Hearing this harpsichord gives me a new appreciation why composers from this era wrote so many notes: with no real sustain on the notes they had to keep the music moving somehow.
During Mozart's life the piano was evolving and improving quickly. So it's true that he played on a similar instrument to the one in this video but also he had access to earlier pianos with a more mellow sound. In Mozart's house museum in Salzburg there is one of his pianos and it sounds like a half way between harpsichord and modern piano.
Thank you for pointing this out, i was searching if somebody had already said this. Later half of his piano concertos weren't composed for harpsichord anymore. I would say one can even hear from this video that nr 21 Andante clearly was composed with different instrument in mind.
Mozart was more a clavichordist and a harpsichordist than pianist. That have been researched. Yes, he played fortepiano, but he still played a lot the harpsichord and the clavichord. And the instrument he most played was the clavichord. By the way, Beethoven did also played harpsichord and clavichord. He played it even during 19th century.
I love the automatic song title real time detection and displaying screen on the instrument. Must have been quite an advanced technology when the harpsichord was marketed for the first time.
By the way, this is actually an early pianoforte, not a harpsichord. The harpsichord plucks the strings whilst the pianoforte strikes the strings. During this period the piano was in development and all sorts of hammer variations and actions were being used.
At last Mozart played as it was then. It's true that at the end of the 18th century the harpsichord was quickly evolving and the early piano-forte were available, but not the piano we know today and on which Mozart is always played. So thank you !
0:01 Rondo Alla Turca 0:16 Eine Kleine Nachtmusik 0:29 Sonata n.16 in C Major, K.545 0:51 Piano Concerto n.21-Allegro Maestoso 0:59 Piano Concerto n.21-Andante 1:17 Sonata for two pianos in D, K.448 1:50 Rondo in D Major K.485 2:11 Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (12 variations on Ah vous dirai-je, Maman) 2:55 Piano Sonata n.10 in C Major,K.330
@@CrazyGamer-1944 glad I'm not the kind of person who would click! Because of piano in the name, I was assuming it was a piano video and didn't look closely at the link spelling
Mozart's music is perfect on the harpsichord. You can feel the liveliness, the joy and the fun through the unique sound of the harpsichord. I truly enjoy this video. Many thanks for your effort in bringing Mozart into our life.😊
Yeah, like any of the later piano concertos ..., NOT ... Do you REALLY think Beethoven would have written cadenzas for the great number 24 if he thought it would be played on the expressionless harpsichord? Just like there's a reason small towns are small, there's a reason they were PIANO concertos and not for harpsichords.
Me too! A lot of the music I love to play on the piano was actually written for the harpsichord. On a digital piano I play them on the ‘harpsichord’ lol
There are people who call themselves classical music listeners who think that Mozart's music is boring, superficial, repetitive etc. These people don't deserve to have ears.
Maybe they are basing their opinion on his early pieces. He was a better composer in his thirties than he was in his teens, let alone when he was younger.
there is NO OLD Music. There are good music & bad music. OLD MUSIC or MUSIC OUT OF DATE is the terms inveented by producers, to let em avaible to sell their they call modern music crap to children. True musician never will say "that is old music", or "that is modern one". Its just useless criteria.
I'm surprised how many of these I recognize, I find myself constantly clicking on your videos. I most certainly do enjoy them, and especially the presentation You are a Rock Star. Thanks; great stuff.
I was taught some of these pieces on a piano by a harpsichordist when I was a child. But when I tried them on a harpsichord I found I completely lacked the technique to get a regular rhythm. Well done!
"This was the sound that was heard at the time." A bit misleading. He also played and owned and composed for clavichord and fortepiano. Mozart lived through a very important phase of rapid keyboard development.
And some of the pieces were specifically written for piano as Mozart himself added in notes. Sonata No. 16, for example, was "a little Piano Sonata for beginners."
It’s not misleading bc the pianist here didn’t a full bio or repertoire of Mozart. I, for one am very appreciative to hear his music. Plus, how long did you expect the title to be? Tired of people putting in their unnecessary 2 cents to create an argument.
