At 21:07 02/10/01 -0400, Clark A Sprague wrote: > It turned out to be the most beautiful, ornate (I know that ornate > does not a piano make!) piano I have ever had the pleasure to tune. It > was a specially commissioned Erard, circa 1878 (serial # on the > soundboard was 60060, signed by Erard). The entire cabinet was done by > a cabinet maker by the name of Savant? (it was signed on a little brass > plaque on the left rim edge). I know just the sort of thing. Till recently we had a full grand at a local museum which was bought at auction in 1976 for £900. The basic construction was Erard's most elaborate and expensive -- lots of brass at the top end and a solid brass capo tasto, but the case was out of this world. I have never seen such fine and extensive inlaid work. I coveted it like hell but was sure I would be outbid at the auction and saved myself the pain of attending. The local society tuner, whose repairs and rebuilds I did, called me in to inspect the piano and ended up getting it for the above price, which I could actually have afforded. I was due to leave for Shanghai on a two year contract and told him not to touch it -- I would do it when I got back. He knew better how to make a quick buck and quickly 'rebuilt' it to sell to the museum. When I returned he called me in to sort out the 'regulation', since visiting pianists were refusing to play it. To undo about a tenth of the damage he had done to the action alone and make the piano just playable I gave him a bill for £400. Four years ago the museum was to be completely refurbished, all the contents being dispersed to other places in the meantime. I was called in to reporton the Erard. It was the saddest thing. No attention was paid to the humidity in the museum and the once perfect inlaid work was coming loose all over the place. I estimated many thousands of pounds to rectify this a repolish. The museum was officially reopened last month by some Royal personage. I am at present repairing some damage to a Kawai RX-A that I sold them and which was damaged in storage. The Erard is gone to some other place. I will find out where, but the whole story makes me so sick. Anyway -- number one concern is not to let the piano get too dry and I would suggest to the customer that she have a french-polisher at least clean up and revive the polish and "skin it over" lightly to protect the glue. This is a temporary measure which will do no harm and protect the piano until she is ready to have it properly stripped and french-polished. For that job she will need a first class traditional polisher who will probably need up to 200 hours to do the work. A 'glass finish' is required and there are few men capable of doing this even in Europe. Broadwood and Erard probably had the best polishers that have ever lived. I reckon 120-150 hours for a glass finish on an ordinary rosewood grand, including minor woodwork repairs. > What I did notice, though, was that it had #1 pins, which were all > loose, some worse than others; Could be worse, but the original pins would have been 000 or 6.60 mm. -- the French makers used very thin pins, which is in the restorer's favour. I don't recall bad experiences with Erard wrestplanks -- unlike Pleyel's, which are a nightmare. > the strings were showing a little rust, and it had been restrung at one > time, as evidenced by the stringing scale written in pencil on the > plate, and the really funky feeling action, with the dampers coming up > from under the strings. The bass strings would originally have been of tinned brass and they should be whipped at both ends right down through the scale. I make all the strings for David Winston's pianos(several Erards each year) and you could do worse than get in touch with him for detailed guidance and advice. David Winston <periodpiano@talk21.com> "Period Piano Company. The Period Piano Company, recognized as one of the world’s leading makers, restorers and dealers of antique pianos: Grand pianos, square ... <www.periodpiano.com>" David is an American based in Kent, England. We were talking of the Erard action only the other day and he was complaining of the difficulty of getting sufficient tension in the repetition springs. This ought not really to be a problem, since phosphor-bronze alone ought to give better performance, though it's a while since I touched an Erard. The crescent-shaped drop screws are a pain and you need to make sure before you begin any regulation that you can achieve the required drop throughout the scale without having to screw these T-screws right up to the flange. As with all pianos, the first item in regulation is getting the rails, key-height etc. properly configured -- a point sadly neglected by 99% of workmen. The dampers are very easy to deal with and nicely designed. The springs should be replaced with phosphor-bronze (I can supply these if you can make them) and for the felt you must use a strip that tapers in thickness. Such felt is obtainable in Europe/England. Regulation is effected by raising the body and screwing the wire up and down. It ought to take not much longer than ordinary dampers. > Like I said, the cabinet is breath-taking (at least it was to > me). What would you recommend? Who would you recommend? What kind of > differences are there in the action? It was straight strung, with > individual looped strings, ala Bluthner,etc. If she decided to do a job > on it, I could repin, restring, etc, but what kinds of problems will I > encounter? For the hammers (forked shank), I would recommend you have them recovered by Abel in Stuttgart. In spite of disparaging remarks I have made about Abel's new hammers, the recover jobs they have done for me have always been excellent. When I stayed with old Helmut a few years ago and was shown the factory, he was using a screw press for recovering work and a specially skilled man will be assigned to this work. They are quite familiar with the Erard-style hammer, which was used also by several German makers, e.g. Hagspiel of Dresden till almost 1899. These Erards can sound lovely. Occasionally I'll turn on the car radio (nothing special) and hear a special sound and, as probably most of us do, try to guess the maker. If it sounds like a xylophone, it's a Broadwood, like a dying fog-horn it's a Boesendorfer etc. The Erard can have a wonderful clarity and purity and often sounds like just the perfect piano for the music that's being played. Broadwood and Pleyel hated the guy! JD
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