There are occasions you will encounter four “F’s” or four “P’s” in your musical score and you might wonder how loud or soft can things possibly get?
You will never see markings like this in early period music. In Baroque music there are rarely any dynamics at all and in the few occasions they exist, they are typically just forte (F) and piano (P). Does this mean that early period music was less expressive? There is some truth to that, but there are notable exceptions like George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, certainly later Beethoven Symphonies, and even pipe organ music from the Baroque era since the organ was a fully developed instrument at that time.
The reason for the change in dynamic markings relates partly to the evolution of the instruments. In the Baroque era the piano didn’t even exist. The Harpsichord was the primary keyboard instrument at that time. The harpsichord has a very limited range of expression because there is no touch sensitivity for dynamics. The only way to alter the dynamics on a harpsichord is with a series of stops that engage different sets of strings. Consequently, dynamic markings were severely limited.
Other instruments in the Baroque era had similar limitations to their dynamics. The French horn at that time had no valves. So, the only way to change the pitch of certain notes was by sticking the hand in the bell “stopping” the notes. This too limited dynamic range.
Another element to this is that during the Baroque and Classical eras the orchestras were much smaller. There might only be a couple dozen members in an orchestra during the Baroque era and the early Classical orchestra was only slightly larger.
When you get to the late Romantic period there were huge orchestras sometimes over a hundred musicians. You can only imagine the dynamic range possible in this expanded ensemble. This is where markings like FFFF and PPPP were born as there were substantial capabilities in the dynamic range of the instruments and the orchestra as a whole.
In general, you must consider the style of the specific piece beyond just the era of the work using your judgement on what is appropriate and how the dynamic markings effect the sound of the piece.
Thanks again for joining me, I’m Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729