Piano choice. Thoughts please

[david severance]

We had a Bosendorfer in our concert hall here, I believe it was the 278.
Wonderful full rich tenor and bass but the treble was weak.  It was hard for
the artist to make it sing.  We recently purchased a  9'2" Fazioli for our
recording studio and everyone that has played it so far loves it.  It
doesn't drop off in the lower treble like the Bosse did and a lot of the
Steinways do.  We moved it it down to the stage for the upcoming Washington
State music teachers convention and we have some great players coming, I'll
let you know how it is received.

David Severance
Washington State University


At 12:28 AM 6/22/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi folks,
>
>Roger, thanks very much for your further thoughts about piano choice and
>Bosendorfer.  I understand what you say and it chimes very much with my own
>experiences.
>
>About the Bosendorfers you say:
>
>>I am not sure if it is the kerfed rim or the string termination that
>causes
>>the treble weakness.  But gut feel tends to tell me it is the rim
>>construction.
>>My whole thing with these pianos is the balance.
>
>I know what you mean.  Somtimes the treble around octave 5/6 can seem a bit
>thin and 'papery', somehow. 
>I think you're entirely right about recording engineering. My feeling is
>that I've not yet found a really well-recorded CD of a Fazioli, which is I
>guess is the fault of the recording engineers, not the pianos.
>
>You also say, about Bosendorfers: 
>>I find them a high maintainance piano, to keep them sounding good.  You
>will also need a highly >skilled tech to keep them good.  This should be a
>consideration.
>
>Yes, the technician would be me!  Maybe I'm not highly skilled enough!
>
>The Steinway AS is a less well-finished model A intended for schools. It
>has a less polished plate and a matt rather than high gloss case finish.
>
>I agree absolutely with what you say about properly re-built B's.  I tune
>and maintain the pianos in my local theatre and they have a hundred-year
>old B which was rebuilt by Steinway about 15 years ago. It is just
>wonderful. rich, rounded and warm, not at all hard. A lovely piano for
>accompanying.  I enjoy sitting in the audience and listening to performaces
>on it after I've tuned it.  Steinway used to have a contract to do
>maintenance tiunings on it every year, and I tuned it before
>concerts/recitals.  I was interested to come in one time just after the
>Steinway guy had been, and compare his tuning to mine.  He had done a very
>lovely bass tuning - better than I'd achieved (which put me on my mettle!),
>but I didn't think his treble was as carefully done as mine.
>
>Steinway Hall in London had a couple of rebuilt 100 yr old B's in on Monday
>when  went in, and one in particular sounded nice. But the keys weren't
>good - had evidently been re-covered years ago, and not very nicely.
>
>Thanks again for your comments Roger.  Keep the opinions coming folks!
>
>
>