Quality in Pianos

[Richard Brekne]

Low Sye Yuan wrote:

> I'm kinda surprised as to the inclusion of August Forester into your
> third class. Most techs and non-techs alike have praised Forester for
> its unique tone and strong construction. Even Larry Fine in his book
> refers to it as a high quality piano. Personally, I would rate it in
> the same category as Steingraeber & Sohns, Feurich and one level above
> Seiler and Sauter.
>
 I suppose I should have mentioned that my opinion of August Forster is
 highly coloured by their uprights. Bun in general I have problems with
 their use of so much plastic in their actions. Also they inject some
 kinda junk into the center pins which frezzes up after a while. I dont
 like the hammer heads they use and find changeing to a good set of
 Ables makes a big difference in a very positive way. I would aggree
 enough with Larry Fine to say that Forster is in general an
 under-rated instrument. I do like the big sound (especially in the
 bass) that their larger grands have. Still all in all I can find
 myself putting them in the same class as Yamaha, Boston, and the
 rest.. and certainly not up there with Bechstein.

> The pianos that I am refering to above are all grands. For uprights,
> I am really impressed with Sauter and maybe Bluthner. The reason why I
> do not endorse Bechstein, Bosendorfer and Steinway uprights, is
> because of the way they themselves advertise their pianos. By strongly
> promoting on their grands, they are in fact telling the consumers
> that,' We make 1st class grands, buy our uprights if you don't have
> the money' I mean they are in fact degrading their uprights, which is
> why all of the techs. here say to buy a Steinway( or Bechstein or
> Bose) upright is one's greatest folly.
>
 To be sure.. uprights and grands from the same factory are often
 enough different puppies in the ratings game. But by and large my own
 ratings hold generally true for both. I could say tho that I dont
 really see much point in putting more effort into building an upright
 then say Yamaha does for the SU series. An upright remains an upright
 and will never be a concert instrument, and in what sense it can be
 used for concerts, the Yamaha SU's are almost overkill.

> Richard, have you encountered any problem with the regulation and
> maintainance of the R2 mechanism as some of our friends on this list
> have?

 I havent run into this R2 mechanism yet.


> Any comments on the quality of the various germany made uprights is
> greatly appreciated?

 In general I like all of the western German pianos we see up here in
 Norway. Tho there are some I like much much better then others. The
 old eastern german pianos that I have encountered, were all a bunch of
 very close to or outright substandards, with the exception of August
 Forster.  The Schimmel upright has a tendency to developing a nasty
 string buzz after a few years use. Changing the brass bearing and the
 pressure bar always solves this. Grotrian strikes me as a very high
 quality made piano that has absolutely no character. Its just there
 and says really little or nothing, but its very well made. I hear this
 same kinda comment about them from a lot of different people.  I like
 Sauters very much. And Seilers are nice enough. At least all these are
 put together really well and attention to detail in many regards is
 quite obvious. There are many others but this is getting too long
 already... grin.

>
>  ..Zeng

Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway