Useless Piano Trivia

[piano_learner]

If I invented the Piano it would begin and end on the same note. So why does a Piano begin on 'A' and end on 'C'? I asked my Piano teacher and she didn't know why. She also added that she can't remember the last time she even played those bottom notes!?

Why are they there and are those few semitones really needed?

[allchopin]

The Bosendorfer Imperial Grand does start on C and end on C.  What an idea!

[xvimbi]

The compass of the keyboard slowly grew over the centuries. The largest compass that one can easily buy is the one found on the high-end Bösendorfers (96 keys). One reason for such excess is that there are indeed composers who used those pitches, particularly modern composers. A second reason is that having extra keys adds immensly to the sympathetic resonance when the dampers are relesaed, which will result in a much fuller and richer sound. The question whether one ever plays those keys is a good one. In fact, the extra keys on the Bösendorfers are usually either covered or painted black so that regular pianists don't get confused.

Check out:

https://www.uk-piano.org/history/compass.html

https://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectures/conklin/conklin.html#top

[squinchy]

The person who invented the piano also invented the mechanical pencil.  

[dinosaurtales]

The Bosendorfer Imperial Grand does start on C and end on C.  What an idea!

Ah yes!  That's right!  Those extra notes.  So is it confusing having them there?  I would think so.

BTW, I am working on Prokofiev's Suggestion Diabolique - which uses those bottom notes!

[DarkWind]

Ravel's La Valse uses the lowest A... And B flat... Simultaneously!  

[allchopin]

Those notes are essentially useless.. too low for the ear to be able to interpret and make a piece sound bad generally.  Brahms and Liszt get away with it but it's really superfluous - the Imperial Grand has no special value because of these notes, as few pieces use these (the Suggestion is the first I've heard, actually).

[Motrax]

Well, the extra strings are there for resonance, not for being played. They do indeed sound pretty terrible. The lowest C on the Bosendorfer doesn't sound like it has a pitch at all.

But it's a nice piano anyway.

[xvimbi]

Well, the extra strings are there for resonance, not for being played. They do indeed sound pretty terrible. The lowest C on the Bosendorfer doesn't sound like it has a pitch at all.

How can something have a sound, but no pitch? Sounds like a riddle.

The extra keys are obviously there for being played, otherwise there wouldn't be keys attached to them And they give me the Heeby Jiebies, they are awsome, like those low registers on organs.

For the resonance aspect, check out the Klavins piano:

https://www.klavins-pianos.com/

There is a sample of the Bach-Busoni Chaconne. It's absolutely stunning.

[jlh]

BTW, I am working on Prokofiev's Suggestion Diabolique - which uses those bottom notes!

I'm also currently working on Suggestion Diabolique... don't forget the gliss on measures 109-110 that uses the top C on the piano.  =)

[dinosaurtales]

That's right!  That piece "almost" uses the whole piano!  I've never had to reach the whole thing from end to end before!  Fun!

[Nightscape]

I don't think I've ever played a piece that used the highest and lowest notes.
  I know that L'isle Joyeuse uses the lowest and highest As (almost right back to back) and Jeux Deau also has a large range.  Mabye I'll check out that prokofiev piece for myself.

[super_ardua]

 I've seen pianos which begin on A and end on A

[Spatula]

I always wondered if a piano would have sub-flats and sub-sharps.

Like a half of a semi tone would be a quatertone.  Now imagine the types of music that could come out of that!   

[sharon_f]

Tcherepnin's Bagatelles Op.5 use the highest and lowest keys on the standard piano, though not in the same bagatelle. The highest C is used in #1 and again in #10 and the lowest A is in #7.

[thomas_williams]

I always wondered if a piano would have sub-flats and sub-sharps.

Like a half of a semi tone would be a quatertone.  Now imagine the types of music that could come out of that!   

Some composers have written microtonal music, meaning that it uses intervals such as quarter tones.  Special instruments (of various kinds) have been made for the performance of such music, including, I think, some keyboard instruments.  (Of course there are electronic keyboard instruments that can do this in addition to conventional ones.)  Some composers have also written music in which the piano is to be tuned in some other unconventional manner.  Lou Harrison wrote a piano concerto in which, if I remember correctly, the white keys are tuned in Just Intonation, while the black keys are tuned by the Pythagorean system.

[benji]

For the resonance aspect, check out the Klavins piano:

https://www.klavins-pianos.com/

There is a sample of the Bach-Busoni Chaconne. It's absolutely stunning.

Wow.  Just listen to those low notes!

