As part of the celebration of the one year anniversary of Pianoteq, they are expanding our growing beautiful instrument collection by announcing three new inspiring historical instrument add-ons.
·Sébastien Erard, half grand piano (2 m) serial number 109 933 (1922)
·Carl Bechstein, half grand piano (2.1 m) serial number 79 676 (1896)
·François Etienne Blanchet, “Château de Thoiry” harpsichord (1733)
The Sébastien Erard has an extraordinary warm and coloured sound with lots of charm, and is equipped with a very delicate una corda pedal. We tried to be as close as possible to the original instrument, including small “defaults” in the bass.
The instrument suits naturally well for Liszt who loved playing on Erard, but also for bringing out magic moments of the vivid and dreamy impressionism by Debussy and Ravel.
The Carl Bechstein has a strong and transparent character which makes it suitable both for classical masterworks and modern pop music. Here again we tried to reproduce the original character of the instrument and its very particular voicing which carries its own personal history.
The François Etienne Blanchet, copy by Anthony Gale (Frampton Cotterell, UK, 1993) is a harpsichord with a very delicate sound, inviting for inspiring musical moments from the baroque period representative by great masters such as Scarlatti, Bach and Haydn.
These add-ons are created in the frame of the non profit cultural project KIViR (Keyboard Instrument Virtual Restoration) which concerns historical keyboard instruments museums. They enrich our existing collection of historical instruments.