Why did Beethoven sit on the floor and play the piano?

As we said before, the modern piano was born around 1709, and then fully matured in 1850. Therefore, the classical music school is basically in the historical process of piano maturity, from Bach to Mozart or harpsichord. So Beethoven always thought that he really knew how to compose music for the piano. The volume of harpsichord is a little low, and the strength can't be completely controlled by the player, but the piano has broken through this limitation and made revolutionary development in musical expression and volume. Beethoven thought that Haydn and Mozart were both harpsichord experts, but the piano was a new thing for them. Once I heard Mozart play the piano, he said that people can't legato and sing, and they don't know how to play the modern piano at all. As a trendsetter in the music circle, Beethoven earned money by playing the piano in his early days. His confidence in piano interpretation made piano master ask him that his suggestion was rude, basically making the piano bigger and louder.

But it seems that many audiences can't accept him, and some nobles who are used to the harpsichord can't accept the huge sound made by this behemoth. In addition, the audience often reflects that Beethoven pushed too hard. Others use the word "rough" to evaluate his performance. Cherny doesn't think so. He spoke highly of Beethoven and said that he was one of the few people who knew the mystery of Legato at that time. He also praised Beethoven's brilliant performance, magical expression, unique understanding and breathtaking beauty. So we understand why Beethoven likes Legato and Mozart doesn't, and we really have to consider the instrumental factors-modern piano playing Legato is far more accommodating than harpsichord.

As a good student of Beethoven, Cherny once wrote The Correct Interpretation of Beethoven's Piano Works, which is a great way to interpret My Teacher Only Dances! Here we also share some Cherny's views on how to play Beethoven:

According to Cherny's suggestion, we should pay attention to the following points when studying Beethoven's piano works (reprinted from Teacher Hu's Piano Teaching and Creation from Cherny):

Beethoven's piano works should be studied step by step according to the number of works, so as to track the development track of the master and clarify the different characteristics of his three stages, that is, his works before 1803 all showed the footprints of Mozart, Haydn and other predecessors to varying degrees, belonging to the creative period of advocating classicism and highlighting individuality. From 1803 to 18 15, his own characteristics and originality have been fully displayed in his music, which is the mature period of Beethoven's creation. After 18 15, his sonata creation is abstract, complex and profound, which shows that Beethoven's creation has chosen another development direction different from his early and middle creation.

Playing Beethoven's works must not be changed, and it is wrong to add or delete them at will. Unlike The Romantic Period's works, the performer can't add decorative sounds and skill fragments at will. In addition, Cherny said Beethoven didn't like Legato, so he usually played Legato where there was no Legato mark.

Learning a work, mastering the correct speed is the first priority. Using the correct speed can basically establish the face of music, while the wrong speed may ruin a piece of music. In addition, Beethoven's works were written for pianos with five octaves at that time, and the lowest sound was F in large letters, so you should feel very low when playing here, because this is already the lowest sound used by Beethoven, and you should feel the deepest feelings expressed by the author.

Beethoven is a professional composer. He makes a living by publishing his own works. His composition is very rigorous. All the Yan characters were written by Beethoven after careful consideration. The performer must follow the expression required by the author, especially for Beethoven's later works.

When learning a Beethoven piano sonata, we should try our best to understand all Beethoven's piano works, so as to accurately grasp the creative stage of the works and understand the composer's mental journey. At the same time, players should learn from the works of other composers, solve all technical problems and reach a certain level, so that when playing Beethoven's works, they can master these works in all directions.

Let's look at the third one. Cherny particularly emphasized the need to play Beethoven in Legato. On the other hand, let's see how to play Mozart's piano works. Metropolis emphasizes the graininess of timbre, and the way to realize this graininess is non-Legato.

Generally speaking, Mozart's piano works should be transparent and bright in tone, even and clear in particles, and mellow and beautiful in singing. Therefore, when playing Mozart's works, the method of touching keys is very important. The speed of touching the keys should be fast, the range of action should not be large, and the fingertips should be light. Use the front end of the finger, especially the first joint, as the main part to touch the keys, and the keys at the fingertips should be mainly non-connected sounds with clear particles. The whole hand must be folded, especially when playing a string of fast-paced sounds, the strength should sink to the bottom of each key through the fingertips.

Here is an example of a performer to illustrate Mozart's Legato. Romanian pianist Hasgill, some people say that he was "born to play Mozart!"

