Malcolm Bilson (born October 24, 1935) is an American pianist and musicologist specializing in 18th- and 19th-century music. He is the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Bilson is one of the foremost players and teachers of the fortepiano; this is the ancestor of the modern piano and was the instrument used in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven's time.
Bilson was born in Los Angeles, California. His family was and is successful in the entertainment world: his father, George Bilson (1902–1981), was a British producer/writer/director of Ashkenazi Jewish extraction originally from Leeds, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and his older brother Bruce Bilson had a long and productive career as a film and television director; other relations (descendants of Bruce) are his nephew Danny Bilson and grandniece Rachel Bilson. [lower-alpha 1]
Malcolm Bilson graduated from Bard College in 1957. [lower-alpha 2] He continued his studies with Grete Hinterhofer at the Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Berlin, later with Reine Gianoli at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. He studied for a doctoral degree at the University of Illinois with Stanley Fletcher and Webster Aitken, obtaining his DMA in 1968. [lower-alpha 2] At that time he was appointed as an assistant professor at Cornell.
Arguably the key event in Bilson's career was his first encounter with the fortepiano in 1969, which he narrated to Andrew Willis in a 2006 interview. Interested in historical pianos, he had bought a 19th-century instrument, described to him as a "Mozart piano," and was referred to Philip Belt, an expert on early pianos, about the possibility of restoring it:
I wrote Belt and sent some pictures, and Belt wrote back that yes, he could do that, but [my piano] wasn't at all a piano from Mozart's time. And as a matter of fact, he had just built such a piano, after Louis Dulcken, c. 1785, and he wanted to take it around to show at colleges and music schools. So I said fine, bring it, and I'll play a concert on it. He brought it and left it for a week, and I played an all-Mozart concert ... with K. 330 and the B minor Adagio and the Kleine Gigue, [as well as] the G minor piano quartet with some modern string players at 440. [lower-alpha 3] [1]
In preparing for this concert, Bilson was startled by the challenges—and opportunities—that playing a fortepiano poses to a traditionally-trained pianist (fortepianos have a far more delicate touch, shallower key dip, lighter framing, and shorter sustain time than modern grands.)
I have to admit now that I really couldn't handle the thing at all. I must be the least gifted person for the job; my hands are too big, and I don't have the necessary technique such an instrument required. In trying to operate this light, precise mechanism, I really felt like an elephant in a china closet. But I kept at it all week and practiced hard and after several days began to notice that I was actually playing what was on the page. What I had been doing before was simply playing legato and pedaling through. I saw the slurs, but, of course, I didn't want to create hiccups, which can happen so easily on the modern piano. Suddenly I found that I really didn't need much pedal and that the articulative pauses actually made the music more expressive. [lower-alpha 4] At the concert at the end of that first week, which was absolutely filled to overflowing, there was great enthusiasm. Nobody had ever seen such a thing. I thought to myself that this was an opportunity to do something useful with my talents. This was in 1969, and I decided to buy one of these pianos and to seriously pursue playing it. For several years I took the instrument [also by Belt] around and played it in colleges and small venues. It was, of course, viewed as a curiosity back then, and some people thought I was a bit crazy. I knew I was doing something fringe-y, but I also thought it was important and worth doing because there were aspects of this music that nobody could hear any more. [1]
The career shift ultimately proved successful; Bilson developed a reputation as a fortepiano performer, gave concerts widely and was also invited to make recordings (see below). In 1974, he co-founded the Amadé Trio with violinist Sonya Monosoff and cellist John Hsu; the trio performed works on historical instruments.
Bilson was promoted to full professor in 1976 and was appointed to the Frederick J. Whiton chair in 1990. [lower-alpha 2]
Bilson retired in 2006 as a professor, [2] remaining active as a teacher and performer.
In 2011, Bilson brought the first fortepiano competition to the United States. Coordinated under the Westfield Center, with a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the competition and academy were held at Cornell University; 31 young musicians from all over the world competed for prize money totaling $13,500.
Bilson created a DVD, "Knowing the Score," which questions many of the basic concepts of musical performance taught in conservatories and music schools around the world, specifically, the lack of adherence to notated articulations and assumptions about the length of rhythmic values. He followed up this DVD with two more: "Performing the Score," with violinist Elizabeth Field, and "Knowing the Score, Vol. 2."
Bilson has published several articles on the subject of interpreting late 18th- and early 19th-century compositions by Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven in Early Music and Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae.
Fortepiano builder Carey Beebe assesses Bilson's influence as follows: [3]
Malcolm Bilson, who began after 'the Father of the Fortepiano', Phil[ip] Belt, dropped around one of his first reproduction instruments to try, still provides great impetus to modern makers. His Fortepiano Summer Schools in the 1980s were an inspiration, and many of the musicians who attended those schools, along with his Doctoral graduates, have spread the word around the globe. Bilson's DG Archiv recordings of the complete Mozart Concerti were a milestone.
