Discoveries from the Fortepiano: A Manual for Beginning and Seasoned Performers by Donna Louise Gunn (review)

Do modern pianists perform the works of the Classical masters with little or no regard for (or even knowledge of) eighteenth-century understandings of how its musical language functions? Do they realize that this was an exceptionally nuanced language, capable of expressing a wide range of emotions within the typical, and perhaps all-too-predictable, framework of symmetrical two-, four-, and eight-bar phrases? Do they labour at their Steinways, Faziolis, Bechsteins, Bösendorfers, Blüthners, or Yamahas in ignorance of the rather different tonal qualities of pianos from the later eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth—instruments whose mechanics are fundamentally different in many respects from the modern machine? And what of audiences? Do they realize that the Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven sonatas they hear on the concert platform, or on CD, communicate rather differently when each of the above conditions is addressed?

Donna Louise Gunn's Discoveries from the Fortepiano: A Manual for Beginning and Seasoned Performers is an attempt by a serious and respected piano pedagogue to tackle this thorny issue, providing modern players with practical guidance based on study of some of the more important performance treatises from the eighteenth century. But why the need, these days? Surely the performances and recordings of high-profile artists such as Malcolm Bilson, Ronald Brautigam, Robert Levin, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Bart van Oort, Melvyn Tan, and others have by now unquestionably established historically informed pianism in the minds of teachers, students, listeners? Would that this were so. It may seem odd to some readers to learn that antipathy towards—even rejection of—historically informed approaches to piano pedagogy is alive and well in many conservatoire piano departments across different continents. But it is: a firmly entrenched belief that playing Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven 'properly' means playing them on a modern grand piano, deemed a superior instrument that the composers themselves 'would have preferred'. In this best of all possible worlds, the Classical greats can only be properly served by playing their works on the ultimate pinnacle of keyboard technology and according to traditions of interpreting notation that began only many years after the composers died. The persistence of such mistakes is reason enough alone for a book such as this, which aims to inform (and hopefully dispel irrational prejudices) quite succinctly, entertainingly, and in language eschewing formality in favour of first-person subjective involvement (as if with a pupil in a lesson).

It is not an academic textbook; it is a practical guide for players and, indeed, teachers. Gunn's advice—grounded, for the most part, in textual sources such as treatises and music notation, rather than organology—is aimed at a readership that is open-minded enough to think through interpretative approaches based on a core of specialist knowledge, and there is an underlying assumption too of willingness to apply that knowledge in practice at the modern piano. The text is clearly presented, supported with relevant tables, musical examples, quotations from Quantz, C. P. E. Bach, Leopold Mozart, Kirnberger, and Türk, along with frequent references to secondary literature on performance practice—opening the door to new and different ways of grasping the rhetorical language of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. During a succession of fourteen chapters on matters such as Affekt and its many and varied consequences, harmonic function, some foundations of keyboard technique specific to early pianos, rhythm, touch and accentuation, ornamentation, staccato, dynamics, pedalling, and tempo choice, Gunn offers a wide range of musical examples and extracts from relevant performance practice literature. Just about all of these have been very carefully considered, and are applied in detail to specific situations with good sense and well-chosen examples (the relation of fingering choices to minutiae of articulation, in particular, repays close study).

Each chapter ends with a 'lesson' in which the issues raised are investigated further—often in the form of questions rather...