I enjoyed watching that. Mohr says in the short film that Horowitz likes a certain "nasal-ness" in the tone. That set me to thinking again about how tricky it is to find adjectives to describe the subtleties of piano tone. What do we say of the sound of a Steinway concert grand in comparison to a Yamaha? We may be able to tell them apart in good quality recordings, but can we DESCRIBE the differences? Especially to a non-expert? There is a cliché I really dislike - it's when someone describes a fine piano as have a "bell-like" tone. Yuk yuk yuk! Who wants a piano that sounds like bells? Many bells have such a muddle of harmonics that you can hardly tell what note they are. It would be a really great compliment to a set of bells to say that they had a "piano-like tone", I reckon! Do any have adjectives they would apply to particular brands, or that they tend to use in decribing tone quality? I'd like to hear what others say before venturing any of my own...... Best, David.
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