I love this piece! I can just imagine this at the title screen of a fantasy adventure game. And it's lovely to see that your new baby is a happy harpsichord now. P.S. I look forward to hearing your rendition of Mein Junes Leben Hat Ein End'. My game project that uses that on the title screen is stalled, so you might just beat me to it!
Very good, now we just need some Scarlatti on that harpsichord! 😁 Update on my piano: everything is now paid in full and it's officially mine. I have to leave the lid propped open with the short stick, otherwise the cats can get onto it and play with the chandelier (as they were want to do when we had the dining table in there). My tech came out yesterday to service the Baldwin, but his first appointment ran long, and there were some circumstances so time was a little short. Instead, we decided to have him look over the Petrof and give it a coarse tuning to get it in the ballpark (it was fairly out of tune). No sense in dialing in a fine tuning until after the wood acclimates to its new home. He did say that the piano is in great condition, soundboard and bridge/ribs are immaculate, and he'd call it almost "like new." The hammers and whippens are in good shape, nothing wrong with the tuning pins or pin blocks. Action is Petrof-built Renner. It DOES need some regulation, mainly the key drop and the dampers. Some keys show the hammer slowly rising back to the string after a couple seconds, almost like a double-strike, but not quite that bad. D3 isn't quite damping properly and rings a little. He has a few other Petrofs in his clients list, and they all seem to need the dampers regulated every so often. But otherwise it's in wonderful shape, and was well cared for. The una corda is a little stiff compared to the sostenuto and damper pedals, not sure if that's just the Petrof build or something going on, so I'll get him to look at it next time. The only other grands I've played on recently that I can compare are my teacher's Mason & Hamlin Model A, and the Steinway models M and D at the church where we have lessons and recitals. On the M, the damper pedal is a little stiff, and maybe has a little too much travel, but the D is a well oiled machine, and a delight to play on. Both Steinways were rebuilds by Ralph Onesti and otherwise play and sound very nicely. So, fine tuning of my Petrof is scheduled for next month before the recital so he'll have a good couple hours to work with it, only one appointment prior to me that morning. And we'll do the half-day regulation service in August or September. Full day includes thorough cleaning of the instrument, but it's not too bad right now, and there's not too much dust, so I won't worry about the cleaning service. So Half-day should be fine to get it all dialed in. Already feeling improvements in the Mozart D Minor Fantasy I'll be playing at the recital next month. Now that I have a nice piano, I'm planning to host semi-regular soiree's with my fellow adult students; informal play-ins to show our progress and growth every few months. It's something my teacher does every once in awhile, and a couple other students wanted to know when we could have another one. While I'm not planning on having us critique each other like in a performance lab, I'd leave it open to fellow students if they'd like feedback or not.
Oh, how fantastic! The slow rising of the hammers could be repetition springs that are too tight, even though usually they aren't tight enough. My una corda was really stiff, too, but that was because the previous owner never used it, ever. It's broken in perfectly fine after using it a lot at first to get it going. That is really funny about your cats! I keep my lid all the way open to keep them from trying to climb up. Only one cat has been inside the piano, and it was only one time (that I know of). Regulation is perfectly normal to needing to be done, of course. I do have some Scarlatti planned after a few more Ren. period pieces and some typical Bach. Good luck on the d minor Fantasy! I still play that piece from time to time. I have thought about recording it for for the channel for many years now, but I keep getting distracted by other projects.
Sorry, I just saw this comment. I did a lot of research on historic fingering reading the Couperin and CPE Bach books, as well as researching organ fingering of the time (organ and harpsichord fingering were the same back then), and a college prof of mine from decades ago also wrote on Renaissance (and earlier!) fingering. I don't know who Maria Boxall is, but I will certainly do some more research!
Historic fingering tries to avoid the thumbs and pinky as much as possible by "crossing" 3 over 4 and 3 over 2, depending on the direction you are moving, with exceptions for black keys. Also, in Renaissance music, you can only cross fingers on the strong beats; in Baroque, they crossed fingers any time, and then by CPE Bach's time, it was beginning to look very much like our current fingering system.
