What’s the Festival about?
When is a G-sharp not a G-sharp? When it’s an A-flat!
Sharps and flats have to share the black keys on the piano keyboard, but they are actually different notes. Over the years, that dilemma has led to many different ways of tuning pianos. The compromise we use now, called equal temperament, was not established until after the time of Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. Before that, pianists preferred bolder compromises.
The Artistic Temperaments Festival gives us the opportunity to hear what we’ve been missing. Our great collection of keyboard instruments – including one of our fine modern grands – will be tuned historically. Our Steinway will remain in the modern tuning so we can compare.
The important thing about historical tunings is that the different keys – D major, A minor, and so on – all sound different from one another. There was actually a reason for the weird chromatic semitones in Haydn’s last sonata; a reason for Beethoven choosing C minor for one sonata and C-sharp minor for another; even a reason for Schubert’s beloved G-flat Impromptu first being published in the key of G. It’s a question of harmonic flavour, like using the right herbs and spices.
This is the next big thing to hit the way the world hears the canon of musical masterpieces, and Southampton is well ahead of the curve, with its international concert hall and its famously successful Music Department.
In 1984, I was the first to record Schubert’s Winterreise on a piano of his time, with the baritone David Wilson-Johnson; and my first piano recording using early temperaments came out twenty-five years ago. Now we can use the Keyboard Collection I’ve created at Southampton over two decades to bring all these ideas out into the open. Artistic Temperaments will be a concentrated focus on an important topic, and it will be truly unique to Southampton.
Professor David Owen Norris
Instruments featured in Artistic Temperaments
Broadwood Grand Pianoforte – 1796
Schantz Grand Pianoforte – 1802
Frecker Grand Pianoforte – 1812
Broadwood Grand Pianoforte – 1826
Hopkinson Yacht Piano – 1880
Goble harpsichord – modern
Misina-Taskin two-manual Harpsichord – modern
Fazioli Grand Piano – modern
Steinway Grand Piano – modern
