While looks is not insignificant, a pleasant, long-lasting resonance is everything! Today, I’ll give you an update of the restoration process of my Dörr piano from 1830. A tricky choice: Durability or good looks? No matter how beautiful its appearance, a piano is useless if you cannot tune it properly. While many elements of an …
#13: Canadian Maple – for pin blocks and all things durable Les mer »
Loads of thick books on the history of the piano have been written. Here is a short version! Cristofori and the world’s first pianos Around 1720, the Italian Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) invented the ’gravicembalo col piano e forte’ – harpsichord with soft and loud. By replacing the plectra of the harpsichord with small hammers (thus …
What happens when a violin goes to the ‘doctor’? If you have read my blog posts about piano restoration, perhaps you would also be interested in knowing how a violin survives for centuries? The truth is that even a violin needs to go through some maintenance operations once in a while. In this post, I …
How much do you love your piano? And for how long are you going to love it…? For one year? Two years? A hundred years? Two hundred years…? Today, I want to introduce you to a little gem of a ‘Tastenfreund’ (keyboard friend) – a small instrument that show countless marks of having been loved …
Last week, I introduced you to one of the world’s few playable square pianos by Christian Baumann of Zweibrücken. The piano was built in 1777, and now belongs to the Beurmann collection in Hamburg. Check out last week’s post to hear me play it! In this post, I want to discuss how this instrument is, …
As a salute the fabulous instrument makers of the 17th and 18th centuries, I would like to make a series of keyboard portraits whenever I can. The selection will simply depend on where I am and which instruments I get a chance to record. Here is the first one – a true gem from the …
The time has come to inspect the part which is really crucial to the sound and feel of the piano: The action, or mechanic, of the keyboard. How did it look like in 1830? And why are some hammers lazier than others? An onstage almost-catastrophe First, I want to tell you a true story. As …
While a modern grand most often wears a shiny, black coat, my Dörr fortepiano has a flowing mane. Dormant behind the ancient walnut trees, a golden lion stares at me! Do you see it? The veneer of early 19th-century pianos The veneer is one of a piano’s most striking visual elements. An excellent choice of …
How can a nearly 200 years old piano be brought back to its initial appearance? Can one hope to restore even its original sound? The aim of my purchase of this fortepiano by Daniel Dörr from c.1830, is certainly to get as close to its original state, while keeping as much as possible of its …
I just love trees! And I love residents of trees (especially squirrels) and products of trees (especially pianos). Accidentally, this week’s blog post will be about all these things. This week, I finally visited the wood workshop where my new, old piano is currently being restored. You may scroll down to get to the piano …