Modern Piano or Harpsichord? :-)

[Wakefield]

4 modern pianos

https://youtu.be/7OwQOb6bd1M

4 harpsichords

https://youtu.be/CSbXcYfUGzM

[North Star]

4 modern pianos

https://www.youtube.com/v/7OwQOb6bd1M

4 harpsichords

https://www.youtube.com/v/CSbXcYfUGzM

Harpsichords.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Speaking very generally......

I love the sound of the harpsichord. I think it works wonderfully well with the violin family generally. To my ears, the piano works better in combination with wind and percussion instruments than it does with the violin family of instruments.

And in this example I feel the same way in preferring the harpsichord to the piano.

[Jo498]

For this thing for 4 keyboards I strongly prefer in Vivaldi's original version for violins. More than two keyboards of any kind are too much (except organ
tbh I probably prefer all of Bach's keyboard concerti in original/reconstructed versions if applicable and have no strong opinion either way for harpsichord or piano in the keyboard versions.
For solo keyboard I like (sometimes prefer) piano in some Bach and Scarlatti but prefer harpsichord anywhere else.

[Florestan]

For this thing for 4 keyboards I strongly prefer in Vivaldi's original version for violins.

+ 1.

For keyboard concertos, piano all the way. The harpsichord has too weak a voice and is usually overpowered by the orchestra, making it sound more like a basso continuo than a soloist.

For solo keyboard, I clearly prefer piano over harpsichord, but I don't really mind the latter either.

[Karl Henning]

The harpsichord has too weak a voice and is usually overpowered by the orchestra, making it sound more like a basso continuo than a soloist.

Bach was so thoroughly practical a working musician (in the first place) and never worked with a piano anywhere near as strong as a modern concert grand (in the second).  So, how do we solve for the music?

[Florestan]

Bach was so thoroughly practical a working musician (in the first place) and never worked with a piano anywhere near as strong as a modern concert grand (in the second).  So, how do we solve for the music?

We don't. We solve only for I like what I like and let others do the same. 

[Karl Henning]

We don't. We solve only for I like what I like and let others do the same. 

Why, I am certainly glad you've found what you like 

I have a hard time thinking that Bach would have written something which he was not confident worked.

[Jo498]

I don't know how big the Leizpig coffeehouse where Bach played the keyboard concertos was but the "orchestra" was probably 5-8 string players, so for a harpsichord concerto the keyboard would only have to be loud enough against 3-4 violins, viola, violone or something like that.

[Florestan]

I have a hard time thinking that Bach would have written something which he was not confident worked.

Point well taken, but we are not talking about how Bach''s music actually sounded back then --- we are talking about recordings of his music. They are two completely different things.

[Karl Henning]

Point well taken, but we are not talking about how Bach''s music actually sounded back then --- we are talking about recordings of his music. They are two completely different things.

Of course;  and I do not concern myself with the impossible task (as we agree) of "hearing it just as Bach heard it."

[Jo498]

I don't know if they use special mikes/mixing to favor the harpsichord but of the handful or two of harpsichord concerto CDs (Bach, Bach sons, Haydn etc.) I own I cannot remember any balance problems. Actually, in Mozart or Haydn piano concerti with a late 18th century fortepiano the keyboard seems more likely to be overwhelmed because the orchestra is bigger with woodwinds or even brass and the keyboard less penetrating than a harpsichord.

[Wakefield]

The harpsichord has too weak a voice and is usually overpowered by the orchestra, making it sound more like a basso continuo than a soloist.

But, as a matter of fact, I don't see any problem of balance between the "orchestra" and the harpsichords; if we talk about the videos above. On the contrary, I think the matching is perfect... Of course, to prefer one or another is a thing of taste. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Always harpsichord (for music before 1780). However, I think that multiple-keyboard monstrosity sounds awful no matter what it is played on. I agree with Jo, it is wonderful for 4 Violins. I honestly don't know what Bach was thinking...  

