Alla riscoperta della diversità …luci e ombre  nella Fantasia in re minore di Mozart. Con Giovanna Fabiano e Valerie Wellington

Lecture-Recital by Giovanna Fabiano and Valerie Wellington, on McNulty fortepianos after Walter and Graf

Performing music on the instruments for which it was originally conceived allows us to rediscover the balance of sonorities, transparency and character imagined by the composer. Yet the performer’s task does not end simply with the use of an original instrument or a faithful replica. Is an accurate rendering of the notation written in the score sufficient to convey the composer’s message?

The divergence between the freedom of musical discourse and its graphic representation has raised questions in every period. Historically informed performance is no longer confined to early music, but is increasingly extending to later repertoires, offering approaches and interpretative tools that help transform the signs written on the page into what Quantz described as music whose beauty lies in “diversity rather than equality and similarity.”

Quantz’s observation can also be applied to the sound of the fortepiano. Unlike the modern piano, which is designed to achieve the greatest possible uniformity of sound across its entire range, the fortepiano changes colour from bass to treble, much like the different registers of the human voice. This diversity, characteristic of Viennese instruments, was regarded as a virtue: Mozart and Beethoven both exploited the contrasting timbral and dynamic qualities of the different registers, creating striking effects of light and shade.

Musical examples

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Fantasia in D minor, K. 397

Valerie Wellington, Walter/McNulty fortepiano

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Vivace, ma non troppo
from Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109

Valerie Wellington, Graf/McNulty fortepiano