When a pianist sits down to play Mozart, how different does it sound to the original rendition?
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Well that depends on the piano they're playing it on. For the students at the Australian National University School of Music, it turns out that it's not that different.
The university has a collection of historical keyboard instruments - some of which date back to the 1700s - as well as replica instruments from the same period. What's more, while similar collections are kept under lock and key, the ANU's collection is open for any piano student to come and play.
"If they're playing something by Mozart, this is the sort of piano that Mozart would have played on, or for early Beethoven, this is the sort of piano that he would have had or even Schumann or someone like that," School of Music deputy head Scott Davie said.
"They can come up here and play these instruments, because there's no other way to get information on how they sound and how they feel. And there are things you discover like on a modern piano, you might be thinking, this doesn't seem to work quite well, why did the composer write it like that? And then you play it on a period instruments and it all makes sense."
There are a few differences between the modern piano and its 1700s predecessors. Firstly, and most notably, the sound is different.
Visually the keys are opposite colours, as well as being shorter and sometimes narrower as well. And in some instances, the foot pedals have been replaced with levers operated by the pianist's knees.
"Some pianists can sort of adapt almost immediately to the historical instruments, others find it really disconcerting," Dr Davie said.
"It's also how it feels. I'm a modern pianist, I play these instruments really only as an amateur. On a modern piano, you've got a press quite hard to make the keys go down and do all sorts of things.
"Whereas on these instruments, you just have to touch them, and they go down easy. So you've got to do the opposite of modernise your piano playing to get it to work to the best efficiency."
Some of the instruments will be in the collection as part of School of Music's Piano Week, which runs from August 8 to 11. August 10's Friends Historical Instruments Showcase Concert will see Dr Davie and other early music experts perform on historical instruments.
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"They don'sound like a normal piano, it actually sounds quite bizarre to our modern ears," Dr Davies said.
Other events included in Piano Week include concerts from the Herscovitch Piano Duo, the Neeman Piano Duo and Roy Howat. For the full program go to music.cass.anu.edu.au.
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