A private collector in the UK has a wonderful set of concert grand
pianos, and puts on recitals a few times a year.  It's actually a farm
-- Hurstwood Farm -- and the packing barn was designed to double up as
a concert hall!

In this hall there is a Boesendorfer Imperial SE (the model with
Wayne Stahnke's record/playback system, which they say is now the only
one in Europe outside the factory), and a new-ish and very good Steinway
concert grand.  When they're together, the Boesendorfer makes the
Steinway look and sound small.

When I was there, the pianist played a piece on the Boesendorfer, the
Steinway was wheeled on and the same piece played over again.  On the
programme were a pair of tear-off slips and the audience was asked to
vote for which piano they preferred.  The result was about 60% Boesen-
dorfer, 40% Steinway -- apparently a typical result.

It's a friendly place, so I had a good look at the instruments and
tried a few notes.  The Boesendorfer's lowest 'normal' note (A) is
right in the centre of the soundboard, while on the Steinway the lowest
note is much nearer the edge of the board.  Steinways sound pretty
murky in the last two or three notes, while the Boesendorfer is
clean-sounding right down to the lowest A.

The extra notes make the ordinary notes sound better.  They must also
resonate when the pedal is on.  I once heard someone improvising some
Gershwin on one of these instruments, and he used the lower notes to
devastating effect - the noise is quite extraordinary.

As for the blackened-out keys, I read somewhere that it was found that
some pianists found the extra keys disconcerting, and consistently hit
notes lower than they expected. They appeared to use the edge of the
keyslips as a visual guide.  When the extra keys were either covered or
blackened out the problem went away.  I'm not a pianist, so I don't
know how true that really is!

A problem Hurstwood Farm have with their Boesendorfer is that most
pianists play it far too loud.  The construction of these instruments
is quite different to Steinway's: instead of Steinway's immense bent
plywood rim, Boesendorfers have a much thinner and lighter case,
apparently with the idea of projecting more sound dowm the concert
hall, and less towards the pianist.

As virtually all pianists are used to Steinways, they get less feedback
than they expect from the Boesendorfer and so tend to play it too loud.
At Hurstwood Farm they record the pianist using the SE system, sit them
down at the back of the hall and play it back to them!  They play
quieter after that.

 [ That's the most original use for the SE reproducer I've heard !
 [ -- Robbie

Someone asked if any player piano maker had ever offered a greater-than-
88-note instrument.  I wonder just what proportion were even the full
88 notes?  There are lots of 7-octave pianos (85 notes), and then there
are those with cut down stacks (80 note Aeolians, for instance).  One
Pianola Steinway 'O' grand I know is actually only 87 notes -- the
bottom bass note is omitted!

Julian Dyer