Fortepiano—forte means loud, piano means soft—is the instrument of choice for Rachel Heard. It wasn't always so. The Juilliard graduate, with a bachelor's and master's in music, remembers thinking in 1985, "I've gone to this esteemed school; now what do I do?"
Her mother, always an incredible inspiration—she's 85, still has 20 piano students where she lives in Texas, and is currently visiting Scotland—handed her a brochure for a workshop on Beethoven and his piano, saying, "'I don't know what this is exactly, but you should go,' and she gave me the $100 it cost," Heard, 44, recalls.
At that conference, she heard Beethoven's music played on the instrument it was composed for—the fortepiano, a harpsichord-sized instrument with 60 keys instead of 88 that had evolved with hammers striking the strings, allowing musicians to produce louds and softs, thereby the name of the instrument. Heard remembers, "It gave me a whole new color in my ear, a new sound." The music she says she was struggling with, knowing that something was out of place performing it on the modern piano, finally made sense to her. She earned a doctorate of musical arts degree, specializing in the 18th century fortepiano, from Rutgers in 1992.
Sitting along the outer wall of the master bedroom in the Woodland Hills home Heard shares with her husband Lynn Raley and their 5-and-a-half-year old daughter Gillian, is an exact replica of a 1795 Viennese five-octave fortepiano, made for Heard in 1992 by Thomas and Barbara Wolf of Washington, D. C.
"It was my best friend, before my husband," Heard said, smiling. She and Raley have been married for nine years, moving to Jackson two years ago when Raley joined the Millsaps Performing Arts faculty; Heard is also a member of the faculty, teaching modern piano.
Raley's parents live in Clinton, so it was a natural move, plus they like the metropolitan area. Heard told me: "It's a big city but a small town, [so] you get to know a lot more people. We've found some good spirits here."
One really wonderful surprise, Heard said, was the discovery of the early music concert series in Jackson sponsored by the Mississippi Academy of Ancient Music. "For people to hear music on the instruments they were to be performed on, that's not found everywhere. Jackson has a jewel in MA'AM." Since 1983 MA'AM has brought to Jackson some of the finest international names on the early music scene. Heard said: "People can be very much charged by what this music has to say, just as we are still by Shakespeare's plays."
The beauty of Heard's fortepiano lends itself to being merely decorative. What a sin it would be to never hear the glorious sound Heard brings to life, seated at the keyboard, bent forward slightly, her shoulder-length hair falling alongside her face. Her fingers fly across the keyboard, the hammers strike the steel strings, and music as it was intended is heard.
Sponsored by MA'AM, Heard plays four sonatas by Bach, Haydn and Mozart, Sept. 28, 7:30 p.m., at St. Philip's Episcopal Church, 5400 Old Canton Rd., 852-4848.
The Mississippi Academy of Ancient Music Concerts Sept. 28, 7:30 p.m. Rachel Heard of Millsaps presents Mozart, Bach, and Haydn fortepiano. St. Philips Episcopal Church. Medieval "Slavic Holiday" music by the Rose Ensemble of Minneapolis. Russian and Eastern European music 12th to 16th centuries, on Nov. 6, 7:30 p.m. St. Philips Episcopal Church. 5400 Old Canton Rd. $10, $5 students. 601-852-4848.
www.millsaps.edu
www.roseensemble.org
www.revolvingpaintdream.com/ancientmusic
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