Chopin and pianos (was temperaments)

[Susan Kline]

Comments interspersed ...

At 03:20 PM 1/30/98 -0500, Stephen Birkett wrote:
>Susan asked:
>> Who made this recording, and how can one find it, please?
>>
>Amon Ra Label...don't know the number, will check if you like. A recording
>that comes out of Finchcocks, UK. (big country house, now piano museum,
>was Adlam-Burnett historical keyboard workshop at one time. CD is played
>on an 1826 Graf. Pianist Richard Burnett. (Restored, somewhat tired, but
>enuf of its former glory left to appreciate it). Hummel, Schumann, etc.
>Title is "The Romantic Piano".  Anne any more details? 

Thanks, Stephen! Steve Brady wrote a fine article about Finchcocks in the 
Jnauary Journal, and mentioned Amon Ra's catalog of more than 60 titles,
mostly recorded right there, apparently. Address, anyone? I'd like to 
send for the catalog. Email would be better yet, of course ...

>> And, since you've nothing but time for wasting, could you describe the
>> "moderator" and how it works, or send me to an appropriate reference book?
>>
>Time wasting? Never. 

Glad you took that attitude! (All a matter of priorities, as we've been
saying.) We already know enough about the care and feeding of the 
upright middle pedal muting felt that a little experimentation with 
different materials, on uprights, might be fun and not too rigorous. 
Some of those huge four- and five- pedal uprights used some of these
ideas, didn't they? ("Crown" ... worked on one the other day. Still
excellent tone.)

>You've seen the moderator in a sense already on 
>those cheap uprights, the neighbour-keeping apartment-playing felt bar that 
>can be put between the hammers and strings. Now that doesn't really have 
>much in common, but the principle is the same. Moderator was one of the 
>few standard "mutations" on Viennese pianos for many decades. A bar 
>with cloth (sometimes leather) thin tabs that can be inserted between 
>hammers and strings. Some had double moderator too, two layers vs one. 
>When Schubert writes pp or even ppp he "means" moderator and una corda. 
>Which is a quite ethereal effect, especially if the u.c. is a true *una* 
>corda. Often the central part of an ABA movement, the trio, would have 
>been given the moderator treatment, a great contrast. 
>
>An interesting possibility is that some early pianos ca 1780-90 may have 
>had leather-less hammers, with something like a moderator in permanent 
>on condition. A knee lever could be used to removed it for brighter 
>sound. No hammer leathering would have been required. How about that for 
>avoiding hammer hanging? Any takers at Renner?
> 
>Stephen
>
>Stephen Birkett Fortepianos

-----------------------------------------

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com

"By using your intelligence, you can sometimes make your problems twice as
complicated."
			-- Ashleigh Brilliant