<html> I bought The Times yesterday and came across the article on Chopin's piano while sitting in the coffee shop.  I thought it was great that they gave a two-page spread in The Times to an article about a piano! Like Terry, I wondered how accurately the sound would be preserved.  It was the perhaps over-dramatic headline "Chopin's true sound can be heard at last....."  that had me thinking skeptically of flattened soundboards etc.  The article doesn't state what restoration work has been carried out on the piano but as it is part of the Cobbe Collection it will have been properly cared for and presumably restored as necessary. Journalists like to find an "angle" for a story, and the article perhaps plays up the "At last - Chopin as Chopin heard it!" angle.  Surely any surviving well-maintained high quality grand of Chopin's time is likely to sound more like what Chopin head than a new modern grand.  That doesn't answer, of course, what sound Chopin would have LIKED to hear, or whether his music is BETTER on a modern grand or on one of his time.  Personally, I go for the modern concert grand every time! </html>