On Apr 30, 2012, at 7:32 AM, Roman Turovsky wrote: > His low opinion of hammerklaviers he saw in Berlin is documented.
Inaccurate, I think. Johann Friedrich Agricola related in a 1768 treatise on keyboard instruments that Bach once tried a Silbermann pianoforte (didn't say when or where), and liked its tone but said the bass was weak and the action was too heavy. Silbermann sulked, but spent years improving the instrument, and Bach later expressed "complete approval" of his pianos It's on page 259 of the 1966 "revised" edition of the Bach Reader. "The Piano" (by four authors including fortepiano builders Philip Belt and Derek Adlam), on page 8, connects the "complete approval" that Agricola mentions with Bach's 1747 visit to Frederick the Great in Berlin, which resulted in the Musical Offering. Big Fred had a few Silbermann pianos. "The Piano" says they "are reported [by whom? Agricola?] to have met Bach's complete approval" on that occasion [which is probably speculation], "and the composer served as a sales agent for Silbermann in 1749 (see C. Wolff: 'New Research on Bach's Musical Offering', MQ, lvii (1971), 403)." Of course, Silbermann was famous for his organs and harpsichords, and Bach's admiration for Silbermann's organs is well documented. We can't say categorically that Bach never wrote for piano. When he sent The Musical Offering to Fred, he must have expected that it would be played on a piano because that's what Fred had. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
