Old pianos

[hellymedic]

Those with space, money and interest might wish to know of an auction this coming Thursday.

That Pleyel Double Grand (Lot 19) seems lush!

https://auctions.dreweatts.com/auctions/7939/drewea1-10248

[Wowbagger]

An amazing instrument! The woman sitting at the piano in one of the photos is Madeleine Malraux. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Malraux

[hellymedic]

Indeed. If you download the full catalogue, there's much more about the piano's provenance & Madame Malraux.

Some of the other instruments are pretty special.

Might be fun just to watch the bidding online…

D tells me the last double Pleyel went at MUCH more than expected so this might do the same. I would need a BIG home and a stream of pianists...

[Wowbagger]

That is rather lovely, and makes me a bit wistful: my Bechstein, now resident in Maidstone with my daughter, would have looked exactly like that at one time. Sadly, before I bought it in 1978, the dealer covered all that beauty in black polyester - probably because that's a cheap and quick way of making an old piano presentable, whereas a good French polish requires a craftsman. The one in that photo is from 1896. Mine is from 1891.

I was in conversation with a dealer a few years ago and he reckoned that it was much easier to sell a glossy black piano than any other colour. We were at the Conway Hall auctions at the time and he pointed at a very shiny Boston piano (made by Steinway) and said "That one would fly out the door, even though it sounds like a bag of spanners."

[pcolbeck]

That's really lovely WoW. Wish we had room for one.

[Wowbagger]

I've recently found out that Marcus Roberts, from whom I bought my piano, has recently opened a showroom in Houston, Texas. That's quite ambitious for someone I would have thought would be pretty close to selling up and retiring. I think he's a year or two younger than I am. His British showroom is in Oxford, although he did have a second one in Kent that he closed a few years ago.

[Mr Larrington]

He won’t need to sell people humidifiers to go with their joannas there.

[Wowbagger]

https://www.robertspianos.com/ldetails.php?RP=2220404&make=Bosendorfer&model=Imperial

It's not that old, but it's certainly a piano. Wonderful instrument, the Bösendorfer Imperial. 97 keys compared to the more normal 88, apparently designed because Busoni wanted to transcribe Bach organ fugues and 88 keys just weren't enough.

It's rather sad that regulations force Marcus Roberts to replace the ivory keys with plastic ones because it was manufactured after 1975. I wonder why he wasn't obliged to replace them when he bought it from whoever?

I played one in the Bösendorfer Vienna showroom a few years ago (2019?) when Jan and I spent a few days out there. Slightly offputting because the 9 extra keys are at the bass clef end and that means middle C is to the right of the centre of the piano rather than being slap bang in the middle.

[Wowbagger]

It's 6 years ago today that my Blüthner arrived.

Here's me playing the gigue from J. S. Bach's B flat partita. I'd forgotten I'd recorded that. Not too many slips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TevZVX6x5mM&ab_channel=wowbagger1954

To see it done properly, see Grigory Sokolov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlvNKc5pYrk&ab_channel=PianoLibrary

[sam]

Yeah but Grigory doesn't have a bike in the background.

[hellymedic]

It's 6 years ago today that my Blüthner arrived.

Here's me playing the gigue from J. S. Bach's B flat partita. I'd forgotten I'd recorded that. Not too many slips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TevZVX6x5mM&ab_channel=wowbagger1954

To see it done properly, see Grigory Sokolov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlvNKc5pYrk&ab_channel=PianoLibrary

As posted elsewhere, it's 7 years today since D's Kawai arrived.

[Wowbagger]

Yeah but Grigory doesn't have a bike in the background.

That bike is now in Finland.