The main-belt asteroid 7387 Malbil, discovered 1982, is named in his honor. [4]
In 1994 Bilson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. [5]
In 2015 he was awarded the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit for his contribution to Hungarian intellectual and cultural life. [6]
Publications by Malcolm Bilson:
The Classical period was an era of classical music between roughly 1750 and 1820.
A fortepiano[ˌfɔrteˈpjaːno], sometimes referred to as a pianoforte, is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1698 up to the early 19th century. Most typically, however, it is used to refer to the mid-18th to early-19th century instruments, for which composers of the Classical era, especially Haydn, Mozart, and the younger Beethoven and Hummel, wrote their piano music.
Vladimir Oskarovich Feltsman (Russian: Владимир Оскарович Фельцман, Vladimir Oskarovič Feltsman is a Russian-American classical pianist of Lithuanian Jewish descent particularly noted for his devotion to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin.
Robert David Levin is an American classical pianist, musicologist, and composer who served as the artistic director of the Sarasota Music Festival from 2007 to 2017.
Jörg Wolfgang Demus was an Austrian classical pianist who appeared internationally and made many recordings. He was also a composer and a lecturer at music academies. In composition and playing, he focused on chamber music and lieder. He played with singers such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as a piano duo with Paul Badura-Skoda, and with string players such as Josef Suk and Antonio Janigro. Demus was instrumental in bringing the historic fortepiano to concert podiums. He was a member of the Legion of Honour, among many awards. He is regarded as one of the leading Austrian pianists of the immediate post-World War II era.
Paul Badura-Skoda was an Austrian pianist.
The modern form of the piano, which emerged in the late 19th century, is a very different instrument from the pianos for which earlier classical piano literature was originally composed. The modern piano has a heavy metal frame, thick strings made of top-grade steel, and a sturdy action with a substantial touch weight. These changes have created a piano with a powerful tone that carries well in large halls, and which produces notes with a very long sustain time. The contrast with earlier instruments, particularly those of the 18th century is very noticeable. These changes have given rise to interpretive questions and controversies about performing earlier literature on modern pianos, particularly since recent decades have seen the revival of historical instruments for concert use.
Bart van Oort is a Dutch classical pianist.
Steven Lubin is an American pianist and musical scholar. He is best known for his performances on the fortepiano, the early version of the piano.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's concertos for piano and orchestra are numbered from 1 to 27. The first four numbered concertos and three unnumbered concertos are early works that are arrangements of keyboard sonatas by various contemporary composers. Concertos 7 and 10 are compositions for three and two pianos respectively. The remaining twenty-one are original compositions for solo piano and orchestra. These works, many of which Mozart composed for himself to play in the Vienna concert series of 1784–86, held special importance for him.
The Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor, D. 821, was written by Franz Schubert in Vienna in November 1824. The sonata is the only substantial composition for the arpeggione extant today. The sonata was composed in November 1824, about a month after he had returned to Vienna from his second stay in Zseliz. It has been adapted to other string instruments, especially the cello.
Jos Van Immerseel is a Belgian harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.
Alexei Lubimov is a Russian pianist, fortepianist and harpsichordist.
Conrad Graf was an Austrian-German piano maker. His pianos were used by Beethoven, Chopin, and Robert and Clara Schumann, among others.
Gabriel Anton Walter was a builder of pianos. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most famous Viennese piano maker of his time".
Leonard Hokanson was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician.
Paul McNulty is a builder of historical pianos, described by the New Grove as "famous for the high standard of [his] instruments." Within the community of builders, McNulty is noted for his efforts to extend the production of historically informed instruments later into history: while he has built many fortepianos in 18th-century style, he has also progressively sought to span the gap between the fortepiano and the fully modern piano that emerged around the last third of the 19th century. The expanding diversity of McNulty's productions has thus helped "provide an opportunity to extend keyboard performing practice to include the piano repertory of the 19th century".
Sonya Monosoff is a violinist, a pioneer of the Baroque violin and one of the first American performers to use the Baroque violin in performance.
Philip Ralph Belt was a pioneering builder of pianos in historical style, in particular the 18th century instruments commonly called fortepianos. His pianos were modeled on instruments made by historical builders, particularly Johann Andreas Stein and Anton Walter. Belt's pianos played a role in the revival of performance on historical instruments that was an important trend in classical music in the second half of the 20th century and continues to this day.
Kristian Bezuidenhout is an Australian pianist, who specializes in performances on early keyboard instruments.
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