Est 1923

Gallery: the quest for the perfect Brahms piano

Gramophone
Friday, July 1, 2016

In 1877 Viennese maker Friedrich Ehrbar built this cross-strung piano with a cast-iron frame which, at 256 cm in length, is the largest piano ever to be equipped with a Viennese action. It’s extremely heavy to play, and yet it suits the athletic and virtuoso nature of the F major sonata, from its quasi-orchestral tremolandi to the bouncing figures of the Scherzo, and it has a full range of colour and dynamic...
...We know that Brahms admired Ehrbar, and the warmth of sound that this instrument possesses seems to me to be both quintessentially Brahmsian and of surpassing beauty.
Brahms owned a Streicher and they were also popular in his circle. This is an extremely rare instrument, built in 1878 with a Simple English action. Gert Hecher’s astonishing Viennese Collection includes no fewer than seven Streichers, but to my mind most are better suited to Lisztian brilliance than to Brahmsian warmth...
...The exception is this late Streicher, which may be nodding in the direction of Ehrbar, Bösendorfer, and Blüthner, but since the CD ends with Brahms’s honeyed setting of the Biblical text: “And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love”, only this Streicher would do!
Brahms himself owned only straight-strung pianos, so it was a pleasure to record the first of his duo sonatas, the E minor of 1865, on a straight-strung Carl Rönisch piano built in Dresden around 1860. This is a very pretty rosewood piano, ornamentally decorated throughout. The singing sound is pure, uncluttered, transparent but also strong...
...It inspired fleetness of foot and visceral excitement in forte passages, and, in the most reflective passages (such as the coda to the first movement, which perhaps forms a part of Brahms’s musical farewell to his mother) an asynchronicity of the hands in order to maximise the piano’s warmth and lyric qualities.

For his new recording of Brahms's music for cello and piano with cellist Alexander Baillie, pianist John Thwaites went to great lengths to find the perfect period pianos to suit the mood and style of each piece. To accompany each photo in the gallery (which you can open by clicking on any of the images above), Thwaites has written about the specific characteristics of each piano, and why they were chosen for each piece. A Rönisch piano was chosen for the Op 38 Sonata, an Ehrbar piano for the Op 99 Sonata, and a Streicher was used for the Four Serious Songs.

Thwaites's quest for the perfect Brahms piano demonstrates that there are many beautiful and refined instruments out there if you are prepared to look beyond the most famous and obvious piano manufacturers. For more information about the new recording, visit the Somm website.

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