Performance Practice in The Nineteenth-Century Concerto
Performance Practice in The Nineteenth-Century Concerto
Performance Practice in The Nineteenth-Century Concerto
concerto
DAVID ROWLAND
Instruments
The nineteenth century saw very significant developments in every instru-
ment for which concertos were written. Most individual developments
were part of general trends. A brief examination of these general trends
will go some way towards explaining why some instruments were more
effective vehicles for solo concertos than others, especially in the first part
of the century. Only a very limited amount of information on the instru-
ments themselves can be included here: further technical details will be
found in the extensive literature on instrument history.
Makers of the nineteenth century were concerned with building
instruments of increasing power and projection. This had been an objec-
tive of late eighteenth-century piano makers and their instruments were
[227] already much more robustly constructed than harpsichords by c.1800.
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228 David Rowland
In any event, steps were taken throughout the first half of the nineteenth
century to make pianos of all kinds more powerful. Heavier strings at
higher tensions were used. In turn, the new stringing practices required
bigger, heavier hammers to set the strings in motion (more layers of
leather were initially used, and felt was introduced in the 1820s). The
additional string tension also put a much greater strain on the frame of
the instrument, resulting in ever-sturdier wooden construction with
metal supports in particularly vulnerable places, and eventually the adop-
tion of cast iron frames for grand pianos, first in the USA shortly after the
middle of the century and rather later in Europe.
A great deal of attention was also given to the design of stringed
instruments at the beginning of the century in order to make them
more powerful. The desired results were often achieved by remodelling
earlier instruments. A description, written in 1806 by Abbé Sibire in
La Chélonomie, explains what happened:
This is a process which does not imply the slightest deterioration and yet
which virtually every old violin, no matter how well preserved it is in other
ways, could not avoid: REBARRING . . . Formerly it was the fashion to have
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 229
necks well elevated, bridges and fingerboards extremely low, fine strings, and
a moderate tone. Then the bass bar . . . could be short and thin because it was
sufficient for it to have enough strength to sustain the weight of five to six
pounds which the strings exerted on it . . . [but now] the tilting back of the
neck, the raising of the bridge, of the fingerboard, and the amplification in
sound, necessitate increasing by a full third the resistant force. Repairers have
only one choice: strengthening the old bar, or replacing it with a new one.3
Steps were also taken to increase the power of wind instruments, but
rather later than the parallel changes for the piano and stringed instru-
ments. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the nature of wind
instruments remained essentially the same as in the closing decades of the
eighteenth century, although metal keys were progressively added (see
below). Eventually, woodwind instruments were thoroughly redesigned,
resulting in an improved ability to project their sound, but these changes
did not generally take place until the second quarter of the century.
As well as being made louder, the available compass of most instru-
ments was extended in the first part of the nineteenth century. Additional
keys on wind instruments extended their range by a few notes and the
extended fingerboard on stringed instruments brought new possibilities
in the upper register. However, the most far-reaching changes in compass
took place in the design of the piano. For the second half of the eighteenth
century, until about 1790, a keyboard player could expect to find about
five octaves on a harpsichord, clavichord or piano. Thereafter, changes to
the compass occurred at different speeds around Europe, but by about
1810 six-octave pianos were being made in most of the major centres and
by the middle of the century seven octaves were standard. Experiments
were made even with eight-octave pianos, but they were not successful
and seven octaves remained normal until the 1870s, when an additional
three notes established the compass that is found on the majority of
concert grands today.4
Another preoccupation of nineteenth-century instrument-makers was
to produce instruments capable of performing effectively in every key
across the entire compass. While this was certainly a concern of piano and
string instrument-makers, it was a much greater challenge for manufac-
turers of brass and wind instruments. The realities of the harmonic series
meant that, in the absence of any slide, key or valve mechanism, brass
instruments could only play scales in their upper registers – which was the
case for almost all of the eighteenth century. Keys and valves enabled
instruments to be fully chromatic and satisfactory systems were invented
in the course of the first half of the century.
In the case of wind instruments, it had been possible to play chromat-
ically on eighteenth-century woodwind instruments using systems of
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230 David Rowland
cross-fingerings. That does not mean to say, however, that those instru-
ments were equally successful in all keys. Each woodwind instrument had
strong and weak keys, some notes were difficult to tune, and the system of
fingerings made some musical patterns problematic. Certain trills, for
example, were very difficult, or even impossible to play. The increasing
number of metal keys that were added in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries helped with particular problems, but generally
speaking it was not until the second quarter of the century that woodwind
instruments were given the complete technical overhauls that were
needed in order to make them play effectively in all keys across their
compass.
