Reinhard J. Brembeck, music critic of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, attended a
rehearsal (in Kassel, Germany) where the piano duette of Katia and Marielle
Lebeque, sisters, were working out with their newish copies of Silbermann
pianoforti.  They were preparing for a tour in which they are to play Bach
in collaboration with and direction of Reinhard Goebel.  Here's some of
what Brembeck had to report:

   "...the richly ornamented instruments are very special:  they are
   copies of the sort of fortepiani that were known to Johann Sebastian
   Bach...and for which he perhaps even composed.  All of early piano
   music suffers from the inability of the cembalo to modulate the volume
   of its sound.  But in 1698 the instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori
   succeeds in constructing an'arpicembalo che fa il piano e il forte,'
   a harp cembalo that plays both loud soft and loud...one of these
   instruments i n 1719 reaches Dresden where the famous organ builder
   Gottfried Silbermann copies and then develops it.  Bach gets to know
   Silbermann's instrument in the '30s...The sound appeals to him and
   he plays concerts on it.  One of these performances was for Frederick
   the Great in Berlin...Only three Silbermanns dating back to the days of
   Bach remain in existence, and all are unplayable.  But in the meantime
   there are four copies...two of which are owned by Katia and Marielle
   Labeque."

The Labeques and Goebel will be playing Bach on their tour.  Included will
be both of Bach's concertos for three claviers and since there are only two
Silbermanns at disposal the third instrument will be a cembalo (played by
Christian Rieger).  Brembeck is not sure how audiences will react as the
cembalo and the two Silbermanns have different audio qualities.  The
cembalo can cut through the orchestra while the Silbermanns tend to mingle
with it.  "But in the slow movements and in the finali with their many soli
passages the sound of [the Silbermanns] comes into its own...into a world
of sound as yet unheard."

(Tonight the Labeques and Goebel perform here in Munich)

Denis Fodor                             Internet:[log in to unmask]