http://www.slate.com/id/2245891/

Here's an interesting article by Jan Swafford, complete with substantial
audio clips, on the differences in playing the Moonlight and Appassionata
sonatas on modern and vintage pianos.  Money quote on vintage instruments:
"The sound is startlingly different from a modern piano and takes a while
to get used to.  These instruments were mostly played in small to
medium-size rooms.  The sound is intimate; you hear wood and felt and
leather.  The voicing is varied through the registers rather than the
homogenous sound of modern pianos.  On the Katholnig, the effect of
holding the pedal down in the "Moonlight" has a ghostly effect, most
obvious in the longer-sustaining bass notes that can sound like a distant
gong. All these elements of the pianos Beethoven knew shaped the music
in the first place, including the way he picked out high and low notes
around the murmuring figure in the middle of the keyboard."

Mitch Friedfeld

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