Firstly, this recital IS in several ways a serious attempt at what a late 18th to 19th century audience would hear in a professional keyboard instrument recital.
Most of the great composers of this music were highly regarded as improvisers, and engaged in sometimes high-stakes contests with their contemporaries
involving improvisation. And there is evidence, including a wax recording by Brahms [1], that the composers did not necessarily play their pieces as scored -
in fact, even changing pitches and rhythms - and such changes are never done in contemporary classical recitals - except now for mine.
The above issue naturally leads to: what sorts of pitch and rhythmic alterations are in fact authentic [articles] to the intention(s) of the composer? I assert that
if an interpreter today is well-grounded in the styles of the pieces on the concert program, and especially for pieces of music which have become all too familiar [2] -
it is in fact his/her duty as an artist, and not merely as a score-realizer, to make tasteful alterations which do not undermine the character of the composer's intent.
Perhaps the most obvious need for such improvised, pre-conceived, or improvised and pre-conceived departures from the score are in repeated sections -
for example in sonata-allegro form movements, typically the first movement of Classical era keyboard sonatinas and sonatas. Music teachers commonly ask students to
skip these (and other) repeats, while otherwise claiming to ask students to play "as the composer intended". I contend that these repeats were and are intended -
but that a truly artistic performance can only be rendered by making tasteful variations during the repeat as the composer-performer likely did himself -
more variation than say playing the entire repeat more quietly. You will enjoy hearing such variations in today's performance. And, furthermore,
I promise to play these same pieces in future performances with different alterations than I do today!
The question of instrument is also a serious topic of debate thanks to the Early Music movement. Some contend that playing music originally for harpsichord
or clavichord must not be played on a modern piano - for example the keyboard music of Bach. I have found over time that I can enjoy hearing even the same piece
of such composers either on a clavichord or harpsichord (which was intended by the composer was in fact never specified), or even on the modern piano
say in the hands of artists like the late Vladimir Horowitz. And like many Classical music listeners, I enjoyed many of the recordings of Classical music made by Wendy Carlos [3]
made in the early 1970s, and I have enjoyed playing keyboard pieces at home on my electronic keyboards, which these days can be highly sensitive to the touch of
a skilled keyboardist. So, today I will play such pieces on the electronic clavier - and will use a variety of the available sounds.
Yet another facet of the Authentick Keeboard Recitall is the choice of concert repertoire. Today's professional Classical piano recitals seldom include anything except for the
most technically challenging pieces, too often played at speeds beyond even a tasteful Presto. For example, I have heard several performances of certain high-speed Chopin Etudes which,
while dazzling from as pure athletics, are so ultra-fast that they blot out the musical expression Chopin intended, like this one from Leonid Egorov. [4] So, in contrast to this Olympic-style competition, I deliberately have
chosen pieces of easy to moderate difficulty. Also, I have chosen highly familiar pieces that are frequently part of piano lessons so that my tasteful alterations will easily be heard as
new interpretations, as intended.
Happy listening!