Adam Ramet said in 030514 MMDigest:

> The player mechanism is a Hupfeld-built one.  Hupfeld built
> instruments with 73-note scale and 65/73-note players turn up
> from time to time.

Be alert to the fact that "Claviola" was a Hupfeld trading-round
name, just as "Aeriola" was for flagrantly Aeolian-made products.
By "trading round" I mean selling products through dealers other than
the makers' own contracted agents, in order to maximise production
and cut into competitors' markets wherever possible.

Quite why the makers' agents didn't immediately get wise to this gambit
is a mystery -- perhaps they just thought the competing products were
clever copies by someone else?

John Farrell, the jazz piano roll arranger, had an 88-note Claviola
Vorsetzer for sale about two years ago which was quite obviously
a 73-note job with an 88-note tracker-bar conversion.  The end notes
were teed back to the nearest octave up or down.

However, after 1920 or so Hupfeld got into 88-note manufacturing in
a big way.  I've seen several quite early 88-note Phonolas in England,
often Rudi-Ibach-Sohn pianos with an oval "Ibach-Phonola" badge on the
fallboard.  The Bluethner and Broadwood grands sold in London with
Phonola actions, of any date, were all 88-note.  The Phonola pushup
(circa 1927) now converted to Duo-Art for recitals by Rex Lawson was
73/88-note from new.  (Stop Press!  It now plays as Duo-Arts in concert
halls should play.)

The 1947 date given in Jack Conway's interesting mini-history of
Roenisch signals the takeover of the business by the German Democratic
Republic.  From then on cheap uprights under the Roenisch and Hupfeld
names were made in Leipzig, though not I believe in the original
Hupfeld factory which had been badly damaged by bombing in 1943, until
the end of the 1980s.

Friends of mine who tried to look into the situation two years ago were
told that Leipziger Pianofortefabrik were not then manufacturing but
were working as piano restorers, with an eye to restarting at some
future date the manufacture of the Roenisch piano in a form worthy of
its original reputation.

Dan Wilson, London

 [ The piano firm surviving today is
 [
 [   Pianofortefabrik Leipzig GmbH & Co. KG
 [   Ludwig-Hupfeld-Strasse 16
 [   D-04178 Leipzig
 [   http://www.roenisch-pianos.de/
 [
 [ The same firm apparently also controls the Hupfeld marque:
 [
 [   Pianofortefabrik Leipzig GmbH & Co. KG
 [   Ludwig-Hupfeld-Strasse 16
 [   D-04430 Boehlitz-Ehrenberg/Leipzig
 [   http://www.hupfeld-pianos.de/
 [
 [ -- Robbie