The Earliest Parisian Writers of Music for the Piano

Abstract

PARIS became an important center for the cultivation of piano music in the 1780's. A school of Parisian writers of keyboard music in pianistic style began with the appearance of Johann Schobert in the French capital. Although the word piano-forte does not occur on the title-pages of first editions of Schobert's works, their texture offers sufficient evidence of their gifted author's exploitation and effective use of characteristic piano idioms. He was one of the first to strike the romantic note so intimately associated with German piano music of a somewhat later period. The most prominent of Schobert's contemporaries and followers in Parisian keyboard music were, like him, of German origin. Next in importance to Schobert was Nicolas-Joseph Hiillmandel (a pupil of C. P. E. Bach), who, aside from numerous piano compositions, wrote a piano method. That he was a warm champion of the piano may be seen in his article on the CLAVECIN in the Encyclopddie of Diderot and d'Alembert. His style recalls that of Clementi. Johann Gottfried Eckard published two sets of sonatas, containing many indications of forte and piano, which (so he claimed in a preface) made them suitable for piano as well as for harpsichord and clavichord. Another well-known German keyboard writer in Paris at this time was Johann Friedrich Edelmann. Frenchmen who published piano music around this period are Ptienne-Nicolas M6hul and Frangois-Adrien Boieldieu, and the brothers Louis-Emanuel and Hyacinthe Jadin. The pieces by M6hul and Boieldieu are early works; the interest of both composers in the piano was cut short by their successful careers as operatic composers. In general, the works of the French composers are more in the harpsichord style of the preceding period than are those of the more progressive German 6migres. [For illustration, sonatas by Eckard, Schobert, Hiillmandel, Edelmann, and Mehul were played.]