Tübinger Hammerklavier Tage 2: 19–20 June 2026
In June 2026, the Musicology Institute of the University of Tübingen will host a special exhibition and symposium devoted to the history of keyboard instruments. The focus will be on the early piano and its many historical forms. Curated by Anders Muskens, the exhibition brings together instruments from his own collection and from the Tübingen Musicology Institute.
The exhibition presents the piano as a changing family of instruments. Its history was shaped by taste, technology, markets, social ideals, and musical life. It traces a path from earlier keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord and clavichord, to the many kinds of pianos used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These include square pianos, grand pianos, and other experimental designs.
The exhibition opens onto a wide landscape of pianistic cultures. It touches on domestic music-making, the salon, the rise of bourgeois musical life, and the role of women as performers, composers, teachers, and hosts. It also considers the competition between builders, the emergence of national schools of piano construction, and the material histories of empire, trade, labour, and technological innovation that made these instruments possible.
A central theme of the exhibition is that much of the most important piano music was written before the modern piano existed. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and many others composed for instruments very different from the modern concert grand. Seeing and hearing these earlier instruments helps us approach the sound worlds, social spaces, and expressive ideals for which this music was first imagined.
The exhibition is accompanied by the Tübinger Hammerklavier Tage, a symposium organized by Anders Muskens. The symposium brings together internationally recognized fortepiano specialists, performers, scholars, and students. Across two days, the programme includes concerts, lecture-recitals, student and alumni performances from HMDK Stuttgart, and a round table discussion on the future of the fortepiano.
The symposium brings together a number of special guests, including Andrew Willis, Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Stefania Neonato, Professor of Fortepiano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart; Hong Yu Wong from the University of Tübingen; and Krisztina Orbán from the University of Tübingen. The programme also features performances by students and alumni from the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, including Julio Pasquali, Pedro Sperandio, Luise Kallmeyer, Angie Agudelo, and Violeta Mur.
The symposium explores historical keyboard instruments as musical, cultural, and scholarly objects. How do different instruments shape interpretation? What happens when Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Clementi, or C. P. E. Bach are played on instruments closer to those of their own time? How do touch, resonance, register, pedal effects, and instrumental colour alter our understanding of style, expression, and musical rhetoric?
By placing historical instruments at the centre of performance and discussion, the symposium creates a meeting point between musicology, organology, historical performance, and practical musicianship. It offers visitors a rare opportunity to hear these instruments and to reflect on the musical cultures that produced them.
Tübinger Hammerklavier Tage
Full Schedule
Friday, 19 June 2026
Location: Musicology Institute, Schulberg 2, Pfleghof, 72070 Tübingen, Germany
18:00–18:30
Opening Addresses
Dr. Gundula Schäfer-Vogel, Cultural Mayor of Tübingen
Prof. Dr. Morent, Head of the Musicology Institute
Anders Muskens
18:30–19:00
Short Opening Recital
Anders Muskens, harpsichord and fortepiano
Location: Main Stage
19:00–20:00
Lecture: Atmospheres and the Aesthetics of Musical Style
Hong Yu Wong, Tübingen
Krisztina Orbán, Tübingen
Anders Muskens, Tübingen
20:00–22:00
Recital from HMDK Stuttgart Students and Alumni
Pedro Sperandio, fortepiano
Luise Kallmeyer, violin
Angie Agudelo, violin and viola
Violeta Mur, cello
Location: Main Stage
Programme
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
Sonata for Piano and Violin in G major, K. 379 (1781)
Adagio – Allegro – Theme and Variations: Andantino cantabile – Adagio – Allegretto
Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 5 No. 2 (1796)
Adagio sostenuto ed espressivo – Allegro molto più tosto presto – Rondo: Allegro
Intermission
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
Sonata for Piano and Violin in B-flat major, K. 454 (1784)
Largo – Allegro – Andante – Allegretto
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478 (1785)
Allegro – Andante – Rondo: Allegro moderato
Saturday, 20 June 2026
Location: Musicology Institute, Schulberg 2, Pfleghof, 72070 Tübingen, Germany
10:00–11:00
Opening Remarks and Lecture-Recital: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Keyboard Instruments and the Affectivity of the Sturm und Drang Cultural Phenomenon
Anders Muskens, Tübingen
Location: Chapel
11:00–12:00
Lecture-Recital: Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata
Julio Pasquali, Stuttgart
Location: Main Stage
12:00–13:30
Lunch Break
13:30–15:00
Recital: Haydn, Mozart, and Clementi
Andrew Willis, Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Location: Main Stage
Programme
Joseph Haydn
Sonata in G major, Hob. XVI:6 (before 1766)
Allegro – Minuet and Trio – Adagio – Finale: Allegro molto
Muzio Clementi
Prelude in the Style of Mozart, from Musical Characteristics, Op. 19 (1787)
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
Sonata in F major, K. 533 (1786–88)
Allegro – Andante – Rondo: Allegretto
Intermission
Muzio Clementi
Prelude in the Style of Haydn, from Musical Characteristics, Op. 19 (1787)
Joseph Haydn
Fantasia in C major, Hob. XVII:4 (1789)
Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1 (1793–95)
Allegro – Adagio – Menuetto: Allegretto – Prestissimo
15:00–16:00
Lecture-Recital
Stefania Neonato, Professor of Fortepiano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart
Location: Main Stage
16:00–17:00
Round Table Discussion: The Future of Fortepiano
Anders Muskens, Tübingen
Stefania Neonato, Professor of Fortepiano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart
Andrew Willis, Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Location: Main Stage
Guided Tours of the Exhibition
Guided tours of the exhibition will be given by Anders Muskens at the following times:
Wednesday, 17 June 2026
17:30
Sunday, 21 June 2026
12:00
13:30
15:00