[kishnevi]

Always harpsichord (for music before 1780). However, I think that multiple-keyboard monstrosity sounds awful no matter what it is played on. I agree with Jo, it is wonderful for 4 Violins. I honestly don't know what Bach was thinking...  

He was looking for something to play for his gig at Zimmerman's, that's what!

I happen to like it in both the harpsichord and violin versions. But modern piano is too much for it.

[Jo498]

So there must have been quite a bit of space at the Café Zimmermann if they could put 4 harpsichord and a bunch of string players on stage. Still, it seems something of a stunt if comparable music could be made with only one or two harpsichords. (I "get" the two harpsichord stuff because Bach would probably have played them with one of his sons (or pupils)).

Fun fact: The former German chancellor (1974-82) Helmut Schmidt (1918-2015) played and recorded the 4 piano concerto as well as Mozart's multi-piano concerti with Eschenbach and others (I guess raising money for some charity was involved).

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[Monsieur Croche]

It is good to remember that for any composer of any era, choice of instrumentation is about availability, and is not always about some heartfelt preference or hard line aesthetic choice.

The reason Bach wrote these concerti for harpsichord is because it was the loudest available plinkety-plonk keyboard instrument of his day;  he infinitely preferred the clavichord, with its capacity to play dynamics.  The Clavichord, at its fullest, can barely be heard across a small and very quiet room.  It was not, then, out of love for the sound of the harpsichord that Bach wrote these concert works for it, but rather he had no choice of another instrument if the instrument was to be heard at all in a room.  If the old Thuringian had had pick-up bars and amplification, the harpsichord concerti may well have all ended up clavichord concerti, and along with that possibility, perhaps more of a dialogue of different musical material and other instruments, (not just strings) would have been part of their fabric. 

All the Bach harpsichord concerti have string ensemble accompaniments which are wholly obbligato / continuo-like, i.e. they are nothing but doubled support for the harmony of the keyboard part(s) without any additional or 'other' musical material (ergo "no dialogue" as later became usual and expected of the form).  With these Bach concerti, the strings are present to act only as a sustain cushion to counter the fast-decay sound production of the harpsichord (canny, that J.S.); likewise, longer-held trills on the instrument are not an ornament; they are a practical solution to sustain longer duration notes which would not sound enough after being played.  [While most of the concerti were written with the string parts appearing at the same time as the keyboard parts, it is known of the two harpsichord Concerto in C Major that Bach wrote the obbligato string parts later.]

Performances of these on contemporary pianos could, more than a little in theory, be done without the obbligato strings and suffer no loss of musical material; this is especially true when the concerto is for multiple keyboards, though we are so used to the combined texture, it may seem a bit odd.

They are all categorically still chamber music, dependent upon being played in smaller rooms, not vast halls, where they are performed (live, anyway) then being much of a consideration when it comes to the balance of number of strings w the solo keyboard(s) and the size of the room in which they are performed.  Recordings of these render all matters of hall size / audibility moot, of course.

[Karl Henning]

Also worth considering:  the harpsichord has never been mass produced in the way that the piano has come to be, so the instrument makers have made any variety of instruments . . . at least one of my buddy Paul's instruments is quite easy for two chaps to carry about.  So that four harpsichords on stage plus a modest compliment of strings players will not necessarily require an enormous stage.

[Monsieur Croche]

Also worth considering:  the harpsichord has never been mass produced in the way that the piano has come to be, so the instrument makers have made any variety of instruments . . . at least one of my buddy Paul's instruments is quite easy for two chaps to carry about.  So that four harpsichords on stage plus a modest compliment of strings players will not necessarily require an enormous stage.

^A-Yep.  Two lassies, for that matter.

And Stage --what stage?!?  I'd bet the Cafe Zimmerman was an 'ordinary' cafe, one floor level, making those concerts, uh, four on the floor plus the handful of string players, musicians and audience literally on the same level.

[Karl Henning]

Aye, I used stage quite figgeratively.