It’s not every day that a fortepiano comes to town, so Bach Collegium San Diego’s Saturday concert featuring Sylvia Berry was an event worth attending. It was a treat to hear the distinct timbre of this predecessor to the modern grand piano played in a sympathetic venue like All Souls’ Episcopal Church.

Berry brought a six-octave instrument modeled on the Viennese fortepianos that Anton Walter made. Mozart and Haydn both owned a Walter fortepiano, and Beethoven wished for one.

It was highly appropriate then for Berry‘s concert to focus on Mozart and Beethoven. She was joined by BCSD stalwarts Andrew McIntosh on violin, Andrew Waid on viola, and Heather Vorwerck on cello, with guest soprano Stefanie Moore.

Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in F major, op. 5, no. 1 and Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478, anchored the program, closing the first and second halves. These familiar pieces take on markedly different characters when the string instruments use gut strings played with no vibrato, heard with the fortepiano.

There are no copper-wound strings in a Walter fortepiano. There is more uniformity of tone than a modern grand, but less volume and a more metallic sound, somewhat like a hammered dulcimer played with a soft mallet.

An una corda mechanism shifted the keyboard hammers over to omit one string across the instrument’s range, activated by a knee lever. This had a rather startling contrast in tone compared to the “soft pedal” on modern instruments.

Modern pianos can overpower the strings in Mozart’s Piano Quartet, but fortepiano and strings here were equal partners. Berry, McIntosh, Waid, and Vorwerck captured the drama and the grace in Mozart, and Berry and Vorwerck brought out the energy and geniality of Beethoven’s Sonata.

Berry opened her program with two deep cuts. Mozart’s “Modulating Prelude” was composed in his early 20s. It is a notated example of the type of extemporizing keyboardists did to lead into a written composition. It’s far more chromatic and impulsive than his other youthful works.

Fortepianist Sylvia Berry, violinist Andrew McIntosh, violist Andrew Waid and cellist Heather Vorwerck perform for Bach Collegium San Diego on June 3 at All Souls’ Episcopal Church in San Diego.

(Courtesy of Gary Pane)

Beethoven’s early work, the Adagio from the Sonatina in C major, Wo 51 was less interesting, but charming nevertheless. By comparison, his Bagatelle Op. 33, no. 7 displayed his trademark syncopations, obsessive repetition of material, and witty surprises, including a brilliant fortissimo to pianissimo “una corda” passage.

McIntosh joined Berry for a “Pastiche Sonata” cobbled together from movements by Johan Schobert, Luigi Boccherini, and Johann Christian Bach. All three movements were from works designated as “Sonatas for keyboard and violin,” with the emphasis on the keyboard part.

The most revelatory of the three was Schobert’s Allegro assai from his Sonata in D minor, Op. 14, no. 4. Eight-year-old Mozart met Schobert in Paris when he was on tour with his family, and Schobert’s sonatas had an influence on his later works. It’s typical enough for the second theme of a D minor sonata to be in F major, but then Schobert unexpectedly plunges into F minor for an extended time before returning to F major before the exposition closes.

Following intermission, Moore’s clear, pleasant soprano voice enhanced Mozart’s four songs in German: “The Violet,” “Song of Separation,” “When Luisa burned the letters of her unfaithful lover,” and “To Chloe.” Mozart used different musical styles to underline the stories (pastoral music appears to herald a shepherdess in “The Violet”), and his theatrical tone painting in the piano accompaniment looked ahead to Schubert’s songs. Berry provided admirable support.

The performances throughout were informed and delightful. The standing ovation at the conclusion was a well-earned accolade from those present.

Hertzog is a freelance writer.