Instruments and Keyboard Idiom

Abstract

Abstract Haydn's keyboard music spans the period from the 1750s, when it is assumed he wrote his first solo keyboard works, to 1797, when he produced the keyboard version of the slow movement from the ‘Emperor’ String Quartet. Quite apart from changes in compositional style, this period saw many changes in the music profession, among which we may count the gradual acceptance, by composers, performers, and the musical public, of the fortepiano as the main keyboard instrument and the gradual displacement of the harpsichord and clavichord. Although it is now accepted that Cristofori had invented the gravicembalo col piano e forte by c. 1700 (possibly a few years before the advent of the eighteenth century) and had solved most of the mechanical problems of construction, the rise in popularity of the new instrument and the consequent, gradual decline in the use of the harpsichord occurred principally in the years 1760 to 1790. The transfer in allegiance from one instrument to another occurred at a different pace in various countries and even within a specific geographical region composers embraced the ‘new’ instrument at remarkably divergent dates. In Italy, notwithstanding the early example of Giustini's Sonate da cimbalo di piano, e forte detto volgarmente di martelletti, published in Florence in 1732, the fortepiano seems, paradoxically, to have become dominant at a relatively late date: for example, Galuppi's Passatempo al cembalo of 1785 is still perfectly compatible with performance on a harpsichord.