△ haskell plays Mozart K.488

Mozart enriched and developed piano concerto, a large-scale instrumental form, and established a classical concerto form with three movements: fast, slow and fast. This piano concerto No.23 in A major, K.488, is one of Mozart's most brilliant piano concertos and is famous for its sincere singing melody. Among them, the third movement, sonata for Rondo, is generally used in piano concertos in classical times, which usually means that there are rich melodies in it, which is convenient for soloists and bands to play or compete in turn, so as to expand space and enhance contrast and skills. The huge musical structure is balanced with the first movement. This movement is full of bright and cheerful emotions and full of vigorous vitality. Emotionally, it is also in contrast to the first two movements, and it maintains an excited state from beginning to end, ending the whole song with firm belief. But not too fast. 1-8, the piano should play theme A with full enthusiasm to show that Mozart saw light and hope after meditation in the second movement and prayer of God.

When playing this movement, we should pay attention to the unit beat and coherence of the left-handed chord decomposition, not only to be light, but also to the stress of each unit beat, so as to vividly show the happy mood against the rhythm. The first little finger of each bar can be slightly heavier, which is beneficial to the average rhythm. Fingertips should have a "point" feeling, don't play Legato, it will look dull and muddy. The duration of the two quarter notes in 1 bar should be played to the extreme, otherwise it will give people a childlike interest in dancing without depth. The second paragraph A2 should be played bright and elastic, not sharp, and the sound should not be played directly. Pay attention to the fingering of 3- 4 bars of progressive sound, which is done in one go, just like oil beads rolling in a hot pot, round and smooth.

Mozart's piano concerto represents the peak of classical music, especially piano concerto K.488, which not only has a perfect, rigorous and logical structure, but also contains more profound and rich content. Mozart's music, seemingly light and relaxed, seems to have no profound content, but if you listen carefully, you can feel Mozart's thinking and struggle. And the playing skills to realize this light timbre feeling are non-Legato. (This part is excerpted from Teacher Zheng's Mozart's Study on the Playing Method of K.488).

Pianist brendel is a great musician of Mozart. He also put forward his own views on playing Mozart's Legato and Legato: in Mozart's piano concerto, the sound contrast between piano and band is more acute. Here, pianists need to learn according to vocals and orchestral solo instruments. From Mozart's singers, he can not only learn to sing, but also learn to pronounce clearly and clearly, learn to describe his own personality, and learn to solo and fight. From the string player, he can learn to think in the language of bowing up and bowing down; From the flute player or oboe player, he can learn to model different staccato quick sentences, instead of making a series of non-legacies without thinking, or worse, making legacies stubbornly without any basis as repeatedly marked in the old complete works.

△ brendel plays Mozart K.488

According to brendel's point of view, playing Mozart is not blindly pursuing non-Legato, completely ignoring Legato, but taking a middle road. Brende said: Singing lines and sensory beauty are very important to Mozart, but they are far from the only source of this godsend music. Associating Mozart with several characteristics is actually belittling. Great composers always have a lot to say, and they are good at expressing opposite meanings at the same time-this should be clearly reflected in Mozart's performance. Simplifying Mozart into Schumann's "Floating Greek Elegance" or Wagner's "Genius of Light and Love" is a painstaking goal for Mozart players, but it can only be achieved inadvertently.

Busoni said: Mozart "did not retain the original simplicity, nor did he abridge it excessively", which actually tells us that the one-sided logic of equating Beethoven with Legato and Mozart with non-Legato is one-sided. Musicians' style of work will be influenced by the development of musical instruments of the times, but it will never be limited to this, which is why many of Bach's works do not specify specific musical instruments, but only state that they are written for keyboard instruments. Of course, we can't blindly recognize the romantic treatment of baroque and classical works by performers and conductors in the second half of the nineteenth century, but we can't fall into the pattern of overemphasizing historical expression with authenticity in the twentieth century. Because the former's handling of works, although it can't be said that there is no reason to be arbitrary, involves the subjective imagination of the performer too much; The latter's pursuit of authenticity, though not completely unfounded, virtually dwarfs the deductive space of music itself.

What we are going to talk about today is that Beethoven can't "joke" and Mozart can't play the piano, which is largely caused by the historical context and the development of musical instruments in those years. Today's musicians obviously should not treat the great works of these two composers with legato and non-legato, but should try their best to understand the processing methods required by the works themselves. As brendel said, Mozart was not a hippie with flowers. His rhythm is neither weak nor vague. The lightest and softest voice has a backbone. Mozart occasionally dreams, but his rhythm is always awake. If we want to change the speed in Mozart's music, we must show the rhythmic power to compete with the emotional power; As far as variations are concerned, it is of course allowed to change the speed and distinguish different variations. Mozart will be sad-sometimes this kind of sadness will lead to his inner pain-but he never moans.

From the highest level of music, Mozart and Beethoven are both organic parts of the spiritual world of classical music, and they are indispensable.