Hi, Rick: Assuming the doctoral student's subject is Richard Strauss (odds are against it being the Viennese waltz king), I would direct her to the 7/2000 PTJ, especially "Johannes Brahms and His Pianos," written by George Bozarth and our own Stephen Brady (also published in the Brahms Journal, a more important reference for her). Of course, neither this nor the other articles in the PTJ specifically address the last 20 years of the 19th century, when Richard Strauss began actively composing. Certainly she has checked the Strauss bio-bibliographies by now. Strauss' connection to the piano was nearly always orchestral: his early piano teacher was an orchestra harpist, and by the age of 20 he fell under Ritter's spell, and was ever to reflect the influence Liszt and Wagner. He did improvise on the piano at an early age, and certainly this helped him work through his compositional ideas; whether the piano manufacturer itself was a factor in his ideas is hard to say. One of the papers I wrote in my graduate musicology class last fall was on the mid-19th-century piano. I concentrated on the Erard. I may submit this paper for publication, but need to get the time to get it read by a few folks and revised first. The Erard was as influential in the middle 19th century as Bechstein, Bluthner and Steinway were afterwards. FWIW, my own speculation relating to Strauss and the piano is that the piano's development influenced him only indirectly, if at all, and that was to the extent the development of the piano influenced the middle-romantic progressive movement. It is hard to imagine Liszt without the Erard, Wagner without Liszt, and Strauss without any of them. Strauss' ever-present orchestral style was evident even when his songs were written for piano; many of those songs were also orchestrated. And musical influences, such as the song-accompaniment style of Schumann, a "large sense of rhythm conceived as a series of waves of energy," (Rosen, The Romantic Generation, 110) were probably far more influential in Strauss' compositional style than the evolution of the piano. Regarding the question of American manufacturers, Steinway's lead in America - and Bechstein and Bluthner's lead on the continent - in the use of cast iron plates and high tension scales eventually carried the day, but I am impressed with the fact that the old-style Erard was pretty much exclusively used by such important orchestral composers as Ravel and Debussy well past the turn of the century. And the interesting final 7/2000 PTJ piece by Juan Mas Cabre, the manufacturer of Pure Sound strings, points out the differences in strings of the present day in even the Bechsteins, Bluthners and Steinways of the late 19th century; a more flexible wire with less inharmonicity and a brighter sound seems to have been in use; this may be too much nit-picking for our doctoral candidate. Finally, the Bluthner Patent Action and the Viennese action used in the Bechsteins and Bosendorfers may or may not have had any influence; the German Steinway was a modern English/Erard-type action from its 1880 beginning. I think if Strauss had a piano sponsorship it would be interesting, but less important than, say, the Baldwin/Bernstein relationship - which probably won't get into any musicologist's biobibliography of Bernstein except as a footnote. By Strauss' time the bigger, "orchestral" sound of the piano was more common, but I think that what he heard in his head was still more important, whether or not it developed through his piano improvisations. (I could be wrong, and would love to hear about it - Liszt's reliance on the Erard was part business/family, and the idea of sponsorship influencing composition is hard to resist in the Liszt-Erard relationship; maybe something is there with Strauss after all....) As for research sources, I am sure she knows by now how to use the net for music research, and has also already perused the Strauss bio-bibliographies; I have little more to offer than to encourage a quick reading of works like Rosen's The Romantic Generation (Rosen's extremely informed kind of big-picture speculation is pretty useful, even if it's not always taken too seriously by his peers). And I would love to hear if she comes up with anything to do with Strauss' reliance on the piano. If her subject is Strauss' piano works (a total of only 3 opus numbers, including a sonata, as well as a few chamber works such as the violin sonata and cello sonata), then I just sort of missed the boat here, but would be interested in what she finds out. Couldn't resist this, Rick - but now I have to take care of the "L" we restrung last week that just got delivered to the university....! Bill Shull, RPT In a message dated 1/17/01 10:20:28 AM Pacific Standard Time, Rick.Florence@ASU.Edu writes: << List, I had a Doctoral Student come into the shop today with a question I couldn't fully answer. She is writing a dissertation on Strauss and wanted to know how the piano has changed during and since the period 1820 - 1900 and how it may have affected his writing style. I believe that he spent most of his time in Vienna or other parts of Europe. What were the significant differences between the European piano manufacturers and the Americans during those years? I wonder if he was sponsored by a particular piano manufacturer? Any brilliant comments and/or suggestions for reading? Rick Florence Piano Technician Arizona State University, School of Music >>
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