ABSTRACT
The central goal of historically informed performance (HIP) studies is to inform performance, and the repertoire of quintessential Romanticist pianist-composers, Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin, provides both clear windows into their cultural and musical ethos, and direct aesthetic and stylistic challenges in C21st core repertoire. The primary sources concerning Liszt are substantial, from social reminiscences and critical reviews to student pedagogic diaries, while many of Liszt’s later students became celebrated artists of the early recording age. These sources are distilled to provide a summary of Lisztian performance style, as are those of the other great C19th pianist-composer, Chopin. Included is a discussion of the vexed question of Chopin’s approach to rubato. Finally, this chapter concludes with consideration of the differences between C19th pianofortes and the modern design pioneered by Steinway and Chickering, concluding that modern instruments are perfectly capable of the techniques and nuances of Romantic style when played with the earlier soundscapes in mind.
