Paul Poletti asked me to forward some comments on the conservation/restoration subject. Stephen Birkett University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada ------------------------------------------------------- Forwarded message from Paul Poletti -------------------------------------------------------- John Hartman's comments on restoration are to be admired for their emphasis on careful conservation of older instruments, but there are some misconceptions regarding pianos before 1880 and older. First, pitch level. Pitch has been all over the map for centuries, the idea that it has risen constantly is completely false. Early Italian pitch was as high as 465, and a pitch of 455 was common in the later half of the 19th C in both Europe and America. Classical Viennese pitch seems to have varied somewhere between 425 and 432. Thus the advice that old pianos should never be tuned higher than 415 is not necessarily true. More important is scale length and stringing weight. In any event, the best thing to do is get the advice of an expert organologist who specializes in fortepiano scaling regarding the proper stringing a pitch level of any instrument. Regarding stringing: much work remains to be done on wire strength in the the second half of the 19th C. Generally speaking, anything with a scale shorter than modern (c2 = approx. 345mm) was probably designed for wire weaker than modern. Thus the advice to restring these pianos with modern wire and pins is not the best, as the excessively hard wire will not be critically stressed and have inharmonicity problems. Again, the question should be put to an organologist who can do a tension/strength analysis for the given scale of any particular instrument. Reproduction wires are being made. On all pianos but specifically older instruments (before 1850), strings should only be conserved if they represent a believable original stringing. Many pianos from this time have been restrung in the late 19th or early 20th C. with nonsensical weights and materials. This can actually be dangerous if the total load is too high for the frame. Once again, seek the advice of a specialist. One critical point was missed: adhesives. In all restoration work, nothing should be used except hide glue. Epoxy and other irreversible glues are capitol offenses for the professional technician. Tightbond is ok because it can be reversed, but it really only for amateurs. Most of the stories about hide glue failure are propaganda. I recently spent three days of soaking and steaming to get a small spruce frame member out of an 1825 piano that was glued with hide glue. The piano had sat in water on its spine long enough for the whole spine to rot away, and yet this joint at the cheek was still incredibly strong. It simply is not true that old pianos needed constant attention to function. P P Utrecht
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