A Word About Antique Instruments

After looking at much of the information that is on the web and in print.. and certainly being circulated by well meaning technicians about antique pianos, I thought I would have my say at it to. So.here's my best shot. First of all..mom and dad.if you are looking for a piano for your child to learn the basic beginning skills of playing the piano, then you need a modern piano with a modern sound and action. Plenty are available. That could be a variety of things, but most likely a console or studio upright or a small grand of some sort. Just make sure to buy the tallest (if an upright) or longest (if a grand) that you can afford and to get a good brand.
And please, don't buy an electronic keyboard for them, unless of course you want them to learn to play electronic keyboard instead of the piano.

The reason your child needs a modern piano to learn on is they don't need anything radically different feeling and sounding than most the of instruments they will encounter, such as their teachers.the one they take their lessons on. Having said that, if your child is very advanced and loves classic music, then a vintage instrument might be an option as an additional instrument. Some of the older high quality upright pianos, when restored completely, will function the same as a modern upright. Also, some grands fall into that category.

My instruments usually interest people who are good musicians who want to reproduce the authentic sound of years ago; to hear the compositions with the sounds the great composers heard. Also many of my instruments interest people whose primary concern is the history involved; whether they are associated with a historic home or perhaps live in one.or maybe with a museum or historical society. And there are those who just appreciate the look and the quality of craftsmanship.

For years older grands, and especially the square pianos have been criticized by most tuners and technicians alike. They have been told they are purely furniture and as an instrument a piece of junk. "It will never sound right", "You can't get parts for it", "It's just a relic", and on and on. I will concede that some parts are not available commercially, but a skilled craftsman can custom make almost anything necessary. But to compare a high quality antique piano to a new one seems totally unfair to me. Would you compare a 1930 automobile to a brand new one? Or a WWII fighter plane to a new stealth jet? They are both automobiles..and they are both planes..but they are very much different for sure; made at a different time with a different technology. That's simply not a fair or intelligent comparison.

And, for those of us who like and enjoy playing early music, we must adjust our ears...to acknowledge the fact that the sound of the piano has been an evolution. The sound that Mozart heard was different from that of Beethoven.and Beethoven's pianos had a different sound than those of Chopin..or Franz Liszt. If these famous composers would have had the use of a high quality modern concert grand piano, then their music I dare say would have been written somewhat different. They wrote for the instruments of their day and the sound that they had, which in many cases is quite different than today's piano sound.

An early square, when fully restored to like new condition, might have to our modern ears, a thin, somewhat weak sound; but try playing music of that period on it and see how it comes to life. When you play the fast passages and runs of Clementi's music on one of his pianos you see that it makes much better sense; the light key action, the shallow dip of the keys, and the narrow octave span make it all so much easier to play. As a musician you don't get "bogged down" with the deep heaviness of a more modern instrument. Or, for a little later music, try playing some of Franz Liszt's music on an mid 19th century Bosendorfer grand with a Viennese action that has been completely rebuilt. The sound will overwhelm you.

On most early instruments the action can be made to work efficiently with good repetition, contrary to what I've read and heard for most of my life. I know this for a fact because I have had too many go out of my shop working very good; pianos that I have played demanding music on before they left; and they stood up to the test! Also an unfair complaint of many modern technicians who think with modern piano thinking is that the damper systems cannot be made to function. First of all these early damper systems did have some slight sustaining of the sound, especially in the square piano; but there again.is this a defect? Perhaps it is to those who are used to hearing a new Japanese piano whose sound stops completely and immediately when the key is lifted. But this slight "bleed" of sound plays into what the composer was hearing when he wrote the music; there is a subtle blending of sounds that is altogether very pleasing. Now I'm not talking about dampers that just will not shut off at all and notes blurring into others..there is a difference. Here again, we must let our ears think back..to the authentic sound of the era of the instrument that we are hearing. After all, would we want an 1830 piano to sound like a brand new one? Would any mechanical device from 1830 function like one built today?

I know many modern technicians will not agree with my viewpoint and think that only the best quality new instruments are of any value. And if you want to play Beethoven on a new quality grand piano, that's perfectly fine, and the beauty of the genius of the composer is that it will still be musically satisfying, even though it is a different sound than what the composer had in mind for sure. But as a musician and rebuilder I delight in listening to the sounds as they were originally intended. These "relics", as some would call them, have made music years before people now were even thought of..and can do so again; to perhaps fill a concert hall or... maybe the entrance hall of a home; to bring back the lost memories of a day gone by and to relive that sound today.

Kenneth