Aims and Criteria in the Selection of Pianos

We currently specialise in renovated pianos, since not all players choose to buy new instruments.

There are three main reasons why many players prefer older (renovated) pianos:

1. High-quality new pianos can be prohibitively expensive
2. New pianos often have bland cases and do not always appeal to the discerning eye
3. Those who have played an older high-quality piano (eg a larger renovated Lipp, Steinway, Pleyel, etc) are often delighted with the tonal character they hear and prefer this to the sound of many new pianos (even high-quality instruments

Our aim is to provide gifted musicians with pianos which delight and inspire the ear, the eye and the heart.

We therefore have to be very selective in choosing suitable instruments. Our selection criteria are:

• The instrument must be of sufficiently good quality to be worth spending a great deal of time, resources, expertise and money in renovating thoroughly. It must have the potential to have a good dynamic range, must have long enough scaling (especially the bass strings) to allow for good bass sound – this means larger pianos only. Above all it must have an intrinsically good tone in order to make renovation worthwhile. Suitable makes include Pleyel, Lipp, Bluthner, Grotrian Steinweg, Steinway, Bechstein, Brinsmead, Broadwood and Bosendorfer.
• The instrument must have the potential to look as good as it sounds; therefore cases often need to be modified or modernised, as well as adding art-work such as marquetry, in addition to polishing or re-finishing.