Square grands .. composers .. composer's pianos.

[Richard Moody]

----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Garrett <joegarrett@earthlink.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 11:58 AM
Subject: Chickering Square Grands Question


| To all,
| The comments re. trashing Square Grands is not
appreciated.
To me it simply shows the
| ignorance of the one verbalizing such garbage. (Flame
suit/helmet/boots
| firmly in place!)

        Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon)


A friend of mine told me about his grandfather's experience
with a square grand. He, the grandfather, inquired about
buying a piano and using a piano as a trade in that was left
in the house they had just moved into .
The store owner took him down to the basement and showed him
row after row of square grands stacked on top of each other,
three high, legs removed.  "This is what you want to trade
in?  This is what becomes of those trade ins."
    "How did you know I had that kind of piano" his
grandfather asked.
    " My father sold it new and delivered it to the house
you just bought, back in 1871"

It  _is_  appalling that square grands were trashed like
they were.  The exotic rose wood veneers, the chestnut core
wood, the ebony, the ivory, the French polish lost forever.
And don't forget the years they stood as host to the gallary
of family photos and "ming" vases full of flowers.



| I would ask a question: How many of you would like to hear
what the
| composers and performers, of the 18th and the early 19th
centuries heard? If
| you have a Square grand, in good condition and tuned to
the appropriate
| temperament of the period, of the composer's period, you
be hearing what
| they heard. Is this not, in itself, enlightening and
worthy of a more
| considerate attitude towards these instruments????

Well yes and no.  Certainly composers into the middle of the
19th century heard and played square grands.  But I don't
think they bought them, much less performed on
them.   What they heard and played on was the "grand" or
"flugel" design.
The action was most important, and finally by 1890 the full
extent of tonality caught up.
If I wanted to get into a flame suite contest, I might
suggest Chopin  would not object to us hearing the Waltzes
on  a square piano in any temperament.   As for the
Preludes,  He might want to play for us on a B in ET.

    There is something ultilmately exquisite in the
Preludes, while there is a little bit of the bawd in the
Waltzes.

---ric