Abstract

It is since the middle of the 19th century that modern piano, with which we are familiar, became as it is. Therefore, the works for piano by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, for example, are not written for modern piano at all. If we call piano which are still in the earlier stage "fortepiano" and compare it with modern piano, in spite of their direct continuity of the mechanism as musical instrument, the former is very different from the latter with regard to the way of musical expression. Namely, fortepiano seems to be in the tradition of harpsichord and clavichord. On the other hand, modern piano has heavier keys and louder sound than fortepiano. The increase in the volume of sound affects more the change in quality of musical expression than that in quantity. Along with the change from fortepiano to modern piano, the way of playing the piano should have also changed. In this article, we shall compare the theory of playing the fortepiano with that of playing the modern piano and illuminate the background of the change from the former to the latter