In general, then, the development of the piano and members of the
string family ran ahead of parallel developments in woodwind and brass
instruments. It would be overstating the case to say that these changes
alone accounted for the popularity of piano and violin concertos in the
nineteenth century, because other social and musical factors must also
have been significant; but there can be no doubt that technical develop-
ments contributed to the particular success of those instruments in
concertos.
Orchestras
As recent studies of the orchestra have shown, it is very difficult to
generalize about many aspects of nineteenth-century orchestras, includ-
ing their size and internal balance.5 A travelling virtuoso would have had
to be more ready than his or her twentieth-century counterpart to adapt
to local circumstances. One of the most important of these would have
been the concert venue. Virtually all of the world’s current leading con-
cert venues were built in the nineteenth century, or later, and prior to
their existence concerts took place in a mixture of halls, some of them
purpose-built, as well as other venues such as theatres.
When concerts took place in purpose-built halls the musicians could
expect to be arranged in such a way as to be able to hear one another,
while their sound was easily projected to an audience. Orchestras were
often raised a little above the level of the audience – many commentators
expressed the view that the sound travelled better throughout the hall
with this arrangement. In addition, the performers were often tiered in
order to give good sight-lines and projection.
When concerts took place in venues that were not purpose-built the
physical arrangements were adapted accordingly. Theatres were often
used for one-off events such as benefit concerts. On one such occasion
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 231
in 1826 Ignaz Moscheles, the piano soloist, sat on the stage with the
orchestra in its customary place in the pit.6 Whether this was the usual
arrangement for concerto performances in theatres, or whether the
orchestra sometimes occupied the stage, is impossible to tell from the
limited evidence, but it illustrates the flexibility that was often required of
the musicians.
If performance venues differed widely according to local conditions,
so too did the standards of orchestras. At the beginning of the century,
before the professional ethos of the new musical conservatoires and
academies had taken effect, standards of orchestral discipline were often
poor. Rehearsal time could be woefully inadequate and poor playing
standards caused frustration to concerto soloists. Louis Spohr, for example,
on tour in Italy in 1816, expressed exasperation at the standards of the
local orchestras, especially in comparison with those with which he was
familiar in Germany.7 Spohr himself, however, did much to raise standards
of orchestral playing by insisting on careful rehearsal, and he was not alone in
his efforts. In Paris, for example, François Antoine Habeneck helped
improve standards, also exerting an influence right across Europe, as
reported in 1849:
The revolution was brought about by factors that are taken for granted
today. One observer noted, for example, that the strings ‘start with exactly
the same bowing’.9
The size of orchestras was another factor that varied significantly. If
questions relating to size could be assessed on the basis of average numbers
one would certainly say that there had been a general enlargement of
orchestras through the century. However, to present a picture of steady
growth in orchestral size would be misleading. Both large and small orches-
tras existed at all times in the century, and there were variations in size from
decade to decade in many of Europe’s established orchestras. ‘Large’ and
‘small’ generally denote in the region of 100 players for the largest concerts
(not including those special events for which hundreds of players were
brought together) to around thirty for the smallest.10 Having said that, by
the end of the century one would almost certainly have expected to find an
orchestra of around 70–100 players in a major venue.
The internal balance of orchestras varied. In the nineteenth century it was
not unusual for the second violins to outnumber the firsts, the reverse of the
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232 David Rowland
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 233
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234 David Rowland
various sizes could be heard.15 Concert programmes were longer than we are
used to today especially in the first half of the century, and they often
included a combination of orchestral, vocal and chamber works. This
trend continued into the second half of the century, although later pro-
grammes tended to be less mixed. A degree of specialization also emerged
towards the middle of the century, with series devoted to chamber music and
to the emergence of the solo piano recital.
While concertos were generally popular throughout the century they
did not find universal favour. According to one critic in 1850, for example,
London audiences were ‘thoroughly nauseated’ by the ‘mere displays
of digital activity or pulmonic strength’ that they witnessed in concer-
tos.16 A similar sentiment was felt among the directors of London’s
Philharmonic Society, founded in 1813 with the intention of raising the
quality of the capital’s concert life. The society initially exercised a policy
excluding solo concertos from its programmes.17 Despite this policy,
however, the directors relented probably as early as their first season
and within a few years – certainly from the 1820s – concertos were
regularly seen on the society’s programmes. ‘Quality’ was nevertheless
maintained by the directors’ preference for ‘symphonic’ concertos, espe-
cially those by Mozart, and later those by Beethoven,18 rather than for
those concertos where the orchestra performed a more peripheral role.
