The other day, the keyboard player Kristian Bezuidenhout was standing onstage at Hertz Hall, on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in a state of slight panic. Around him were four instruments housed at the university’s music department, representing stages in keyboard development from the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth. On one side was a harpsichord, of the kind that Bach might have played. In the middle were two fortepianos—early-stage pianos with a light action and a crisp, characterful sound. Behind them was an 1854 grand piano, from the illustrious firm of Érard. Modern grands are well-tooled machines, fairly predictable in their behavior, even if virtuosos fuss over them and badger technicians with requests for adjustments. Older pianos, with their variegated mechanisms and idiosyncratic construction, are far more temperamental. To present a program on four different historical instruments—as Bezuidenhout was going to do later that day, in a recital for the Berkeley series Cal Performances—is to invite chaos.
“These older instruments, and even the modern copies, function so differently in rehearsal and in concert,” Bezuidenhout told me. “Sometimes you have this feeling in rehearsal: ‘Oh, yes, this is really making sense, the piano is really helping me.’ Then, in concert, they kind of turn on you. The five-octave pianos, especially, can betray you, leave you in the dust. You say to yourself, ‘Where is that sound I heard four hours ago?’ It may have to do with a change of humidity, or a way of reacting to the room. But it’s as if they can sense your level of stress, your preoccupation, and then they seize up—like some kind of really mean cat.”
Denne historien er fra November 21, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra November 21, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.