Major comeback for the tangent piano

Major comeback for the tangent piano

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norman lebrecht

August 23, 2017

Never heard of it?

Mozart called it the Spattisches Klavier, after a maker of his time.

The Italians knew it as the cembalo angelico.

Now, the Russian pianist Alexei Lyubimov has recorded a set of solo works by C P E Bach who is believed to have written specifically for a Spath piano.

It’s not the first such recording on a profile label – there was one last year on BIS – but sometimes it’s the second swallow that heralds the coming of spring.

 

Comments

  • Robert Holmén says:

    The examples I can hear on Youtube sound quite tinny and clangorous. The early keyboard composers were missing out if this is the sound they had to settle for.

  • David Boxwell says:

    Miklos Spanyi has recorded a number of CPE Bach’s solo and concerted works for keyboard on the tangent piano for BIS. I find the recordings completely entrancing.

  • Don Hohoho says:

    Yet more evidence AGAINST “original-instruments” “authenticity.”

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