Other concert organizers were less particular and gave their audiences a
wide range of repertory, allowing performers to play their own concertos,
or the acknowledged favourites of the day, such as the Johann Nepomuk
Hummel concertos with which many pianists made their names in the
first half of the century.19
One of the major developments in programming that took place in the
nineteenth century was the creation of a canon of works by composers of
previous generations.20 The Philharmonic Society’s emphasis on the
concertos of Mozart and Beethoven was part of this trend and similar to
the situation in Paris, where concertos by both composers occupied a
regular place in concert programmes.21 Bach’s concertos were also per-
formed regularly in both cities during the middle decades of the century,
although their popularity waned later on in London.22
The performance of concertos by earlier composers raised issues of
interpretation for nineteenth-century pianists. In particular the question
arose as to how far the works should be updated to suit the resources of
modern instruments. In the case of Bach’s works there seems to have been
no question of using a harpsichord instead of a piano (despite the
harpsichord’s use in the ‘historical concerts’ of the time23), although
some reflection of earlier performance practices might be seen in the
preference shown towards performances of his concertos with very
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 235
small string forces (see below). With Mozart’s and Beethoven’s concertos
the issue that occupied pianists was whether or not to use the extended
compass of the instrument. In the 1820s and 1830s, editions of Mozart’s
and Beethoven’s works were published that adapted the right-hand parts
of their concertos to use the treble notes that had progressively been
added to pianos since the 1790s.24 The low level of contemporary criti-
cism of this approach suggests that, at the time, up-dating earlier scores
was generally acceptable. There were some contrary voices, however. The
reviewer of a performance of Mozart’s K. 466 (a particular favourite in the
nineteenth century) in 1833 made a point of praising Mendelssohn’s
avoidance of any additions to Mozart’s text:
The trend of paying close attention to the composer’s text grew in the
middle of the century, no doubt with the growth of musical source studies
and the publication of scholarly editions, and performances with addi-
tional notes appear to have been much less acceptable in the second half
of the century.
Today we are used to concert performances of complete concertos.
Nineteenth-century concert organizers often took a different approach.
While complete concertos were programmed throughout the century,
especially towards its close, significant numbers of performances took
place in which only one or two movements were played. Frédéric
Chopin’s performances of his own E minor Concerto are typical. In
Breslau in 1830 he performed only the rondo and possibly also the
romance. In Paris in the years 1832–4 he gave three performances of
just one or two movements of the concerto and finally, in the following
year, he performed the whole work in a single performance.26 In addition
to the performance of individual concerto movements, composite con-
certos were played, in which works were made up of movements by
different composers. John Cramer made a particular feature of this
practice, performing concertos consisting of movements by himself com-
bined with others by Mozart, for example from the Piano Concerto in
C minor K. 491 and his own Concerto No. 5 in the same key.27 Other
pianists playing composite concertos include Moscheles, whose debut at
the Philharmonic Society in London in 1821 included the first two move-
ments of his own second concerto with another work of his own compo-
sition as the last.28 The most extreme manifestation of this trend occurred
when a ‘Mr. Schuncke’ played a concerto with a movement each by three
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236 David Rowland
Concerto arrangements
Performers of the nineteenth century were much more used to adapting
the music they played to the local circumstances of the time than we are
today. The absence of an orchestra did not mean that a concerto could not
be performed, but rather that some other solution was sought to make a
performance possible. There were several options. In the case of piano
concertos the orchestral parts were often realized by a string quartet, or
some other chamber ensemble. Failing even this number of accompanists
a concerto could be performed as a solo, or as a piano duet. In the case of
concertos for instruments other than the piano, performances were given
by the solo instrument with the accompaniment of the piano.
The practice of performing keyboard concertos as chamber works was
not unique to the nineteenth century. Well-known eighteenth-century
examples include Mozart’s Concertos K. 413–15, K. 449 and perhaps
others. The Wiener Zeitung of 15 January 1783 noted, of K. 413–15, that
‘these three concertos, which may be performed either with a large
orchestra with wind instruments or merely a quattro, viz. with 2 violins,
1 viola and violoncello, will not appear until the beginning of April of this
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 237
year’.33 In a letter to his father Mozart wrote that K. 449 ‘can be per-
formed a quattro without wind-instruments’.34 Dussek’s ‘Œuvre
Premier’ concertos published by Hummel in the early 1780s were pub-
lished ‘avec l’accompagnement des Deux Violons, Alto et Basse. Deux
Hautbois et Cors ad libitum’. The title-page of his later arrangement of a
Krumpholz harp concerto advertised prices for two different collections
of accompanying parts: 4 shillings for ‘2 Vios. & Bass’ and 5 shillings for
‘full Band’. In order to compensate for a crucial missing part when the
work was performed in its chamber version a woodwind cue was inserted
into the piano part. Even more explicitly, in the early years of the century
Simrock published an edition of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in C, Op.
