Major comeback for the tangent piano
mainNever 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.
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.
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.
Was it a tangent piano? I also have a bunch of Spanyi’s CPE Bach keyboard concertos recorded for BIS. However, It is only stated that it is a harpsichord built in 1991 after a model in 1734.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tangent+piano
Yet more evidence AGAINST “original-instruments” “authenticity.”