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I love this piece! I can just imagine this at the title screen of a fantasy adventure game. And it's lovely to see that your new baby is a happy harpsichord now. P.S. I look forward to hearing your rendition of Mein Junes Leben Hat Ein End'. My game project that uses that on the title screen is stalled, so you might just beat me to it!
Very good, now we just need some Scarlatti on that harpsichord! 😁
Update on my piano: everything is now paid in full and it's officially mine. I have to leave the lid propped open with the short stick, otherwise the cats can get onto it and play with the chandelier (as they were want to do when we had the dining table in there).
My tech came out yesterday to service the Baldwin, but his first appointment ran long, and there were some circumstances so time was a little short. Instead, we decided to have him look over the Petrof and give it a coarse tuning to get it in the ballpark (it was fairly out of tune). No sense in dialing in a fine tuning until after the wood acclimates to its new home. He did say that the piano is in great condition, soundboard and bridge/ribs are immaculate, and he'd call it almost "like new." The hammers and whippens are in good shape, nothing wrong with the tuning pins or pin blocks. Action is Petrof-built Renner. It DOES need some regulation, mainly the key drop and the dampers. Some keys show the hammer slowly rising back to the string after a couple seconds, almost like a double-strike, but not quite that bad. D3 isn't quite damping properly and rings a little. He has a few other Petrofs in his clients list, and they all seem to need the dampers regulated every so often. But otherwise it's in wonderful shape, and was well cared for. The una corda is a little stiff compared to the sostenuto and damper pedals, not sure if that's just the Petrof build or something going on, so I'll get him to look at it next time.
The only other grands I've played on recently that I can compare are my teacher's Mason & Hamlin Model A, and the Steinway models M and D at the church where we have lessons and recitals. On the M, the damper pedal is a little stiff, and maybe has a little too much travel, but the D is a well oiled machine, and a delight to play on. Both Steinways were rebuilds by Ralph Onesti and otherwise play and sound very nicely.
So, fine tuning of my Petrof is scheduled for next month before the recital so he'll have a good couple hours to work with it, only one appointment prior to me that morning. And we'll do the half-day regulation service in August or September. Full day includes thorough cleaning of the instrument, but it's not too bad right now, and there's not too much dust, so I won't worry about the cleaning service. So Half-day should be fine to get it all dialed in. Already feeling improvements in the Mozart D Minor Fantasy I'll be playing at the recital next month.
Now that I have a nice piano, I'm planning to host semi-regular soiree's with my fellow adult students; informal play-ins to show our progress and growth every few months. It's something my teacher does every once in awhile, and a couple other students wanted to know when we could have another one. While I'm not planning on having us critique each other like in a performance lab, I'd leave it open to fellow students if they'd like feedback or not.
Oh, how fantastic! The slow rising of the hammers could be repetition springs that are too tight, even though usually they aren't tight enough.
My una corda was really stiff, too, but that was because the previous owner never used it, ever. It's broken in perfectly fine after using it a lot at first to get it going.
That is really funny about your cats! I keep my lid all the way open to keep them from trying to climb up. Only one cat has been inside the piano, and it was only one time (that I know of).
Regulation is perfectly normal to needing to be done, of course.
I do have some Scarlatti planned after a few more Ren. period pieces and some typical Bach.
Good luck on the d minor Fantasy! I still play that piece from time to time. I have thought about recording it for for the channel for many years now, but I keep getting distracted by other projects.
Can you please explain the difference with the historic fingering and where I can find resources on it. Is this Maria Boxall’s fingering system?
Sorry, I just saw this comment. I did a lot of research on historic fingering reading the Couperin and CPE Bach books, as well as researching organ fingering of the time (organ and harpsichord fingering were the same back then), and a college prof of mine from decades ago also wrote on Renaissance (and earlier!) fingering. I don't know who Maria Boxall is, but I will certainly do some more research!
Historic fingering tries to avoid the thumbs and pinky as much as possible by "crossing" 3 over 4 and 3 over 2, depending on the direction you are moving, with exceptions for black keys. Also, in Renaissance music, you can only cross fingers on the strong beats; in Baroque, they crossed fingers any time, and then by CPE Bach's time, it was beginning to look very much like our current fingering system.