Features
refurbished by previous owner, with ärtdeco” substitutions
Description
Nameboard: inside keyboard lid incised “Bluthner”in brass directly onto nameboard
Number:
Compass: 7 octaves AAA-a4 : 85 notes
Keyboard: single unreversed manual’
Keyboard materials: ivory naturals, ebony sharps
Pitch: A 440 Hz
Tuning: equal tempered
Action: modified English grand action
Hammer coverings: felt
Bridge: divided at DD-DD#
Strings (overstrung)
- bass bridge: AAA-DD (6 notes): unichord copper overspun on iron
- bass bridge: DD#-A# (20 notes): bichord copper overspun on iron
- treble bridge: B-a4 (59 notes): trichord iron
bridgeless: aliguot stringing g1-a4 (39 notes) – 6 missing
Agraffes: whole compass
Dampers: overdampers; AAA-F3 (69 notes)
Frame: cast metal with metal cov???nds ro wrestplank and string plane and three longitudinal braces
Pedals: brass L: una chorda. R: damper lift on central lyre
Case: ebonised over ärt deco”original
Case lid: hinged between front and rear ebonised over original
Combined convex-concave keyboard lid and fallboard ebonised over original
Music desk: Ärt Deco”upwardly-hinged over forward-sliding frame: ebonised
Legs: three tapering-sqaure-section legs with ? brass casters: ??? as for case
Legs, lyre, music desk: ärt deco” substitutions c.1920
Dimensions: 2000 x 1400 x 345 mm (ex lid)
Repertoire: late Liszt, Brahms
Provenance: purchased from retired owner, Sydney, 1990
Concert Use:
T.Birnie: 04.04.92
N.Routley: 17.08.97
P.Rickard Ford: 02.04.00
M.Brimer: 22.06.08
N. da Costa: 27.09.15
Description
The instrument, the “youngest” in the collection, is a fine example of an early modern grand. According to Herr Ingbert Bluthner, the firm’s current head, it is an example of their “Russian” model, designed to withstand climatic extremes. Notwithstanding the “art deco” music desk, lyre and legs, presumably added to give the instrument a “thirties” look, Herr Bluthner dates it to the mid-1860s, not long after Steinway’s introduction (1859) of the cross-strung, fully cast iron frame completed the evolution of the leather-hammered, short compass, straight-strung, timber-framed fortepiano into its modern descendant.
It has a light action and a clear tone, making it especially suitable for both the classicism of Brahms and Satie’s asceticism, and reminding us that the romanticism of Liszt and his contemporaries was rendered on such instruments as these, not on the heavy-actioned, plummy toned instruments, eschewing clear fundamentals in favour of a “golden haze” of tone, into which they were later to evolve.
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