yeah! And yet pianos sound terrible when you play them like harpsichords—and this is true whether you're mimicking bad harpsichord playing or good harpsichord playing. The whole point of a piano is dynamic variation, and it sounds good if and only if you use its capabilities. Bach would have agreed.
Yes… so much performance practice is dictated by the instruments themselves. It’s dang near impossible to play strings or woodwinds w terrace dynamics, and it’s weird to try. I don’t know about baroque organs… did they have swell shades, or were dynamics dictated by registration?
I just have to step in to say that organs and harpsichords sound great when playing Baroque music because the dynamics are built into the composition and the player utilizes articulation and timing (and stops) as expressive elements. 1/3
And these instruments, while not able to produce a pianistic cresc. and dim., have such clarity of timbre that they actually highlight built-in compositional dynamics and layers (e.g. dissonance vs consonance, thick vs thin, fast vs slow harmonic rhythm, etc.) 2/3
And thus, the best way for a pianist to accomplish the same thing that happens naturally on organ and harpsichord is WITH dynamic shading and voicing (plus sensitive articulation & scant damper ped). Thus, dynamic shading helps with a Baroque “aesthetic” rather than adding a foreign element 3/3
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Some people definitely used to advocate for Baroque string music to be played with terraced dynamics—I agree, it's unnatural-sounding.