Confessions of a soundboard heretic

[John Delacour]

At 1:23 PM -0800 11/11/01, Robin Hufford wrote:

>      With all due respect to the very earnest and intense opinions that
>have been expressed previously here on the list as to the deterioration
>of soundboards over time I must say that I remain unconvinced that a
>long term improvement in the sound produced by many aged  boards is out
>of the question, in the case, at least, of most high-quality American
>pianos.  In fact my experience has been essentially to the contrary  as
>to my own perception of the sound produced by the thousands of  these
>pianos I have played, tuned, serviced and rebuilt, over the years:   in
>spite of worn, hard hammers, deteriorated strings and other problems,
>many have what I would characterize as a more musical, emotional sound,
>with adequate power and ring time throughout the scale.

I must say I agree with most of what you have written and might even 
go further than you in discounting the compression myth. If we 
eliminate the damaging compression introduced at birth by makers such 
as Steinway and Grotrian in a lot of their pianos and compression and 
shrinkage damage caused by alternating extremes of humidity, I have 
seen no evidence that the soundboard of a properly made piano 
deteriorates over the years, and almost the ONLY pianos I have ever 
fallen in love with were made before the first World War, sometimes 
quite a lot before.  It is enough just to look at the soundboards on 
such pianos and give them a gentle tap to know that soundboards are 
not made of the same stuff today.  There is even a marked difference 
in the quality and manufacture of an 1899 Steinway and a 1920 
Steinway and the difference in tone quality is very great, but I 
would not list Steinway among the makers that have enchanted me, much 
though I have always loved the "Steinway sound".  I'm not saying that 
soundboards can't deteriorate and at this moment I have a 6' Ibach 
which certainly seems to need a new board, but it's a cheap line they 
made about the turn of the century with a simplified action and lacks 
all the marks of the high quality models such as the Richard Wagner 
series, so I'm not surprised they messed up the soundboard.  As to 
the RW range, I use a 1905 7'10" for hire work and it is sometimes 
paired up with a modern Steinway D for two piano stuff.  It is in no 
way noticeably inferior and it would be hard to say which was more 
powerful.

According to Mozart, Stein, his maker, would put his soundboards 
outside in all weathers to be scorched and soaked by the sun and the 
rain, then bring them in and fillet any cracks before he installed 
them, after which they would suffer no further damage!

I have always reckoned that the compression story was invented by a 
certain well-known maker in order to sell more new pianos.  In 
England at least, for a long time, concert halls were given the 
impression that after ten years or so their piano was worn out and 
the soundboard had sunk, so they needed a new one.

For all I know Sitka Spruce and various other varieties do suffer 
some sort of deterioration, but the pianos I'm talking of will have 
had boards from Switzerland or central Europe and many of these are 
as good as the day they were made.

JD