@@melodyschlissio9096 I was referring to the notes below the video. It's not about creating an argument. From what I've seen of this channel, it's aimed at casual listeners as opposed to musicians or hardcore keyboard or classical music afficionados, so it would be helpful to inform these newcomers accurately.
@@danielmarquesmacedo6864 Mozart was a prodigy and could basically write down pieces from his head, most others would have worked through slower though
@@danielmarquesmacedo6864 This is true. The "Mozart wrote entire symphonies in his head" story is a romanticized view of Mozart's abilities. And it also gives a very misleading idea of what composition is. Full compositions don't just randomly appear into people's minds. Instead, people start from a short musical idea that they start to develop. Compositions need a structure - a good composition has the right balance of repetition and contrast. And if you want your composition to have a structure, you don't really come up with the full piece in your mind and then just write it down. Even if the general flow between the ideas comes to you spontaneously, those ideas still need some "polishing" in order to sound coherent and purposeful and avoid a "rambling" feeling. Mozart was definitely exceptionally talented, but if you study his pieces, it's pretty obvious that they are well-thought out. They use motifs in a consistent way and have a clear logical structure behind them. If Mozart really had written everything spontaneously in his head, then his music would sound much more like improvisation - it would be much more "free-flowing". You can hear some more free-flowing pieces if you listen to his Fantasias, but most of Mozart's pieces have a very clear structure behind them. Mozart did like to play his ideas on the piano to develop them into full compositions, and he did also write sketches. Now, Mozart was most likely a master of these structures, so coming up with a piece with a logical structure probably didn't take much effort from him. But he definitely didn't compose full symphonies in his head and then just notate them. Good compositions aren't 100% spontaneous. They do have an element of spontaneity to them (because otherwise they will feel too rigid or formulaic), but a completely spontaneous composition will feel formless and like it doesn't know what it's trying to say. It's the difference between a spontaneous speech vs a well-thought out speech. Even if someone is really good at giving speeches, you would still expect them to do some preparation before the speech, and not just shoot from the hip and see where that takes them.
@@MaggaraMarine "This is true" *proceeds to cope hard and ramble about captain-obvious tier shit* Look, fren, it's okay to not have any imagination, but don't predispose your sad opinions with "This is true".
There is a certain note that sounds much like my doorbell so every time it’s played I’m contemplating weather or not someone is knocking the front door or not
No Brasil a grande maioria das pessoas não valoriza a música clássica. São canções lindas que acalma a mente e o espírito. É uma pena grandes músicos nao serem valorizados. Parabéns vinheteiro!!! Você ama o que faz e toca com o coração .
Because both the Harpsichord and its smaller cousin, the Clavichord, used Tangents that pluck the string, instead of hammers that strike the string. The Harpsichord used leather tangents, the Clavichord used brass tangents.
@@ClarenceCochran-ne7duyou're entirely correct, but me think you're over complicating it. It sounds like 8 but because the harpsichord sounds awesome and when programmers developed the 8 but sounds they copied the awesomeness that is the harpsichord.
"Mozart is the highest, the culminating point which beauty has reached in the sphere of music. Nobody has made me cry and thrill with joy, sensing my proximity to something that we call the ideal, in the way that he has." (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
I just loved your 'you'd better be listening' looks from the keyboard... quite admonishingly amusing. Loved the index finger for the next piece... new to me! very original. You are a real master on this instrument. (we might have had the real French title of the twinkle twinkle piece, but no matter.)
@@jeffm5991 Imagine in the 2040s and 2050s some kid's gonna look at the Millennials, Gen X, and early Gen Z and they're gonna go "wOah that guy was born in the 1900s! Can you believe it?". It is at that point that we become F#CKING OLD.
The harpsichord is a plucked keyboard instrument related to the harp and lute while the fortepiano, pianoforte, and modern piano derive from the clavichord a percussion keyboard instrument.
