[rollei_list] Re: OT Pianos

Aaron, at the time I tried to be a serious pianist -a
lot of years ago- I wished to play a Steinway grand
piano, however they were in Buenos Aires and  when I
reached the level to follow my piano studies at the
National Conservatory my life took other way, now I
play a few times per month for my satisfaction only
and for family's parties sometimes, anyway I played a
good 1/4 C.Bechstein grand piano that belonged to my
professor and I also played an excellent Spanish 1/2
grand piano "Ortiz & Cussó" made in Barcelona, it
belongs to our local Municipality and it was signed by
Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Raul Puignó, great
Spanish musicians (composers and concert performers)
on 1905,88 keys; this piano was purchased from the
Barcelona Concert Hall.

Several experts consider some of the Vienesse
Bösendorfer models the bests pianos made today, this
is the website:
http://www.boesendorfer.com/_english_version/index.html

Anyway the Grotrian/Steinweg/Steinway made in
Braunschweig is an outstanding piano too.

All the best
Carlos



   
  
 --- Aaron Reece <oboeaaron@xxxxxxx> escribió:

>       Two of the best pianos I have ever played were
> Hamburg Steinways.  
> One was a recent model purchased brand-new for a
> music school I was  
> attending and the other was a factory-reconditioned
> 1898 model B (I  
> think) purchased in Vienna by a faculty member and
> shipped to the  
> USA. It was like playing melted chocolate. It must
> have been one of  
> the last to have only 85 keys - the top A#, B, and C
> are not present.  
> It's very strange playing one of these if you are
> used to the  
> "standard" 88-key keyboard.
> 
>       The Hamburg instruments seem to have a rounder
> tone, maybe a little  
> smaller (though I did not think so) and sweeter than
> the American  
> Steinways. A lot of American Steinways seem to me to
> have a  
> disagreeable, "brassy" tone and a clunky action that
> makes it  
> impossible to do a real pianissimo. But this may be
> due more to the  
> huge number of them out there and the large
> variation among piano  
> technicians' abilities.
> 
>       Unfortunately I never got to play the Bösendorfer
> Imperial Grand at  
> my alma mater. That one was kept under *very* tight
> supervision. Even  
> doctoral piano candidates had to appeal to the
> powers that be to play  
> it on their recitals. This 11-ft. piano has extra
> keys at the bottom  
> to get it down to E-flat below the normal low A.
> Since pianists can  
> get confused seeing the extra keys in their
> peripheral vision, there  
> is a flap that can be lowered to hide the extra
> keys. I was told that  
> the extra notes were there mostly to provide
> additional sympathetic  
> vibration (more resonance) when the dampers were
> raised, rather than  
> being put there to actually be played on. La Monte
> Young wrote a five- 
> hour piece called "The Well-Tuned Piano" in which
> the Bösendorfer is  
> tuned in extended just intonation in E-flat,
> presumably to take  
> advantage of that feature of the instrument.
> 
> Best regards,
> Aaron
> 
> On Aug 31, 2006, at 9:29 AM, Eric Goldstein wrote:
> 
> > But what about the German Steinways?
> 
> 



        
        
                
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