In the July 2001 issue of Gramophone magazine, reviewing a new recording by Andras Schiff of the piano music of Janacek, the critic David Fanning writes:
"At first I wondered if he was maybe recording on the composer's own piano in some museum-house in the Moravian woods, so recessed and over-resonant is the sound. It turns out in fact to be a modern Bosendorfer, of the kind Schiff favours for Schubert. At any rate it has a similar papery, fortepiano-ish quality in the treble. [...] ...but how starved the treble sounds on this instrument, just where it should sing out."(p.76)
I have four of Schiff's Schubert-Bosendorfer recordings, and have always liked the sound on them.
Interestingly, in the same issue (p. 15) in an interview with the pianist, Schiff is pictured seated before a Steinway. Not that there is anything wrong with endorsing more than one instrument.
In this connection, though, the Jorge Bolet recording of Lizt/Schubert song Transcriptions (London 414 575-2) has a photograph on the back of the booklet of Bolet seated before a Bechstein, while the small print says: "Piano supplied by the Baldwin Piano Company." Does this mean that the Baldwin Piano Company supplied him with a Bechstein? I think probably not and I'm assuming the recording was made on a Baldwin.
Not that any of this has any great significance; I just thought you readers might find these observations interesting.
Regards,
[ June 21, 2001: Message edited by: BruceD ]
