Piano Interpretation of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

How should one interpret music of another century? What standards should be applied to an eighteenth century harpsichord work, for instance, being performed on a piano? Keyboard ""methods""--systematic approaches to training, touch, and interpretation--did not evolve until the nineteenth century, and written methodologies are few. Drawing on primary sources, the author has compiled a detailed analysis of such keyboard ""methods"" as existed in Europe in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Most were developed by Couperin, C.P.E. Bach, Turk, J.S. Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Liszt. Also discussed, with translations from their writings and their critics', are the detailed theoretical works by Kullak and Lussy. Analysis shows which techniques had been adapted from earlier practice and which were original to the composer, demonstrating the evolution of the various methods. Techniques useful in the interpretation of period material, and which still have important applications today, are pointed out.