What kind of piano did chopin play

Use of the square piano, originating in the French Ancien Regime, hardly weakened in the years preceding ; the enthusiasm for the pianino was even greater, this " specialite de la maison " having met considerable success in the era of the Juste-Milieu thanks to its small size and modest price. We know how much Chopin appreciated its docile touch as well as the sweetness and intimacy of its tone.

In his manufacturing process, Camille Pleyel remained constantly faithful to the simple escapement action, refined after the English model that served as his point of departure. Lacking absolute proof of these sentiments, we find confirmation in the diary of an excellent Latvian student, who had previously been taught by the pianist Adolf Henselt: "Until now I played more on resistant pianos than on easy pianos: this has greatly strengthened my fingers.

However, on the resistant kind of piano, it is impossible to obtain the finer nuances of movement in the wrist and forearm, each finger moving in isolation. I experienced this nuanced playing at the home of Chopin on his beautiful piano with a touch so like that of the Viennese instruments.

He calls it a 'perfidious traitor. He found it dangerous to use for too long an instrument with a beautiful sound, such as the Erard. He said that those instruments destroy the touch: 'It makes no difference whether you tap the keys lightly or strike them more forcefully: the sound is always beautiful and the ear asks for nothing more, for it is under the spell of the full, rich sound.

Another student, the Russian musicologist Wilhelm von Lenz, made a similar remark in his acerbic delivery: "Chopin played a Pleyel, an instrument with a light action on which one can more easily create nuances than on an instrument with a luscious sonority.

Thanks to the more direct contact between the hammer and the string, the simple escapement action, constantly improved by Camille Pleyel and Kalkbrenner, assured a more exact control than the "double escapement" invented and patented by Erard. Joined with these qualities of precision and ease "Easily, easily," Chopin would often repeat during a piano lesson , the elegant tone of the middle register "This middle register is like the diapason of the voice, it is where we find the chest of the piano, it is from there that a large singing tone can emanate" wrote the pianist Zimmerman promoted the legato cantabile, a basic postulate of Chopin the professor who demanded: "One must sing with the fingers.

To those qualities we can add the flexibility in the adjustment of the two pedals, a fundamental element in the execution of Chopin's music. Despite having editorially indicated only the damper pedal in his autographs-often with great daring-he nonetheless just as frequently used the left pedal una corda or mute pedal, depending on the kind of instrument , alone or in combination with the damper, creating a sort of registration or effect of sonority that one could label as pre-impressionistic.

After , Chopin had given up on a career of piano virtuoso that he did not feel fit him well, leaving the stage to Liszt, Thalberg, Herz, Doehler, and others. Thus the three public concerts that he gave at Chez Pleyel in , , and entered into the imagination of his contemporaries as so many mythical apparitions. His reputation had been established in Paris as something of a poet-musician, creating sublime compositions, adulated in whatever salon he might choose, where his inexhaustible improvisations seized the soul.

The picture of the professor of studied genius, adored by his students, completed Chopin's image. All in all, Chopin and his double, the Pleyel piano, were at the heart of a network of musical excellence that never ceased to inspire. There is no better pen than that of Berlioz to evoke this mystery and enchantment:. He had long ago renounced this turmoil. A small circle of chosen listeners, in whom he found a genuine desire to hear him play, was the only thing that could bring him to the piano.

His playing gave rise to such emotions! In what ardent and melancholic reveries he loved to pour out his soul! It was usually at about midnight that he gave himself up with the most abandon; when th e great socialites of the salon had left, when the political question of the evening's agenda had been dealt with, when all the gossipers had come to the end of their stories, when all the traps had been set, all the treacheries accomplished, when all were tired of prose, yielding to the silent prayer of a few beautiful and knowing gazes, he would become a poet and would sing the Ossianic loves of the heroes of his imagination, their chivalrous joys and the pain of the absent native land, his cherished Poland, always ready to conquer and yet always defeated.

But apart from these conditions, which every artist should be grateful that he demanded in order to perform, it was useless to appeal to him.

The curiosity aroused by his fame seemed merely to irritate Chopin and he hid himself as soon as possible from an unsympathetic world into which he had wandered by chance. Clavier Companion extends a special thanks to David Delambre, Jacques Leiser, and Richard Zimdars for their help in preparing this article. If you do not see a RENEW button, please select a plan and enter any code you may have received in a renewal notice online or in print.

If you have ANY questions at all, please contact support claviercompanion. Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger. Saturday, 01 May These Pleyel pianos of which he was particularly fond" Liszt.

There is no better pen than that of Berlioz to evoke this mystery and enchantment: "Thus Chopin, despite his magnificent talent of execution, was not the crowd's favorite, the virtuoso of large halls and huge concerts.

You have to be a member to access this content. Please login and subscribe to a plan if you have not done so. Login if you already have an account. Today, we shall explore performances on Pleyel grand pianos, including the one Chopin shipped to and played in England. His biggest contribution to the development of the piano was the use of metal frames on which to string heavier wires, which led to increased volume in public halls, and at the same time resulted in more reliability in tuning.

In , his son Camille — an outstanding and much respected virtuoso — joined Ignace as a business partner. In order to showcase the excellent instruments of Pleyel et Cie , a dedicated performance venue, the first official Salle Pleyel , opened in The sound has a special satisfying quality, the upper register bright and silvery, the middle penetrating and intense, the bass clear and vigorous.

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