This wonderful old grand piano was made in Vienna in about 1892. It came to the United States not too long ago, and was just recently set up in its new location.
The case is pieced together on the bent side, but molded into its curve at the tail. The music desk has two candle stands (what I jokingly call beer and sandwich boards) that can be rotated into position on either side of the music rack. The two pedals, rather than pushing up at their back ends on pedal rods, instead pull down on pedal wires in front of the lyre. The legs have giant wooden screw threads for attaching to the case body. The key slip (in front of the keys) drops down for removal rather than lifting up! There are only 85 notes (typical for the time), but there's an extra bass string at the very bass end, and an extra unison set of treble strings at the other end.
Other than the detailing, this piano seems quite modern in design, until you pull out the action. The action is much more similar to that of a square grand. The cheek blocks (on either side of the keyboard) are glued on, and come out with the keyframe. The keys have a capstan, and there is a wippen, but the wippen and jack face backwards. There is no repetition lever, and the hammer has a butt, as in a square grand. The dampers are set up like modern ones.
A century before this piano was built, there was an active school of piano building in Vienna that used a kind of action that came to be called Viennese. So there is some irony in a Viennese piano having an action much more akin to the English action.
The piano sounds great, not too old-fashioned, and as you can see, it's really beautiful, and beautifully made. I'm glad I brought my camera!
2 comments:
Hello, it looks like im inheriting a piano almost exactly like this one. A 7.5 foot ehrbar of similar vintage. Apparentely the pins are lose and a new pin block may be required to get the piano to hold its tune. Im told this will cost something like 13,000 dollars. Is it worth it?
No
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