[MUSIC] So let me say a word about Robert Blocker, if I may. Robert Blocker is a distinguished music educator. More than any Dean of the School of Music that I have experienced in my long time here at Yale, he has been, by far and away, the most distinguished in the sense of artistic accomplishment, and particularly financial accomplishment. It is now possible, owing in large measure to his good labors, that any student admitted to the Yale School of Music can come here and get a free education in music. Great for Yale, great for young people, great for music. But really impresses me about Robert Block is the following. In addition to being a distinguished music educator he also a world renown concert pianist, and that's really difficult to do, to have two careers like this. So I'd like to ask Robert, and I don't know the answer to this, Robert what time did you get up this morning? >> [LAUGH] Very early, but I normally get up very early. Well, I know that from the time I got emails from you. I get them at, say, 5:10 in the morning. >> That's about right. >> He is already up and rolling, and Robert how are you feeling today, you feeling tired? Have you been anywhere interest of late? >> Well, as you know I'm just getting back from China. So, well, I'm acclimating rather well. >> You were performing in China. >> I was. >> Where in China? >> I was in Shenzhen. >> I think what we'd like to do now is see if Robert would like to comment on the difficulty of playing this. It might sound easy, oh gee, just go play a Mozart on this little piano. How hard can that be? Oddly, this morning this may be Robert's most difficult challenge. So we're starting off with a tough one here. And what do you feel when you go to this piano? >> It is the most difficult transition for me. And I think this piano and the others that we'll talk about in here, hold special gifts for us, gifts of knowledge and wisdom about the music itself. About the times that the music was composed. And certainly about how we think about sound, in terms of the historical nature of the piece we are playing, and I'm thinking particularly now of Beethoven. >> Hm. >> Because normally when we attend or listen to a Beethoven concerto we're in a large hall with a concert grand Steinway, a big piano, an orchestra of 40 to 60 people. And to think that this was the instrument for these concerti at that time is a remarkable kind of beginning point. And then the evolution. So these pianos are instructive for us. They hold special gifts. It's remarkable, for me at least, when I sit down and touch the keys. And I just stop for a moment and think, who has heard music come from this instrument? Where did this instrument reside? What kind of life has it had? And each instrument really takes on its own life. >> Mm-hm. >> And I think that's a kind of remarkable, emotional piece to put with the music itself. But maybe we should hear a few notes. And I wanted to mention also about the pedaling on this piano. >> Yes. >> The pedals are our levers underneath the keyboard, and that's one of the biggest adjustments. And, depending on the physical frame of the pianist, that can cause different kinds of problems. I mean, I found myself yesterday lifting the piano a little bit off the floor. And the other thing that the piano does is it allows for a lot of sensitivity and finger weight. So those are transitional issues that any pianist has. I think it is precisely why in recent years so many artists really devote themselves to the playing of these historical instruments. So this is my disclaimer, I am not one of these historical artists who would have far more familiarity with it. On the other hand though, I think that for the modern pianist not to have this instructive wisdom when it's right here as a resource, would be a huge lapse of judgment on my part, for me personally. So, let's hear just a few notes. I'm going to play, first of all, the second movement of a Mozart sonata, K332, and it will give you an idea of the intimate quality of this piano. [MUSIC] >> Now Dean Blocker turns from Mozart to Beethoven, to compare the sound of the opening of two concertos by Beethoven. The first concerto, Opus 15, 1797, and the third, six years later, of 1803. The point being, how much more dramatic the latter concerto sounds. >> So beginning, of course, with piano solo in C major would be this. [MUSIC] So there you have one idea about how this would open up in this earlier concerto. The third, is more expansive, and a bigger piece. [MUSIC] So there you see quite a difference in the way this piano is going to be used. >> You almost hear Beethoven crying out, give me a bigger instrument, please! It is so dramatic, and so intense. >> And, he's saying, Robert, please get the right notes. [LAUGH] >> Before we leave the early Beethoven type piano, let's take a close look at that knee lever mechanism that Robert Walker was using to lift the dampers and allow the strings to continue to sound and the piano to sing more. And notice that on this keyboard you'll see the typical black on white scheme of today reversed. In this period, you were just as likely to see white on black as black on white. But within a decade, black keys above white keys became the norm. All right, now Dean Blocker will play with the dampers up and then with them down. >> Possibly the camera can see, it's a very slight lift here. And this is the difference in sound though, first without it you would hear this. [MUSIC] And that's just with finger legato, but with this you have. [MUSIC] It's a way of sustaining the sound just a little bit longer. >> Okay, let's slide around the room, to a larger piano of Beethoven's day. While not owned by Beethoven, but a make that he would have played. It was made by the Bösendorfer company in Vienna, a company which very much still exists today in Vienna. This Bösendorfer was fabricated in 1830 so it's an historically correct instrument for playing late Beethoven and Schubert. You'll see the greater mass here, it weighs almost three times as much as our earlier Könige piano of 1795. It has a few more keys and as you'll hear it has a much bigger sound as Robert Blocker explains, as he introduces us to this Bösendorfer instrument. >> It's bigger in mass and the keyboard is longer. There's more pitch range there, and also the key structure is longer. Depending on the shape of your hands, very difficult to play an instrument like this, I think. Here it gets a little bit easier, with keys, you can move around a little bit. This was an instrument that is particularly conducive of the music of Schubert. And I'm gonna play a little bit of that. But before I do, if you could travel back a few minutes ago to these Beethoven concerti where I just played the opening. Hear the difference in this piano, which is designed for what was happening then. More public concerts in larger spaces. [MUSIC] And then the third. [MUSIC] So you have a much larger dynamic range in this instrument. The music of Schubert is running alongside the music of Beethoven here, and this sonata was written very early in his sonata works, but not published until after his death. And again here you'll hear the range of dynamics on this particular instrument. [MUSIC] Unfortunately, we have to fade it out here for reasons of time. But the obvious point here is that although the pianoforte was invented in the 1700's, it's not until 1830, 130 years later, that the piano begins to sound something like the grand piano that we know today. But now, progress really accelerates rapidly.
