I set out on the 7.40 train from York to Scarborough on 4th June. Nice also to have my first close encounter of the musical kind at Scarborough railway station, which has acquired a "public piano" (along with a large number of others in the North of England, but unfortunately not York... harrumph!)
After arriving at Scarborough, thanks to Dr Beeching, I couldn't continue my journey any further by rail, so I ended up catching an absolutely packed bus which climbed an enormous hill out of Scarborough and passed across mist-shrouded moors before descending down another very big hill into Whitby.
Wonderful Whitby is famed for its history, scenery, olde worlde charm, tea rooms, sea air, steam trains and.... well, let's not mention the weather, shall we? At least it wasn't raining. It would be positively impolite to come this far and not take a walk up the famous abbey steps (all 199 of them) and see the famous Abbey itself, albeit in my case by walking around the back of the site. Thought you might like this photo:
Whitby Abbey in June
You can definitely imagine Dracula turning up near here around nightfall, can't you? In any case, on with the journey to Lythe village, about four miles out of Whitby to the north, where the festival was being held. The name of the village comes from a Scandinavian word for "slope" - I'll leave you to guess why that might be but if you really want to know, try walking up the road from Sandsend, just up the coast from Whitby, into Lythe village itself. The Piano Festival was a two-day event at the village hall.
This was the oldest of the pianos on display, a 1793 Broadwood square piano, and still in working order after 220 years.The first thing to note about square pianos is that they aren't square - in fact the term (according to the Piano History Centre) comes from a corruption of the German term "Querpiano" which, as my German housemate pointed out, means exactly the opposite (transverse or "skew-whiff" piano) which refers to the position of the strings, which run diagonally across from side to side (unlike a grand piano where they run directly back from the keyboard). In fact, Germans now use the term Tafelklavier ("table piano") for this type of instrument which is a very apt description.
The tone and touch of the piano is quite delicate by modern standards and it sounds not unlike a harpsichord (though, unlike a harpsichord, the finger can control the strength of the blow and thus the volume). By the middle of the next century, a desire for more volume, sustaining power and a resonant tone had led to the piano becoming much bigger and heavier:
This is an 1858 Broadwood square piano - in case you're wondering why there's a picture of Queen Victoria on the music stand, it's because the piano belonged to her - it was moved into Buckingham Palace in 1867 as shown in the documents in the open folder on the right-hand side. In fact this is well towards the end of the era of the square piano since production in Europe finished not long after 1860. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the square piano had been a smaller and less expensive instrument than a grand piano, better suited to limited spaces. However, by this time the size had increased to a point where moving the piano was a significant challenge - like a grand piano, this one would need its legs removed and to be tipped on its side when moved.
By now the square was in competition with the upright piano, which took up less floor space and was much easier to move than the larger squares then in production. In addition, the position of the action in square pianos (positioned behind the keyboard) and the limited space for it meant that hammer shanks were of different lengths and hammers had to be specially shaped and angled, in contrast to the upright piano where shanks could be of relatively uniform length and hammers of much more similar dimensions. This meant that square pianos were relatively expensive to manufacture, so they rapidly disappeared from the market. Curiously, they persisted much longer in the American piano industry, with Steinway's continuing to produce them as late as the 1890s - later examples continued as before to grow in size and gained full cast iron frames.
Also the sustain pedal of the piano can clearly be seen - Broadwood was one of the very first manufacturers to use these in place of the older knee pedals or hand stops in the 1780s.
This piano is an early barless grand made by Broadwood, with a pressed steel frame - the section of the rim with the red and gold decoration is also part of the frame. The piano is straight-strung (later barless models were overstrung). Unlike conventional piano frames with bars, this type of frame, an innovation of the Broadwood company, cannot be made of cast iron, because of the significant flexing that takes place when the substantial tension of piano strings is placed across it. This movement would cause a conventional cast iron frame to crack (as the material is strong in compression but relatively brittle in tension).
The grand piano above is a later barless model from around 1920, which is overstrung. Both of the barless models in fact have a remarkable continuity of tone from bass to treble (across the break in the case of the overstrung) but unfortunately the cost of the cast steel required made them much more expensive than conventional frames, especially after the First World War when materials were scarce. In typical fashion, one of the bass strings on this piano had broken a couple of days earlier, at which point it was too late to have a replacement made before the Saturday evening concert! One other unusual feature is that some of the copper-wound strings in the upper bass are trichords (normally there are two strings or only one for these bass notes).
Congratulations to Dr Alastair Laurence of Broadwood and his dedicated volunteer team of piano technicians and helpers (Cristina, Heather, Heather, Yo, Steve and Geoff to name those I know of) on a fascinating exhibition and all the hard work to bring these pianos into a good state of repair beforehand, as well as staging the whole event itself. A great shame I had to miss the two concerts on the Saturday and Sunday evenings as it would have been impossible to get back to York afterwards, but a fascinating and worthwhile day out.
Congratulations to Dr Alastair Laurence of Broadwood and his dedicated volunteer team of piano technicians and helpers (Cristina, Heather, Heather, Yo, Steve and Geoff to name those I know of) on a fascinating exhibition and all the hard work to bring these pianos into a good state of repair beforehand, as well as staging the whole event itself. A great shame I had to miss the two concerts on the Saturday and Sunday evenings as it would have been impossible to get back to York afterwards, but a fascinating and worthwhile day out.