Home town honours David Helfgott
January 18, 2009
A sculpture celebrating the life and music of David Helfgott has been unveiled in the international concert pianist's adopted home town.
The three-metre-high stainless steel and brass sculpture was erected in the North Coast town of Bellingen, where Helfgott and his wife Gillian have lived for 12 years.
About 1000 people attended the unveiling and a performance by David Helfgott, 61, on Thursday...
http://www.davidhelfgott.com/


David hugging the sculptor, John Van Der Kolk.

Malmsjö "Guldflygeln" GoldWing

Ellis Island Piano:

A gaggle of pianos

Erard, Paris, ca. 1935
Extraordinary Art Deco case that looks like a sideboard when closed and opens to reveal a piano inside. Veneered in mahogany with nickel-plated edging.

Have a heart...

A derelict piano in a parlor in the abandoned Lee Plaza Hotel in Detroit.

quote:

Originally posted by Brian Becroft:
A gaggle of pianos

Brian, any idea where this is?

quote:

Brian, any idea where this is?

Klaverens house in Sweden, an Amazing place and an amazing backstory, however sad that may be, but similar in most places - the dying out of the European piano tradition and this represents an attempt to preserve a little of the heritage.

"In Sweden there have been about 280 factories for making hammer instruments (pianos). The first workshops opened their doors c. 1750, the last factories closed c. 1985. A tradition of 235 years is broken, maybe for ever."

http://www.klaverenshus.com/eng/engelska.htm
http://translate.google.co.nz/...v&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

Thanks!

Johann Schmidt Grand piano, ca. 1790 with pedal board
This extraordinarily rare piano from about 1790 has a pedal board with eighteen notes that are played like pedals on an organ. Pedal stringed-keyboard instruments were not uncommon in the eighteenth century. Johann Sebastian Bach is known to have owned a pedal harpsichord and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano by Anton Walter supposedly had a pedal mechanism at one point. Mozart's D-minor piano concerto, K. 466, requires the use of a pedal mechanism as it cannot be performed with the range of the manual alone. This example is attributed to Johann Schmidt of Salzburg, a friend of the Mozart family, whom Leopold Mozart (Wolfgang's father) helped to secure the job of court organ and instrument maker in Salzburg. Indeed, cleaning done in the 1980s revealed the initials of Wolfgang Mozart scratched inside long ago. It is possible that Mozart played this piano in Salzburg.
http://12.151.120.44/toah/works-of-art/89.4.3182

Another derelict piano, this one in an abandoned mental hospital:

Cigarette anyone?

Louis Jambor (1884 – 1955) Girls At Piano – The Rehersal