Listening to Builders

ABSTRACT The most superficially apparent feature of the Historically–Informed Performance movement is the use of “historically-appropriate” instruments. Interest in such instruments has grown alongside the dedication and expertise of instrumental builders and restorers who have performed extensive research on antique instruments. Thanks to their efforts, modern musicians have access to high-quality copies and restored antiques that offer inspiring musical insight. Despite these opportunities, the relationship between players and instrument-builders has not fundamentally changed: the vast majority of musicians lack basic organological knowledge and—in a perhaps telling irony—the close relationship that musicians of the common practice period had with instrument-makers remains anomalous, even amongst HIP-sters. Interviews with six of the world’s foremost fortepiano builders demonstrate the musical and interpretive relevance of organological knowledge by transmitting piano-technical information for the performer, while arguing that builders are an integral part of music-making, as they wrestle with musical and historical topics just as musicians do. With the impressive wealth of knowledge that builders have acquired in the past decades, the time may be ripe for the serious consideration of instruments to become a meaningful and indispensable part of the contemporary interpretive process.