| The strength of the Frederick collection is its comprehensiveness.
A pianist hoping to make a recording on, say, a Broadwood, from a mid-
19th-century London manufacturer, might find one somewhere preferable to
the 1871 Broadwood at the Frederick collection. But few other places offer
such a range of 19th- century instruments in one inviting room, which is
why musicians and scholars from around the world regularly trek to this
bucolic town.
The best way to appreciate the collection is to sit down at the pianos
and play them. Last summer, armed with a stack of scores from Haydn to
Ravel, I did just that. And for another point of view I brought along my
former piano teacher, Donald Currier, professor emeritus at the Yale School
of Music.
Mr. Frederick usually suggests that visitors start with the newest and
work back. So he first directed us to that elegant, restored 1907 mahogany
Blüthner, which he acquired, in pretty unplayable condition, for just
$2,500 from a Dutch dealer.
Mr. Currier began by playing Debussy's "Soirée dans Grenade"
from "Estampes" (1903). In this slinky, slow and exotic music, the sound
of the Blüthner was aptly rich and warm, perhaps a little woofy in
comparison with bright modern Steinways, but quite alluring. The repeated
midrange C-sharps that gently suggest a habanera rhythm came through with
seductive presence. Most striking was the way the slightest pressure from
Mr. Currier's fingers caused the insinuating melody in the left hand to
ring out with haunting effect.
He next played a late Brahms work, the wistful Intermezzo in A, Op.
118, on the same piano, and again, though the overall sound was somewhat
buzzy, the piano had an remarkably lingering tone. Brahms's harmonies blended
in bracing ways, with dissonant notes bumping up against one another and
tweaking the music.
The piano, it must be remembered, is a percussion instrument. So once
a tone is struck, it starts to die away.
"If you want lingering tone," Mr. Frederick said, "try the 1877 Bösendorfer."
Mr. Currier did, playing the Brahms again, and indeed the thick, smoky
tone just quivered in the air.
Mr. Currier was curious about an 1846 Streicher, a Viennese piano that
Schumann and the young Brahms would have known. He played some of Schumann's
dreamy "Kinderscenen" and then parts of that composer's rhapsodic "Kreisleriana."
The sound was bright, piercing and clear. "Maybe too clear," Mr. Currier
said, as he struggled to keep inner voices from sticking out. Yet the metallic
brightness of the sound was somehow soft spoken, making Schumann's remembrances
of childhood at once impish and tender.
The Streicher's special strength, Ms. Frederick suggested, is as an
instrument for accompanying singers. To demonstrate, she both sang and
played Schumann's "Widmung." Sure enough, no matter how much body she brought
to the restless accompaniment patterns, the clear sound was so distinct
that it never covered her voice.
Matters of tempo in 19th-century piano music are heated topics among
those who visit the collection. The metronome markings in Beethoven, Schumann
and other 19th-century composers tend to be on the fast side. Could the
metronomes back then have been faulty? Some scholars think so. Not Mr.
Frederick.
When Clara Schumann went back to work as a concert pianist after her
husband died in 1856, she got some "very bad reviews for playing too fast,"
Mr. Frederick said. "If these were Robert's tempos, the critics said, then
there must have been something wrong with his metronome. Nothing was wrong.
What had happened was that the sound of pianos in the 1850's had gotten
noticeably thicker. So tempos that sounded reasonable in 1835 sounded rushed
and blurry 20 years later."
To drive home this point Ms. Frederick played a piece from Czerny's
"School of Velocity," a volume of technical studies still used today, on
a Viennese piano, a Katholnig, most likely from about 1810. She took it
at Czerny's seemingly reckless metronome marking. The Katholnig has an
extremely light keyboard action and a slightly clattery but shimmering
sound. Played at that tempo on a modern Steinway the music would have been
a blurry mess. On the Viennese instrument it sounded fleet and clear, a
whirlwind of runs and misty harmonies.
Mr. Currier was eager to try a Haydn sonata on an 1806 Clementi piano
from London. When Haydn visited London in the mid-1790's, he was struck
by the big lush bass sound and dry middle register of local pianos. "That's
why the `London' sonatas have so many thick, forte chords in the lower
range, and so many doubled lines in thirds and octaves in the upper range,"
Mr. Frederick said.
Mr. Currier played the two-movement Haydn Sonata No. 48 in C, with its
slow opening Andante (a long- spun melody keeps returning with increasingly
elaborate ornamentation) and rollicking rondo finale. As he played, every
little melodic and ornamental gesture came out vividly, with no sense of
forcing. The left hand chords became a harmonic bedrock of wonderfully
buzzy sound reminiscent of an enormous harpsichord. Mr. Currier, who has
spent many years trying to figure out how to play such music on a modern
piano, was elated. "That's the sound you want," he said. "It's easy. For
once you don't have to tiptoe through the piece."
Haydn wrote contentedly for the pianos of his day. But what about Beethoven,
a thumper of a virtuoso, famous for busting strings when he performed his
works on the pianos at his disposal? Beethoven complained constantly about
the inadequacy of keyboard instruments. True, he complained about everything.
But the hard-driving "Appassionata" would seem to have been conceived for
a piano of the future.
And yet some things in the Beethoven sonatas are virtually impossible
to play on modern grands with their heavy actions, for example the glissando
octaves in the climactic coda of the "Waldstein" Sonata. Holding your thumb
and pinky at an octave's distance in each hand, you must slide up and down
the white keys. In concert Rudolf Serkin used to wet his fingers in his
mouth discreetly as the passage approached to ease it along.
I tried playing that passage on the Katholnig, with its light action
and quick response, and it was almost easy. Slide up, slide down; just
like Chico Marx.
But what about, say, the late "Hammerklavier" Sonata. Even a steely
modern Steinway can barely stand up to the demands of this monumental music,
with its pummeling chords, gnashing trills and hellbent final fugue. I
played the bracing chordal opening theme on an 1828 Graf, a renowned Viennese
company. It was like using a kiddie piano for an adult job.
Mr. Frederick was quick to point out that each piano from that era was
valued for its individual qualities. The ideal of a standardized piano
with perfect evenness throughout its range came with the late industrial
age, he said. As he and Ms. Frederick write in an essay about their collection,
"Pianos built before the 20th century frequently displayed intentionally
wide ranges of tone color."
So Beethoven used to advantage certain aspects of the pianos he had
at hand and looked beyond the qualities he found deficient. At the Frederick
collection, through its concerts, workshops and lecture-recitals, you can
hear virtually every type of piano Beethoven would have played. Better
yet, play them yourself. That's the whole idea. |
he one thing you will never
see at the Frederick Historic Piano Collection in Ashburnham, Mass., is
a sign that reads, "Do Not Touch." Unlike most museums, this important
collection of historic 19th-century pianos is meant to be used.
