Restoration ethics (was : ... WAY out of line.)

[Stéphane Collin]

Mark,

I can feel Ric's outrage, and I am sure anybody would feel the same in such 
circumstances.
I'm not sure of the meaning of your post, whether you think Ric should not 
be outraged, or he shouldn't post this on a public list.

I can feel Jurgen's motivations too, while I would not totally agree with 
the way he acted.  Preserving intact important witnesses of the past can 
become a very serious matter for those concerned with it.  In this case, the 
thing to preserve (and in my eyes, the thing that the restorer should aim 
for) is the very thinking of an important piano maker at a certain time 
(here 1853) about how to make a good instrument.  Hereby, preserving traces 
of the taste of that period, that of the composers and performers of that 
period, the personal evolution of the builder in according (or not) to those 
tastes and his own maitrise of the technical elements to achieve his goal, 
and so on.  One underlaying thought in this matter, and difficult to 
understand for those who are not concerned by history, is that the concept 
of evolution is irrelevant in aesthetic matters.  Is a larger damper better 
than a small damper ? No.  It just damps better.  Is better damping a good 
feature for a piano ?  If you think so, then yes, it is an improvement.  If 
I prefer the intense emotion of the after ring sonic world poetry, then no, 
it is a kind of regretable decadence.  Same for every feature, knowing that 
what someone considers a limitation (even if it is the builder himself 
considering this), someone else considers that an exciting characteristic of 
style.  And about improving a desing, I must always think of those who would 
replace all the stained glass in a gothic cathedral by double glazing, in 
order to obviously improve the (scientifically proven by real serious guys) 
efficiency of warming system.  They miss something that is very precious. 
Precious enough for Jurgen to try and avoid this.

Now the fun is that for me, so far as I can understand it, Ric is one of the 
persons who talk on this list the most aware of this need for respect of the 
past (except me, of course, and Jurgen, most probably).  All comments 
suggesting that Ric could spoil the precious instrument sound absolutely 
false to my ears.  It is a question of how far we can go before we cross the 
borderline between respectfully revive the original and totally missing the 
point. Every period instrument restorer has nightmares about that, and 
subsequent opinions, curiously enough never matching those of his collegues.

So I think this issue, again, is due to lack of communication.

Best regards.

Stéphane Collin.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Wisner" <mwisner@earthlink.net>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 1:43 AM
Subject: Re: Jurgen Goering is WAY out of line.


I'm surprised at your outrage, Ric.  Surely you know that everything that is 
posted to this list becomes part of the public domain and the more 
potentially harmful it is, the faster it will probably make it's way to the 
person you least want it to be read by?

Cheers,
Mark