[Rach3]

A concert pianist I've met complained about the extended Bosendorfers, because he was rehearsing a modern chamber piece which had some fiendish lower-register leaps and it was disorienting to have the extra keys where there should be solid wood.

Btw everyone should be familiar with the passage where the bottom A appears in the 3rd. mov of rach 3... awesome passage.

[Floristan]

Brahms, Op 118, No. 1 uses the lowest A.

[gerry]

A concert pianist I've met complained about the extended Bosendorfers, because he was rehearsing a modern chamber piece which had some fiendish lower-register leaps and it was disorienting to have the extra keys where there should be solid wood.

Btw everyone should be familiar with the passage where the bottom A appears in the 3rd. mov of rach 3... awesome passage.

Ummm...the Bosie225s have a hinged ebony flap that covers the keys up to the A so that one doesn't have that problem - I don't know about the larger models.

[richard black]

A few pieces are notated for lower notes than the usual bottom A of most pianos. I can't remember any offhand but I can think of two that arguably should be - the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, right at the end, and the Dohnanyi 3rd Rhapsody, somewhere in the middle. Both could use a bottom G. The only time I can recall hearing a bottom C on a Bösendorfer Imperial was when Ronald Stevenson tried it out at the end of Busoni's Epilogue from An die Jugend. He played it very quietly on the upbeat to the final chord, which seemed a rather lovely effect in a generous church acoustic.

Some Bösendorfers have a flap over the bottom notes, some not: some have them coloured black instead of white. The only other makes know of that extend beyond A at the bottom are Petrof and Erard - I've seen an ancient (1890-ish at a guess) Erard grand with a bottom G.

[mattgreenecomposer]

I can think of 50 pieces which use the bottom notes.  Even intermediate repertoire. like Greigs lyric piece "Butterfly."  But I must say I cant think of many things that use the top 2 or 3 notes. 

[quantum]

Coda of Scriabin 6th sonata uses the D above the highest C. 

Debussy - Les collines d'Anacapri uses the top 3 black keys. 

[jlh]

Prokofiev Suggestion Diabolique uses the highest C and nearly all the lower notes as well.

[goldentone]

The section leading into the "grandioso" theme in Liszts's Sonata uses the last A.  (Fun part).

[invictious]

Looks like those extreme low notes are perfect for modern classical composers :p
You can play a piece down there with plenty of mistakes, and it'd still sound right..

I want one of those pianos now..

Does anyone have a picture of those Bosendorfer beasts? (not alliteration, creates a sense of rhythm, along with the minor plosive effect..like bashing the low notes...)

[gerry]

Their Website has pix  bosendorfer.com

[quantum]

The black keys:

[richard black]

I once played a song by Castelnuovo-Tedesco that ends on a top C, alone (after a rather lovely slow arpeggio in C major). Damn thing forced my choice between two pianos in the church where the concert happened to be: there was a really nice old Broadwood on which that one note (only) didn't work, but I had to use the unusually unpleasant Kawai which had a full complement of 88.

[retrouvailles]

In Ginastera's 2nd Piano Concerto, at the end of the second movement, which is for left hand alone, the pianist plays a rapid chromatic scale starting from the bottom A all the way up to the highest C, covering all 88 keys. That concerto is beyond amazing.

[gerry]

If I my memeory serves me well (not always the case) there's an Ives song where the accompaniment consists only of a slow chormatic crawl from high c to low a.

[gerry]

On further thought it could be the other way around, in any case I think the piano crawled in the opposite direction of the singer - it was a very clever effect. It's been a while since I heard it - there was a brief surge of Ives mania during the 1976 celebrations.

[jlh]

Rach 2nd sonata uses the lowest A... 

[retrouvailles]

Rach 2nd sonata uses the lowest A... 

An innumerable amount of pieces do.

About the Ives, I got out my book of his 114 songs. I skimmed through it and didn't find it. Are you sure it was Ives? On the other hand, I could have passed right over it, for I did skim quite quickly.

[jlh]

An innumerable amount of pieces do.

The Prokofiev Toccata uses the lowest A...     

[soliloquy]

That's right!  That piece "almost" uses the whole piano!  I've never had to reach the whole thing from end to end before!  Fun!

Hehe plenty of pieces use the top and bottom keys at the same time.  Not gonna get into Xenakis or anything like that, but what about the Rzewski NAB4 or some of Kurtag's Jatekok?

[retrouvailles]

In Liebermann's 1st Piano Concerto, near the middle of the 1st movement, the pianist has to execute two octave glisses, with the left hand starting on the lowest B and the right hand on the highest B, and they come toward the middle and meet.

[pianochick93]

Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King almost uses the bottom note, if I can remember correctly, it uses the lowest B.