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Well I am glad the piano is being restored and I am glad that there are still symphony concerts !
Best wishes LB

Lady Bird - by the way I'm not saying this to contradict anything you're saying, but I wonder if you might find it interesting.

For a long time in the UK - less so in Germany and other parts of Europe, and I have no idea about the USA and Canada - there has been a depreciation on used European pianos that are not Steinway or Fazioli. Steinway and Fazioli can still command very high prices - Steinway because of the name history (and the quality, they're good pianos), to the point where even a clapped out Steinway A from 1901 might achieve a price of over £15,000 (although how anyone thinks that's a saving by the time you add rebuilding costs I have no idea....), and Faziolis because there are so few of them come up on the used market and there's always some keen eyed person or pianist hoping a used one comes up for sale.

C. Bechstein, Blüthner, and Bösendorfer for some incredibly strange reason that I'm still not entirely sure of end up losing a lot of their value as soon as they walk out of the showroom. These pianos of course are of exceptional quality but I've seen Blüthner grands as young as 5 years old sell for as little as £12,000. Could you imagine any 5 year old Steinway selling for that? Even an upright? A Bösendorfer might sell for a little more because they now have an excellent brand recognition and Yamaha have brought the prices in line with Steinways (before Yamaha, new Bösendorfers were being sold for as little as 50% retail - but before Yamaha the quality was also lower, so Yamaha's investment in Bösendorfer has actually been excellent for them), but you can often find 10 to 20 year old Bösendorfer grands selling for under £20k.

I wonder if the reason it happens is because the general public don't know these brands well enough. There are even excellent pianists in the UK who don't think these brands exist. Of course everyone has heard of Blüthner and Bechstein but most of the time it'll be an old piano in a church hall or music club the pianist turns up to play, and the piano will be dreadful because it's over 100 years old, and the pianist, not knowing much about pianos, will then say "Blüthner/Bechstein/Bösendorfer is a terrible make of piano".

I would go as far as to say that those of us who engage on PianoWorld know a lot more about pianos than your average college music graduate, which is a shame. The UK conservatoires are filled with either Steinway or Yamaha, or in Trinity Laban's case Kawai. I think Christian Blüthner is making some inroads with the RCM in London - he's not interested in making it a "Blüthner" school, but just to get one or two pianos in so that students can experience them. Since Yamaha have taken on Bösendorfer you'll occasionally find a Bösendorfer grand in a performance space or teaching room now, which is great news. The more diversity for the students the better.

I think you, Lady Bird, know a lot of these brands because of the circles you have moved in all your life - going to see the symphony and noticing it's a Bösendorfer piano puts you in a more rarified group than perhaps you realise because many concert goers wouldn't even notice. I've been to concerts where the piano so obviously wasn't a Steinway (it would say FAZIOLI in big letters on the side for instance) and someone would say "my wasn't that a wonderful Steinway up there tonight".

I actually get a little disheartened when I speak to some piano college students about pianos because they just don't know and they're not interested. They're often not interested in exploring the sounds that different pianos can make if you only try to have a relationship with them. They play all pianos in exactly the same way and then they wonder why so many pianos don't sound good when they play them. There are, of course, differences between brands - in my experience if you play a Blüthner in the same way as you might play a Steinway you will come up with a rather ugly and dry sounding performance, and if you play a Steinway in the same way as you play a Blüthner you'll come up with a rather underwhelming performance as well. Bösendorfers don't like to be thumped - they will project but you have to know how to build that crescendo that they seem to warm up to (talking about the non-VC models), and Blüthner is kind of similar. Fazioli is so sensitive that you have to be careful not to distort the tone on them, they kind of want to tame the pianist into being very elegant otherwise they'll kick back at you. Those are just generalisations of course, but there's a certain amount of truth in them.

Terminaldegree on this forum has a beautiful large Schimmel grand in his house. Schimmel is a fine piano with a wonderful action and clear tone. You can tell when you play a Schimmel that it's a fine piano made of the finest components and highest level of workmanship, and yet in the UK the fact that they remain virtually unknown means that sometimes they come up for sale at prices that seem to make no sense. I remember a 130cm Schimmel upright that was less than 5 years old being taken in by a certain showroom in part-ex, and the showroom sold this piano for under £2000, the price of a new Chinese piano at the time, when the price tag new for the piano was probably something like £12,000 to - £14,000 (this could have been about 2003-04).

