Matthew Bengtson believes the best way to perform music written by Mozart is on the instrument the classical composer, who lived in the mid-1700s, played.
To that end, Bengtson will bring his 1785 Anton Walter copy of a Viennese-era fortepiano to perform classical music Feb. 27 at the Byron Colby Barn in Grayslake.
His performance is part of the annual Early Music series held at the Barn. He’ll play music from Mozart, Beethoven, C.P.E. Bach and W.E. Bach, as well as a new work based on a Joseph Haydn sonata interlude written by Sebastian Huydts.
The term fortepiano loosely refers to early pianos played from about the early 18th to early 19th century.
“These instruments were developing so rapidly,” said Bengtson, an assistant professor of music and piano literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “There was constant innovation and changing,” until it evolved into the modern-day piano.
“The thing about Mozart is he always wrote so perfectly knowing what kind of instrument it was going to be played on,” Bengtson said. “He made it fit. You always have the feeling when you’re playing Mozart on a fortepiano, that this is the best this piece can be played.”
The repertoire from the classical era “sounds much more compelling when you play it on an instrument of that time,” he added.
Bengtson commissioned the building of a replica of a 1785 fortepiano, and travels with it when he performs.
“It’s the kind of piano Mozart would have played,” he said.
“The characteristics of the instrument are such a beautiful fit for that music. To feel it as a player and to experience is as a listener is wonderful.”
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Fortepianos of Mozart’s era contained five octaves, compared with the modern piano’s seven octaves. The early fortepianos were made of wood, including the keys, and the hammers were made of leather, unlike felt hammers used today.
“That makes the sound more percussive,” Bengtson said, of the leather hammers. “It makes it livelier. It makes it sound clearer. The touch is lighter. You have more natural agility. You can articulate more clearly and the beginnings and endings of notes are easier to hear.”
We have this angelic notion of Mozart, that he was this pure and otherworldly person and that the sound of his music is all beautiful and cloudlike,” Bengtson said.
“But when you hear it on a piano of the time, it feels much more direct and much more present. It feels much earthier. Mozart was a very earthy, lively person. He had a wicked sense of humor. He was irreverent. These characters come out in his music.”
At the Colby Barn, Bengtson will perform Mozart’s Sonata in G Major, a well-known piece and one of the first sonatas he wrote.
“It’s full of life. It’s full of character. It’s very stagey,” Bengtson said. “The first movement is elegant and the last movement is full of humor and quite virtuosic,” meaning it requires great piano-playing skills.
During the performance, Bengtson will take every repeated section Mozart wrote and embellish it. That’s the style in which sonatas were performed during that time, he said.
Bengtson will also perform a series of bagatelles Beethoven wrote in the early 1800s, at the beginning of his composing career.
“These bagatelles are full of life and humor and character and sarcasm and wit,” Bengtson said “There are some pieces, if I play them well, there should be some people laughing.”
In one of the bagatelles, for example, Beethoven writes a C chord over and over with different style and rhythms. “It’s like he can’t figure out how to end the piece,” Bengtson said.
Bengtson also will perform works written by J.S. Bach’s two sons, C.P.E. Bach and W.F. Bach. J.S. Bach was considered a baroque composer. Mozart and Beethoven are considered classical composers. “But there was a lot of development going on of musical style back then. C.P.E. Bach’s life overlapped with Mozart’s, but his music sounds as if it were designed for harpsichord,” the precursor to the fortepiano, Bengtson said.
“W.F. Bach wrote very interesting, complicated pieces,” said Bengtson who will perform a few of his Polonaises. “The music is expressive and dark.”
Bengtson will perform one contemporary piece, written in 2020 by Sebastian Huydts, who has learned and studied all of Joseph Haydn’s sonatas.
“That’s very unusual for student pianists, generally speaking,” Bengtson said. Typically, they play more difficult pieces written by Beethoven and other composers that show off their technique, he said. Haydn’s music was quite accessible, Bengtson said, but the piece Huydts wrote based on a Haydn sonata is very difficult.
Bengtson will play that piece at the end of the concert because, “It’s lively and very fast and makes a rollicking exciting finale.”
Matthew Bengtson
When: 4 p.m. Feb. 27
Where: Byron Colby Barn, 1561 Jones Point Road, Grayslake
Tickets: $20, cash or check only
Information: 847-543-1202; byroncolbybarn.com/early-music-series
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.