Why are there three pedals on the piano, when we have only two feet? Revered American fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, a pioneer in the historic performance movement, talks with Tom about how the movement took off in the 1970s, when he made his beloved recordings of the John Eliot Gardner series of Mozart piano concertos on fortepiano. 

Contrary to a commonly held perception of two kinds of pianos—period and modern—the fortepiano evolved as much from the mid-17th to the mid 18th century as the modern piano did over the century that followed, with each mechanical “improvement” affecting interpretation and the resulting sound.