Anyway I just *TOTALLY* derailed the thread but I thought a post about brand recognition was worthwhile.

Sometimes, with the piano buying public in the UK it translates into something as ridiculous as this:

New Ritmuller grand: £20,000.
15 y/o Blüthner/Bösendorfer/C.Bechstein grand £20,000.

Both pianos in perfect condition, both pianos the same size, both pianos prepared to the Nth degree. Buyer says "new is better, I'll take the new one". To us on here we'd be like "NOOOOOO!"

Joe
Perhaps it's my 70 years ,perhaps it's moving early to South Africa where there intrinsic value of German pianos was real .Yes I grew up in a musical family and suppose had friends who were musical.
I find it difficult to understand that pianists today in the UK know so little of European pianos.
Surely some musicians in universities study Performance Practice as a subject. Apart from interpretation, there is often a focus on the development of the piano as this affected the styles
and aesthetics of the music composed.
A common textbook for this is "Performance Practice (music after 1600)" (H.Brown and S Sadie )
This textbook is as you know used often used in University and College as a standard textbook for performers and music teachers. The development of the piano is discussed and the European pianos you mention is part of very much a part of this. Perhaps performance practice is no longer an important subject ,yet how would pianists know then how to interpret a trill by Correll or an 18th century french composer to one by JS Bach ?
I obviously respect you as a musician yet I find it difficult to really believe that a pianist in the UK have not heard of a Bechstein piano?
Sauter yes ,of course, no one knows of these pianos ,but piano dealers ,and they do all know the piano here.But we bought the piano FOR US ,when our time is up, what does it matter ?
If I am such a rare Bird that I am "disturbing the peace" ,perhaps someone will let know ?

Not disturbing the peace at all, but rare? I agree with Joe that the likes of you (and the average PW member) are probably clustered to one end of the bell curve. What percentage of the general population knows how a piano works, let alone who makes them; they're not spending hours a day online talking with strangers about pianos, on a piano forum, in a subforum focusing on the contraption of the piano itself (as opposed to pianists, artists, composers, playing, technique, etc.).

Yes, anyone who wants to do some research has the world at their fingertips. But I do think most buyers are the likes of non-pianist parents looking at uprights for their kids. These folks just go to their local dealer, see what's available, and choose from available stock; it's not even going to occur to them that the name on the fallboard may be a different language than the name of the manufacturer...

For sometime I attended a music school similar to a conservatorie and i remember that among pianists nobody care at all about piano brands. I never had with anybody a conversation about pianos. The general knowledge about pianos was: Yamaha the working horse affordable and reliable, steinway the luxury piano you expect at the big places, and everyhing else was a blurred mixture nobody care about. My opinion is that piano students were so busy trying to complete the assignments that teachers gave to them that they only care about what specific pianos were at their disposal and were good enough for practice regarding action and sound. And even those pianos had no appealing for them, other than being the machines they used to polishing and practising their pieces and exercises.

Joe
Those prices of used (almost new ) Schimmel's,Bluthner's ,Bechstein sold for those absurd prices
just totally blow my mind ? How can a Schimmel 130 sell for less than .. £2000 and a new Ritmuller 130 for £20,000 ???
One would have to be extremely unusually unmusical (if you tried the two ) and ignorant !
Chinese pianos I have tried 2 different models of the same brand , ( 2 years apart )in the same small dealer, so they could have been the same pianos OR they could have been different pianos.
There was a problem with the action in the Hailun 124. When one played just a few keys , the notes would sound a tiny fraction after the key was depressed. The tone was unpleasant to me !
The Hailun 130 had a far better action and tone but PLEASE no where near a Kawai K500 or a U1.
No not on the same level -- never.
If I had to compare it to my Sauter 130 it would an absolutely absurd comparison

I think you may be interested that recently there was in CL for sale an 18 year old Sauter 130 (my model) and the selling price was $17,000 CAD .,the piano was there for short time and was SOLD .
Another example was recently I was just looking at a used Concert 8 Bechstein(cannot remember if
she said it was 5 or 9 ) years old ,anyway the point being that the piano was selling for some ridiculous price like $50,000 (or more ) It does have a beautiful wood finish however. I was just curious and of course always want to try this model piano if I ever see it. The salesperson got totally
carried away when I said I had a piano and it was a Sauter .
A day later she said that I could trade in my piano and they would give me a credit of $22,000 for my
Sauter !!!!
I am not interested in buying another piano, but I thought that was a fairly good trade in price.
(the Sauter was bought in 2018 )

