At the weekend at Hammerwood Park we organised the inaugural recital on the ex-Finchcocks collection 1859 Iron Concert Grand Broadwood. It was an instrument which achieved high acclaim having been on hire to Charles Hallé and bought for the full price of 250 guineas, the equivalent of around $300k today.
One can't escape the thought that perhaps it was an inspiration for Steinway.
The recording is made with Revox A77 analogue magnetic tape recorder using vintage AKG D224 microphones.
If the bass might sound slightly flabby it's because the instrument was designed for the A=451 and is documented by Alastair Laurence's thesis on Broadwood https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42604885.pdf by Alastair Laurence. The instrument is documented at pp. 103 As an aside, on page 127 Laurence notes that Broadwood kept all the strings in the instrument straight as it retained the elegance of the instrument rather than making its tail fat . . . and they considered that in any event the bass of their instruments sounded better than the Bluthner competition. So come and hear and judge for yourself!
It's likely that Clara Schumann played the very same instrument that Adolfo Barabino will be playing on Easter Saturday. Apparently she struggled with it but we hope that Adolfo won't . . .
This link 1859 Hallé Broadwood Concert Grand Piano in Unequal Temperament with Chopin and Liszt at Hammerwood
| YouTube |
remove preview |
|
| 1859 Hallé Broadwood Concert Grand Piano in Unequal Temperament with Chopin and Liszt at Hammerwood |
| The 1859 Concert Broadwood at Hammerwood Park put through its paces. 00:00:00 Introducing the piano 00:06:06 Bach - prelude transcribed by Siloti 00:12:28 Liszt - Impromptu Nocturne 00:19:40 Chopin - Raindrop preludes 00:30:48 Liszt - Vallée d'Obermann 00:47:52 Arvo Paart - Fur Alina 00:57:30 Chopin - Fantasie-Impromptu Op66 01:08:33 Chopin and the Broadwood The instrument was at Finchcocks for many years and documented by Alastair Lawrence who examined it technically. |
| View this on YouTube > |
|
|
goes directly to the Liszt Vallée d'Obermann which really puts the instrument through its paces but perhaps people might be interested in starting at the beginning for the whole recording.
Very slight mechanical wow and flutter of the tape recorder may give a more singing quality to piano recordings as there's detectable variation which isn't my tuning. However, there are sections where I'm not using perfect octaves whilst other intervals present pure as in the Arvo Paart - but it's not tuned to 0.1c accuracy!
Perhaps others might be annoyed by the way in which mid 19th century instruments are presented by people on YouTube out of tune as "old pianos", accepting that old pianos should be out of tune and possibly this recording demonstrates that there's no room for excusing such presentation.
With greetings and best wishes from across the pond,
David P
------------------------------
David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex, UK
+44 1342 850594
"High Definition" Tuning
------------------------------