"My own grand piano will soon be 100 years old. It has been the great concert grand in the most famous music hall in the world, the Wiener Musikverein, Goldener Saal - for about nine years. It knows all the great pieces so I don’t have to practice them anymore." - These are indeed some of the most loveable sentences I met this year ... Reading some of your reminiscences is such a pleasure that I really would appreciate you going on with this kind of stories !
Two of the most wonderful instruments I met within one day were located in Hiroshima. Number one, as Steinway-D (274cm) was built around 1940 and was displayed to me in the shop of a pianostore. The pianomaker who would also tune instruments for artists had this Steinway prepared with such a warm sound that it was really difficult to guess the brand by the sound of it.
On the same day I went to St. Elisabeth College, a Roman Catholic college, where a Bösendorfer "Konzertflügel" (275cm) was located in the chapel. The acoustics of this room were so tremendous that the term pianissimo got a complete new meaning. You could play in such a way that the sound was barely audible but still you had an absolute distinct impression if you played a chord.
Both pianos belonged to the group of the absolutely finest sounding pianos in my hemisphere of the world.
Thomas Erl, Anish Karmarkar, Priscilla Walmsley, Hugo Haas, L. Umit Yalcinalp, Canyang Kevin Liu, David Orchard, Andre Tost, James Pasley - 6. Nov, 10:23
But they have to evolve as the situations arise.
Not just Bösendorfer
On the same day I went to St. Elisabeth College, a Roman Catholic college, where a Bösendorfer "Konzertflügel" (275cm) was located in the chapel. The acoustics of this room were so tremendous that the term pianissimo got a complete new meaning. You could play in such a way that the sound was barely audible but still you had an absolute distinct impression if you played a chord.
Both pianos belonged to the group of the absolutely finest sounding pianos in my hemisphere of the world.