Period music on an 1853 Érard grand piano

[Lance]

I have developed a keen interest in the work of the Australian pianist, Stephanie McCallum and I follow her religiously on recordings. Her newest, a Toccata CD [TOCN 0031] entitled "Four Hands at Home: Domestic Music-Making in the Mid-Nineteenth Century." Here, we have music by Boëly, Holmès, Horsley, Mendelssohn, Moscheles and Wagner. Her four-hand partner is pianist Erin Helyward (secondo). While I have an interest in historical pianos - and hearing the music as the composers heard in their own time, period pianos have that more "clinking" sound especially in the treble. The music would be much more interesting on a contemporary concert grand piano, IMHO. It's no different than hearing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier on a piano rather than on a harpsichord, though in this case, I enjoy both. The same applies (for me) with regard to the fortepiano. Still, the music here is exciting to hear, and one can always feel McCallum's sense of love for the music. These days, Érard is no longer making pianos, nor is Pleyel, the great piano makers of their time inasmuch as Steinway, Bechstein came about by the mid-1850s, and other in the USA, such as Chickering and Baldwin further developed the piano in how we know and recognize it today.

McCallum's recordings appear on ABC (Australia), Tall Poppies, Toccata, and Trptk, the latter in a book-type release of Meyerbeer (arr. Alkan), Alkan (arr. Da Motta), and Moscheles, again with Erin Helyward, only on two pianos. Other recordings feature the four sonatas of von Weber, lots of genuine Alkan, Satie, Christmas piano music, an album "Perfume" featuring music by French composers. I believe most of her ABC-Australia recordings are not in print any longer as I believe they were taken up by Decca-Eloquence-Universal/Australia. •