@@billmcmahon1420 In a harpsichord with two manuals, the bottom manual traditionally operates the darker back gate 8' choir and the top manual operates the brighter front gate 8' choir. This allows for the musician to alternate manuals for immediate dynamic contrast. Additionally, the bottom manual can have an additional 4' stop that employs a set strings tuned an octave higher for added weight and volume. In this fashion the lower manual is more powerful and the upper manual is used for softer passages. Finally, both manuals may be coupled together. When the top manual is physically shifted towards the backboard, the result is that the bottom manual will operate both manuals and their set stops simultaneously but the top manual will only operate itself. This allows for the greatest possible volume the instrument can produce - the 8' back gate, 4' choir, and the coupled 8' front gate of the top manual. wiki.youngcomposers.com/Harpsichord
@@TonyBittner-Collins amazing that they figured out how to build all of that on a harpsichord, but nobody ever thought to just make piano which sounds 100x better.
Mozart did not create the music for what some people call "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". He re-arranged the music (in 12 versions) of pre-existing piece that no one remembers who originally wrote it. Later, the poem by Jane Taylor ("twinkle twinkle little star") was set to the music.
They are used a huge amount. I am in my fifties and when I was a little boy harpsichords were a historical curiosity barely played and rarely made. Now most early keyboard music is played on a harpsichord. If you live in Europe it's very easy to hear live harpsichord music and if you do, I urge you to seek out a historically informed performance. You won't regret it.
In reality, it's not as simple. I would actually assume that the hardest pieces are the ones where you don't have to look. You see, when you have an easy piece, you don't learn it as long and hard, so your muscle memory isn't as good. And if it's something really hard, to the point that you had to practice day after day over and over - then you don't need to look anymore. Your body knows it and you can concentrate more on the feelings that you want to put into your performance. Obviously it's just generalizations, of course you have to look if your hands need to "jump" a lot. Sorry for the long message, just wanted to give you a perspective of a person who played piano for 10 years+
He played several of those looking at the camera when on piano. The issue here is definitely the key sizes of the harpsichord, not the complexity of the pieces.
I was raised on Mozart and classical music etc but over the years I have grown to generally dislike the harpsichord. So tinny. Such a flat sound. Not nearly as interesting as a harp, and vastly inferior to the piano. Still, this is an interesting exercise to be sure.
Yes, he does. At the same time, every competent guitar player can play without constantly looking at the fingerboard, and the guitar fingerboard isn't linear like the piano keys are.
@@mauriwayar the title of the video is 'how Mozart sounds on the harpsichord' not 'Mozart sounds good on the harpsichord' and can you give me an example of how a harpsichord should sound?
@@FadiKdy The instrument is out of tune and the dude is playing music that wasn't composed for harpsichord. As a result average viewers who know nothing about the baroque period or the harpsichord might walk away just thinking that it's a shitty instrument that sounds bad. Here's just one example of many on RU-vid of a proper harpsichord player using an instrument that is in tune. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KQiBIb_klT8.html
@@EnlightenedCentrism I agree. Also, Mozart's time was not Baroque but Rococo or Classical period. Baroque is totally underrated and Mozart is overrated too, but what can you expect from mainstream?
Well theoretically it is Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" not "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", even though both are indeed based same folk song.
Ele já falou numa entrevista (acho que foi num podcast) que não vale a pena por dois motivos. Primeiro que as musicas são difíceis, ele precisa treinar por um tempo para poder tocar bem; e segundo que quase ninguém vai ver, a maioria assiste só a parte da musica que conhece e pula o resto.
So imagine ser capaz de escutar uma musica dessas na epoca...seria uma viagem no tempo incrivel. Lord cosplay de nobre frances do sec XVIII é o melhor.
A prominent British conductor (I think it was Sir Malcolm Seargent) once commented that a harpsichord sounded like two skeletons copulating on a tin roof.
I hate that scene though. Salieri was a mediocre artist but he wasn't THAT dumb and the scene plays on the ignorance of the audience regarding what being a genius actually meant.
This repertoire sounds surprisingly good on harpsichord, with the exception of that bit from the middle movement of the Elvira Madigan concerto, which really needs piano and strings.
The piano was evolving through most of his life. So some of these songs were composed with instruments like this in mind while others were composed with a more mellow sound in mind.
