Chords for Before and after restoration: Grotrian Steinweg 120 upright piano 1927

_ Hello, this is an assessment in transit of a Grotensteinweg upright piano.
It's a model 120, that's 120 centimeters high, and the case works faded and changed in color considerably since it was first [Eb] made.
The music stand inside gives us an idea of the original color.
You can see that's very [G] mahogany
[Gb] color and the original piano would have been similar.
The idea of these two music stands
was that this was the height of a grand piano, [E] which is a perhaps a better piano posture,
height, posture wise, and this is to put on [Gb] more modern pianos
because [F] it's not possible to fit these unless you do have them in the inside of the piano.
[Ab] Grotens have an
unusual back to them, they have a wonderful bracing here, which is actually copied by some Yamahas later on,
but it gives tremendous stability.
The soundboard at the back is in extremely good condition with no cracks on it.
The ivory keys here are in excellent condition.
They do need buffing and they're slightly yellowing, so if they're not buffed then they will tend to attract the dirt.
There's an 85 note keyboard, which is very common on this age of piano.
The inside of the piano, 1920, _ 1927, is an excellent age for Grotian
Steinwegs and they really are special, very special upright pianos.
You can see the wear on the hammers here, it's had
a reasonable amount of wear in its life, but I don't think those hammers need replacing, they need refacing and toning.
It's a bit brash at the moment, especially around this area here, [A] this area where it's [Ab] played a lot.
_ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ Slightly different tone this side to that side, which is quite common.
I don't think we can really eradicate that [Eb] completely.
_ _ [Gb] It can be disguised.
It's an excellent tone anyway.
Tremendous breakpoint between tenor and [Db] bass.
_ [Bb] _ _ [Db] _ _ [B] It's a sign of a really high [A] quality piano.
_ [Db] _ _ [Bb] _ [D] Where you can't really tell the tone
[Gb] difference between this point where they go to one part of the soundboard and that point where they go to another.
That's really high quality manufacturing.
Tested the tuning pins, which are very tight, and they're still the original tuning pins, original strings.
I wouldn't change those because Grotian has such a delicious flavor, as it were, of sound on the strings.
The piano is actually very well regulated with the pedal lifting,
_ the dampers coming off at the right time together and the dampers with the
key as well, they're lifting off halfway.
Extremely well regulated and doesn't really need much work.
It's just toning really and refacing the hammers.
So some slightly loose hammer flanges
where the hammer's moving sideways slightly, like this one here, and that will need attending to as well.
_ The set-off is also extremely well regulated.
They're coming off right at the very last minute and performing very well indeed. _
So the main work needing doing on this piano is toning and voicing the hammers and cosmetic work.
Here's a Richard Lip Upright that we've recently repolished.
We put 30 coats of French polish on roughly and finish off by waxing and
_ antique waxing.
Here's another Grotian that's in much better condition.
We've revived the case rather than repolished the case on this one.
The Grotian in question will need full repolishing.
So that's a Grotian Steinweg 1927, 120 centimeters [E] high, bought in for assessment and really well worth restoring.
It's a [D] superb piano.
[C] _ _ _ [Bb] _ [C] It has a beautiful singing tone right throughout
and _ [Fm] _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [Gbm] _ _ [G] _
a very rich warm bass.
[Cm] _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ So now the piano's finished off [F] and
it's been repolished by [C] 30 coats of French polish, finish [F] off by waxing and you can see the [Fm] case is completely [G] transformed.
_ We've also lowered the piano stool by an inch because it was too [Ab] high and also wasn't fitting underneath the piano either.
The [D] client asked for the original name of the supplier to be kept on there.
[D] That's nice to be able to do that and it's matching pretty [B] well.
You can see we've [Db] buffed the [Ab] keys so that they're now shiny and won't [Bbm] attract dirt.
[E] And the name's blended in [D] really nice with a new foot polish.
So this Grotian Steinweg has a lot of good quality [Db] German pianos have two desks.
So you've [D] got the
option of height.
[Gm] This is the height of a grand piano.
_ I've also repolished the desk if you look at [Em] how it was before
because it wouldn't have matched in as it was.
So the color is that we think is slightly less [Gb] red, richer,
[Eb] but more golden red color.
[C] The hinges that were loose have been tightened up, [Gm] put new hinge pins in them [C] and also the hammer's been refaced [Eb] and toned.
That's actually quite [Bb] a painstaking [E] process because when you [Gm] reface, and it's really important if you ever reface [D] pianos,
you must present the hammer to the string and pluck the strings [Dm] afterwards.
_ [F] Obviously you can't do it like this.
You just gently present it to the string, pluck the string and make sure it's hitting [C] all three [Eb] strings
exactly the same time.
Otherwise, _ refacing won't actually improve the piano.
But now you've got a lovely even [F] tone. _ _ _
And a nice,
[Cm] exactly the right, beautiful tone.
Goethe's are [D] such an amazing piano.
_ _ _ _ [F] _
_ [C] _ Wonderful [D] match of tone there, wonderful break point.
[Dm] _ _ As we mentioned [D] before, [Db] wonderful break point here.
[C] _ Excellent damping for [Gm] that crossover point.
[Em] See how small the damper is [F] here, but they put a fly damper on which cuts off all the [C] harmonics.
_ _ _ [G] _
_ [E] _ _ [Gb] So there's a competition of a client in the background here.
We finished off the piano then, [Eb] and it has a beautiful rich tone as [D] Grotians do.
_ [G] _ _ [Ab] _
Really one [Gm] of our very [C] favourite uprisings.
_ [F] _
_ _ [D] _ _ [Gm] _ _ [C] _ _
_ So [F] singing everywhere around the whole piano.
[Am] _
_ [G] _ _ _ [F] _ [Dm] _ _ _
[Bb] Very even [C] tones.
_ [Cm] _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _
_ [Cm] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [Gm] _