listed Clinkscale I: p.53.90
restored by David Winston, Cranbrook Kent UK
Description
Nameboard: rosewood with brass-framed rectangular boxwood plaque inscribed “John Broadwood & Sons / Makers to His Majesty & the Princesses/Great Purkeney Street, Golden Square/London”
Number: 6966
Compass: 6 octaves CC-c4, 73 notes
Keyboard: single unreveresed manual
Keyboard materials: naturals ivory, sharps ebony
Pitch: A415Hz
Tuning: equal tempered
Action: English grand action
Hammer coverings: leather
Bridge: divided
Strings:
- bass bridge CC-G# (21 notes trichord brass)
- treble bridge A-c4 (52 notes trichord iron)
Dampers: cloth overdampers
Frame: timber with five metal gap spacers
Handstop: uno/due corda setting at R of keyboard
Pedals: L: una corda R: damper lift, divided on central lyre
Case: Sheraton style mahogany with ebony stringing and cross-banding twi brass latches on bentside
Case lid: mahogany as for case, hinged to case lid
Fallboard: mahogany, as for case, detachable
Music desk: mahogany, detachable
Dimensions(mm): 2480l x 1160w x 290h
Legs: four turned and tapered with brass casters, fixed direct to case
Provenance: auctioned Sotheby, London, 1987 : Goodman, Sydney, 1995
Condition category: I
Rectification required: none
Concert dates: 14.09.97, 11.05.02, 13.08.06, 28.08.11, 29.04.13, 21.08.16, 25.09.16, 10.09,17, 15.07.18; many programmes available
Repertoire: late Beethoven, early Schubert
Commentary
While Broadwood’s instruments were in a way superior to their competitors, their mass-production methods clearly outpaced the opposition, and the name became synonymous with English fortepiano production.
In August 1817, Thomas Broadwood met Beethoven, at the time Europe’s most famous composer for the instrument (in spite of his frequently expressed dissatisfaction with it). and undertook to present him with the latest model, which duly arrived in Vienna early in 1818, in time for the composer to use it to complete arguably his greatest sonata, the “Hammerklavier”,op 106 in Bb, and possibly the remaining sonatas Op. 109-111 to complete the cycle between 1820 and 1822. With its serial number 7362, it is clearly identical with the Schureck Collection’s instrument number 6966, which would have been made earlier in the same year, and is featured in Clinkscale I.p.53 item 90.
Beethoven’s favourite brand.