As I said we never bought the Sauter piano to sell it again .I have written a lot about my piano but have not done so because I think I am walking around with a valuable treasure. (not even I am that delusional )
I have been told however "that it is usually music teachers who buy these pianos ie German instruments "by a dealer. I have no idea if that is true or not.
From my pupils the pianos that seem popular in Vancouver are strange little spinets (yet I love the look of these ), Yamaha, Kawai and Canadian piano brands.
There seem to be a fair number of people who buy German pianos in the US. I fact a few years back
Sauter was often a brand that was discussed in many threads in PW.

Well Performance Practice is a subject often covered in many serious music studies. When they discuss the development of the piano into different areas such as those from England ,France and Germany it is about music interpretation not really brands.
These pianos have have all changed now from what they were once.We all know about Bechstein,
Bluthner when they were soviet made for example. Some like Seiler and Sauter escaped that problem.

Joe
I and am sure many find it very interesting when I hear you talk about the performer's approach to
playing different pianos like Bosendorfer, Steinway and Fazioli. We the audience are unconscious
to the challenges.
I have had very few times playing different grands. The only concert and semiconcert grands I have
played on was New York Steinways (at least I believe it was a NY), an almost 6ft Bechstein grand ,
a model 4 Petrof and the 7ft Ambient Sauter.There were others like Yamaha and Kawai and a few I
do not remember.
The only european pianos I have played on recently and my main focus has been uprights.

PS The prices above in the previous post above are related to Bechstein and Sauter are in CAD

They didn't need to do any research to choose who would make Boston...they just picked the same company that Baldwin used to make Howard!

Actually Lady Bird I agree with everything you've said. Performance practice IS an important subject and yet so neglected. Very few people in universities and music schools even know what Mozart's piano sounded like, and I've met more than one student who wondered what Chopin's Steinway was like....

Yes I miscalculate Gombessa, Joe and dogsperson of course we are not the usual group of people who know the difference between a Bluthner or a Kawai piano.
This is a vastly different age (and cultures for me )
that I knew.
The 70' and the 80's in some ways are the same ,a Yamaha U1 ,or a Kawai upright were the ideal (Grands were fairly rare ) pianos for the middle classes. Steinways was for the wealthy only, unless you found a newish one. Some of the European pianos were an alternative to Steinways.(and I think may still be)
Actually I believe the UK was fairly knowledgeable up to about the 70's and people new more about the musical value of certain brands of pianos, perhaps I am incorrect. Well my aunt certainly knew the Seiler she gave me was "quite piano" ! ( do not know what that means? ) The last time we were there was in the late 70's , but I was far to carefree in those days to worry about brands of pianos !

So it is possible that a well prepared Hailun upright is just about the same as a U1 and a K300 etc I really do not know anymore.
Perhaps digital pianos have confused things even more ?

In the UK in the pre- and post- world war 2 years, Blüthner had a stock of concert grands used for concert hire - famously at Abbey Road of course where the Beatles recorded Let It Be. That piano didn't belong to the studio it was Welmar's own concert hire.

The pianos were going all over the country and used for recordings and concerts, in major and minor concert halls, Wigmore Hall used it a lot before Steinways took over there.

Now things are heading in that way again and for a few years now there has been a good concert hire selection at Blüthner UK. It's not as big of a selection as at Steinway but nor do they need it to be. It'll be interesting to see how it all develops.

Joe
I suppose I am so OT but have you performed on pianos other than Steinways ? If so I am sure we all would be interested in knowing which ones.I hope it is alright asking such a question.
If you do not answer we shall understand.

There's no secrecy - I've performed on loads of different makes from the unknown to the well known. I've performed on Steinways of all sizes from both factories, Blüthners, Bechsteins, Bösendorfers, Broadwoods of various years, Chappell, Challen, Danemann, Erards, Fazioli, August Förster (both the German and the Czech ones - the Czech ones were rebadged Petrofs) Grotrian Steinweg, K.Kawai, Shigeru Kawai, Schimmel, Yamaha - quite a few CF concert grands including the CF, CFII, CFIII, CFIIIS, CFX, Young Changs. I can't actually remember all the pianos I've played and I can't remember all the ones that were good and all the ones that were bad. Usually the Japanese instruments have been incredibly reliable and some of them have been incredibly beautiful. I remember a Bösendorfer 225 in London that sticks out as a great piano, and the Blüthner concert grands have a particularly wonderful tone.