15, and some concertos by Mozart in which three performing options
were spelled out. An introduction to each of the concertos reads:
A flexible pricing policy that allowed for the purchase of various combin-
ations of performing parts became usual in the early decades of the
nineteenth century, along with the inclusion of a few crucial instrumental
cues. When Hummel’s concerto Op. 110 was published by Welsh and
Hawes in 1826 the pricing was for ‘Piano Forte with Acc[ompanimen]ts.
12s – with full orchestra 18s’.36 In order to explain the flexibility a full
explanation was given further down the title-page: ‘This Concerto may be
performed on the Piano Forte without Accompaniments [see below] . . . Also
with a Quartett Accompaniment without Wind Instruments.’ The parts for
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238 David Rowland
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 239
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240 David Rowland
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 241
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242 David Rowland
affairs. More often, though, the evidence points to a high degree of pre-
meditation, for example in Spohr’s performances of previously composed
cadenzas to his concertos, or Clara Schumann’s well-rehearsed preludes (see
below). For those without any inclination to exercise any degree of creativity
whatsoever there were published preludes, cadenzas and embellishments
that could be learned in advance and used as the occasion demanded.
Whatever the degree of premeditation, performances that strayed from
established scores were very much part of nineteenth-century culture, espe-
cially in the earlier part of the century.
In his Systematic Introduction to Improvisation on the Piano, Czerny wrote
that ‘the performer should become accustomed to improvising a prelude
each time and before each piece that he studies or plays’.58 Judging from
the number of published examples of preludes in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries it would appear that many others shared Czerny’s
views on the importance of preluding. Giordani (177?), Clementi (1787),
Hummel (c.1814), Cramer (1818), Haslinger (1818), Moscheles (1827) and
Kalkbrenner (1827) all published sets of preludes in a variety of keys for the
use of keyboard players and it was customary for instruction books for the
piano and for other instruments to contain similar examples.59 While the
practice became less popular as the century wore on, some performers
continued to prelude on a regular basis. Clara Schumann evidently did so
throughout her career. There are also accounts of Hans von Bülow and Anton
Rubinstein preluding, and the art continued into the twentieth century; a
recorded concert by Joseph Hofmann in 1937 includes short preludes.60
Although Czerny’s remarks quoted above apparently recommend
preluding on all occasions, the practice was not considered appropriate
by everyone, and even those who endorsed it in general terms had
reservations about it in connection with certain types of work, or thought
that it was more appropriate in some settings than in others. Commenting
on public performances of works for piano with orchestral accompaniment
Czerny himself wrote that ‘in this case all preluding must be strictly
avoided’.61 Nevertheless, he wrote a prelude for one of Ries’s concertos
and other authors sanctioned the use of preludes before concertos, especially
in private performances.62
Preludes varied considerably in respect of their length and nature. At
their simplest, they took the form of a spread chord or two, or a few
broken chords and arpeggios. Other preludes were lengthier and included
some working out of one or more motifs. Whatever their length, freedom
of metre was usually a feature of preludes and their structure was often
loose. Most of the published examples have no particular connection with
any work, although sometimes motifs and themes were used in order to
connect preludes with the works that followed them.
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 243
Despite Liszt’s criticism of his earlier performances, and his respect for
the scores of the ‘masters’, he nevertheless continued to embellish on
occasion, sometimes extravagantly. The Musical World of 14 May 1840
contained a review of his performance at the Philharmonic Society three
days earlier:
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244 David Rowland
embellishing the work in Leipzig in 1844 during one of her many perform-
ances of it.67
What would Beethoven have thought? He grew up at a time when it
was expected that every performer would be capable of adding ornament-
ation to melodic lines. A passage from the Jahrbuch der Tonkunst von
Wien und Prag of 1796, for example, reads as follows:
There are places where it is appropriate to insert much ornamentation. This,
however, must be done with care and consideration in such a way that the
basic emotion does not suffer, but is enhanced. The adagio, which because of
its simple melodic layout often becomes the playground of ornamentation,
does not allow fast passage-work and scales, but instead well-selected
chromatic lines which sigh and languish and then die out.68
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Performance practice in the nineteenth-century concerto 245
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246 David Rowland
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