echoes in schidmayer upright

[oren bendor]

Dear Stephen,

Thanks for that comment which is very interesting
indeed.  This is what my piano restorer say, namely
that if we change anything it would not be the piano
that it meant to be.  Here you are, historical vs.
non-historical notions of "authenticity".

all the very best Oren

 --- Stephen Birkett <sbirkett@real.uwaterloo.ca>
wrote: > Oren wrote:
> 
> >I am an owner and player of a schiemayer upright,
> obligque strung 
> >underdamped piano.  It was made in
> >1885 by J. and P. Schiemayer and has a highly ...
> >richer, dynamic and powerful.  The problem is that
> there is a residual 
> >echo in it.  Even when I talk near
> >it when the piano is closed it reverberates.  This
> is annoying given the 
> >excellent tone.  Whenever I move
> >from loud play into pianissimo the echo annoys. The
> restorer maintains 
> >that as a matter of design the
> >dampers are perhaps too small and too high up so
> thre are still live 
> >strings although the damping system
> >operates as best it can.
> 
> Instantaneous tonal castration has not always been
> the ideal - the end of 
> the sound was once considered as important as the
> beginning and middle. 
> Dampers on early Viennese fortepianos, contrary to
> what you may hear from 
> some quarters, was actually _not_ instantly
> efficient. By the 1840s, the 
> Viennese fell in love with very hazy damping and
> after-ring, having been 
> exposed to the aesthetic of English pianos. I expect
> your Schiedmayer was 
> designed to sound the way it does because they liked
> the effect and wanted 
> it to sound that way. They would probably say modern
> dampers are too 
> efficient, while modern techs say theirs were too
> inefficient. Learn to 
> love it for what it is - it will grow on you.
> 
> Stephen
> 
> Stephen Birkett Fortepianos
> Authentic Reproductions of 18th and 19th Century
> Pianos
> 464 Winchester Drive
> Waterloo, Ontario
> Canada N2T 1K5
> tel: 519-885-2228
> mailto: sbirkett@real.uwaterloo.ca
>  

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