MALCOLM BILSON
Some 30 years later the young Mozart wrote to his father about the wondrous fortepiano, and then proceeded to order one for himself from the Vienna firm of Anton Walter. Most Mozart keyboard works before this time were conceived, written, and played on the harpsichord, though we rarely, if ever, hear them performed on one today. The harpsichord plucked its strings with a series of quills, which meant that once a key had been depressed there was no dynamic variation possible by touch alone. But the fortepiano struck its strings with leather-covered hammers, making it possible for the performer to vary dynamics by how hard (forte) or soft (piano) his or her fingers depressed the keys. It is in this respect alone that the fortepiano is the forerunner of the modern grand piano, which operates on the same fundamental principle but is constructed very differently and has a very different sound.
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The initial response on hearing a fortepiano is almost inevitably disappointment, since it is the modern piano that is so firmly rooted in our aural memory. One who hears a harpsichord for the first time can immediately sense that this instrument is preferable to the grand piano for Baroque music because the two are different sound worlds. And even the untrained ear will detect the brilliance of line that can be achieved on a Baroque violin that is simply not possible on its modern counterpart. But the fortepiano? When I heard my first one I was reminded of the sound we got when we put thumbtacks on the hammers of old uprights in school practice rooms as a practical joke.
That was the main question I had after hearing Bilson in a rare recital, sponsored by, of all unlikely organizations, Early Music From the Newberry Library. Not that I’m faulting Newberry; its booking of Bilson–like Chamber Music Chicago’s booking of John Eliot Gardiner last season–was related to the artist’s enormous celebrity as a representative of the early-music movement. Yet neither performer applies historical principles when he performs that repertoire; just because you play a fortepiano or conduct a period-instrument ensemble does not automatically mean you are interested in historically informed performances. Both Bilson and Gardiner appear to be popular precisely because they pay lip service to the movement, while giving the public basically what it’s had all along. That may help sell records, but what does it do for the music?
Bilson doesn’t seem to realize that each of the three composers on his program, though using the same musical vocabulary, developed a unique voice within that vocabulary. Bilson used a Beethovenian sense of tension and drama for the earlier Haydn and Mozart, which is not only totally inappropriate but totally uninteresting. If that’s how Bilson thinks this music should sound, that’s obviously his privilege–but then he’s definitely in the wrong camp, given that his reputation is that of an early-music enthusiast, and he’s using the wrong instrument to realize that conception.
