The transition between Baroque music and the Romantic era is a very fascinating question, especially for pianists, because the piano is the king of Romantic music, without question.

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First of all, I should say that this transition, well, the transition itself is a fact, but to define music in a very stiff way: say this is Baroque, this is Classical, this is Romantic… In a way, I disagree with that, for a least a couple of main reasons:

One is that every composer, I am convinced, certainly wrote music that is Romantic.

Every composer wrote music that went far beyond the era, when he or she composed. So, they were all innovators. Every great genius wrote music, in a way more for the future, perhaps. It is the case with Bach, with Mozart… Chopin.

So just to tell you a few main outlines: let’s say that Baroque music obviously was more inspired by dance forms. For example, Gigue, Gavotte, Allemande were all Baroque dance forms par excellence. Dance was a major inspiration of Baroque music — besides all the contrapuntal intricacy of the music of the time —was more different: think for example of Bach, and how we wrote music for the church.

But then, with the advent of Romantic music, everything becomes more subjective. The music, and the fusion of the musical art with literature, the visual arts, nature became suddenly a much more relevant phenomenon.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich

Another very emblematic aspect of Romantic music for the piano- if we are to use this term- is the fact that the piano underwent innovations and… this coincided with the desire of certain composers to push the limits of the instrument- at least for those times. So the instrument became closer to human voice:

Think for example of what Chopin and Liszt did, in their adoration for the Italian opera. Both transcribed some songs for the piano, to demonstrate that the piano had become a lyrical instrument like never before.

So, this together with the fact…A very important element indeed in this question of the transition…is the right pedal, so call the damper pedal… that Anton Rubinstein defined “the soul of the piano.” Actually, this represents such a change, because it enabled pianists to have all the range of overtones in mixed sonorities. So, this really opened new worlds.

The pedals opened a new world.

It is a device obviously Bach didn’t have. Mozart didn’t have it either, although it is perfectly fine to play their music now on the modern pianoforte using pedals in a very discreet manner, of course.

It is very fascinating how this element also opened a new world of writing for piano. And also, I’d like to talk about the left pedal as well, which actually one of my teachers called “the heart of the piano.”

It is a very unusual thing, because I know there are a lot of people who seem to care so little about this other element of the piano, but both pedals enable really the pianist to have this big palate of sounds and mixed sonorities.

It is one of the most important elements of what characterizes piano versus its ancestors the fortepiano and the harpsichord.

Just to give an example with the opening of a Chopin Nocturne, the moment you start playing, and you have the right pedal down, and you just make a sound…You will hear already that the instrument is producing such a range of overtones and you see why the use of the left hand with arpeggios and all these rich sonorities is something very much in the spirit of Romantic music.

These composers understood the real nature of the piano and the treatment of the instrument was so different than ever before.

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This is just a little example about this…“piano sound,” which is so different than anything that had happened before in the history of instrumental music.