pedal, then the fingers must work much harder — using over-legato and finger pedaling techniques – to communicate the subtleties of musical expression.
Over-legato techniques hold notes under a slur so that they bleed into each other, maximizing the legato effect. For example, [scale playing] may sound perfectly legato by modern standards, but a deliberately over-held [scale playing] is a true legato by Classical standards.
In Alberti bass passages, one can use finger pedaling – holding down some or all of the notes – to create a richer harmonic support.
In this chromatic passage from Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, K. 511, most modern performers use the damper pedal with frequent changes to create a sustained effect. But, if finger pedaling is part of your expressive toolkit, then there is another sonic possibility. I play this entire section without raising the dampers. By deliberately holding down many of the notes, one can create an open, sustained sound while maintaining the transparency and clarity that are often lost with the damper pedal.
I encourage you to experiment with finger pedaling and over-legato techniques to see how far you can go before using the pedal. And, if you do use the pedal, see how much blurring you can achieve with half-pedal and flutter-pedal techniques for a result more closely aligned with Classical-era usage.
IMPROVISATION
A certain degree of improvisation was expected in the Classical era. But, exactly when and how to improvise is debated.
Restraint was a Classical-era virtue, so I tend to lean somewhat conservative here: adding simple, stylistically appropriate embellishments and small improvisations in repeated phrases or sections.
Occasionally, composers wrote out embellishments: This can give us valuable insight into their improvisational practices. For example, in the third movement of Mozart’s Sonata K. 533/494, Mozart gives us a different embellishment in each return of the main theme.
At the end of the third movement of Mozart’s K. 332 Sonata, he sets up a cadenza but does not write one out because it was expected that the pianist would improvise one — something rarely done today.
Remember, Classical-era compositions are not etched in stone: These composers expected small improvisations that allowed pianists to bring a bit of personal creativity to the music.
CONCLUSION
Performance practices are not about strict rules, but about choosing the right gesture for the right affect — or character. That should inform every musical decision we that make.
Check out Fortepiano 101 to continue your fortepiano exploration.