The condition of the piano is everything though. Once I played on a 5 year old Steinway model D (this is about 8 years ago so the piano would have been made in 2007 or 8), and I actually remember the piano in the showroom - John Lill chose it for a particular Cathedral and it was a wonderful piano. The problem is that the Cathedral had just let the local piano tuner loose on it, and the local tuner was not all that experienced, and nor did the Cathedral invest in having the piano voiced and regulated. You can imagine that 5 years in a Cathedral which is *INCREDIBLY* difficult to keep at a constant temperature is not good for an unserviced piano and this piano ended up playing like a truck and not projecting at all. It was a bloody nightmare to play on it to be honest and that was very sad because it was a particularly beautiful instrument when new. That is not a comment on Steinways, but rather the neglect of the venue after.

In Vienna I was performing on a Blüthner grand that had also been neglected by the venue and a similar thing happened - it felt like the jacks weren't catching properly and the piano kept on running away. In this particular venue, unusually, they had this terrible technician and oddly he kept trying to set up the concert grands as if they were an old viennese action and it just didn't work. It was so uncomfortable to play. If Dr Blüthner reads this post I've no doubt he'll know exactly who I'm talking about because I had that very conversation with him and Blüthner Wien are quite frustrated with this venue because the piano came back to them in terrible condition after being on loan a number of years, and yet all the new instruments are beautiful when properly regulated and voiced (you can say that about many pianos!).

The way I see it is that the piano itself is almost an unfinished product. It comes out of the factory and it gets tuned and voiced and regulated, and played, and tuned and voiced and regulated, and played, over a number of years and eventually it settles, it finds its voice. The first five or so years of a piano's life, it's really a little 'green', and needs to develop.

Reading this makes me wish I had got into piano when I was young

I never knew they could sound so beautiful - I have a Yamaha modx8 synthesiser but the experience of sitting in front of a great sounding acoustic is unbeatable

I think I might be better off getting a small upright as I can play a few tunes now - for me it’s all about the sound but I have read here that playing an acoustic will help with technique

So now I understand more just why people have a digital and an acoustic - digital for many instruments sounds and the acoustic to improve playing ability

An upright piano for me is an object of beauty especially when looking inside the top

I really wish I had discovered it when I was younger

Well I shall have the nerve to say they should try a Sauter Concert grand as well.



https://youtu.be/D6sXxOcGetU

Where is Sauter's professional support structure and concert hire stock that would allow them to do that? There is a reason that Steinway have had a virtual monopoly for many years and I don't think it is entirely, perhaps not even mostly, the quality of the pianos.

It takes quite a bit of long term commitment and cash to compete with Steinway on the concert piano arena. That is over and above the capital investment required to make quality pianos like Sauter, Steingraeber, Bechstein and Blüthner. And just for supposition sake, let’s say a renowned concert artist insisted on only playing a Sauter concert grand for her performances. She’d have to ship her own piano to every concert hall on the tour and have a trained concert tech traveling with a crew of piano movers - concert roadies so to speak. If it was me, I think by the 3rd concert setting I’d settle on playing the available Steinway instead of my beloved Sauter. Maybe LadyBird is that completely dedicated? I would probably drive the concert tech nuts wanting the Steinway on hand to sound and perform as my preferred Sauter.

This was NOT a serious question!
Pianos that have a tradition of being serious concert piano's are the one ones being voiced and prepared for playing against an orchestra !!!
I said I would have nerve to mention it. As far as I know ,from what I have is read there has been a chamber music concert at Carnegie Hall using a Sauter Concert grand.
Sauter instruments are being used in opera halls in Europe ,and quite a few university music department in Europe.
Ok PLEASE enough !
Sauter pianos do not make enough pianos anyway, never have ,so ...
Perhaps we should talk about that Chinese concert grand or if Shigeru concert pianos are really "making" impact an the concert platform.
When it comes to quality Sauter has it but it is "not like Cocoa Cola" ,so back to Steinways .....

I can also believe it is all rather a cut throat business anyway.