From the vocal model to the pianistic illusion: the techniques of the romantic sound seen as stylistic features

Abstract

Between 1800 and 1840, the piano idiom developed within the framework of a
thought that endows the parameter of sound with an innovative aesthetic and stylistic
dimension. The piano methods published during that period bear testimony to the
importance of the vocal model which invites, perhaps even more than that of the
orchestra, to study the romantic pianism as a technique of illusion. The teaching
strives to convey the corresponding know-how, whose implementation is bound to
the full understanding of the connotative value of musical notation. Three great teachers,
whose works embody the prescriptive effort carried out by the Conservatoire,
delimit the field of this article: Louis Adam (1804), Hélène de Montgeroult (1820),
Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman (1840).