[CAUT] 1850's Pleyel Grand

[Linda Stråhle]

Here something else to read about Pleyel:

http://www.ciarm.ing.unibo.it/researches/isma97.html


Linda

27 nov 2007 kl. 21.19 skrev Richard Brekne:

Yes, I will be getting ahold of Anne for advice I am sure.
In the meantime I remain totally fascinated with the sound that these  
old instruments are capable of... despite their age and all the  
obvious signs of problems. This one has a pinblock that really should  
be replaced.... but probably it will be repaired with the epoxy  
method.  The soundboard has a few rather bad cracks... one in  
particular has pulled away from a couple of the ribs underneath on  
one side of the crack.  The instrument has a very nice boomy  
response... very round sound really and quite pleasant.

In this instrument the grain runs in a direction roughly 15 degrees  
off the bellyrail. Ribs are by and large about parallel to the bridge  
tho there are a couple cross ribs. There seems to be two types of  
cutoff bar systems. One rather obvious cutoff bar on the underside,  
and another curved one that you can see half of on the top side of  
the second photo I posted, tho you have to look pretty hard to spot it.

I really do wish I could hear some thoughts about how soundboard  
design and these low tension scales match to get the kind of sound  
these things have.  One has no way of knowing for sure... but if one  
imagines a significant basic quality degradation over 150 years and  
try to get an idea of how much nicer these may have sounded keeping  
the same basic overall sound spectrum in mind... its hard to see why  
everyone decided to copy Steinway in the end.  I mean regardless of  
what one thinks of Steinways.. and I like them very much...  how  
confining is that just <<one>> sound.  Especially considering the  
bredth of other fine sounding piano instruments. I just want to  
understand more about how they created some of those sounds.

Cheers
RicB





    Hello Ric,

    Anne and Chris Acker, sometimes on this list, recently did a very
    nice job
    restoring a similar but younger (c.1880) Pleyel for an owner here  
in New
    Jersey.

    Albert.






Linda Stråhle
linda.strahle at mhm.lu.se