The human touch of "fit and finish" is a beautiful and remarkable thing. These wonderful pianos are filled with this combination of art and craft. Bravo for this piano company, and all of its people. Doctor G.W.
While I love learning more about pianos, I have never encountered the level of flowery, overwrought, and purple prose delivered in such earnestness as when it comes to these types of videos.
God, so true. Also, let's not forget that the Bechsteins were Nazis from the lowest A to the highest C. The pianos are fine, but generally pinched and prissy sounding.
Note that Dave Brubeck and Chick Corea are playing on Bechstein Model E-270 pianos, that haven't been manufactured for almost 50 years. Those were wonderful instruments. Towards the end of the video, there's Bernstein playing an E270. Do those musicians know something that the manufacturer doesn't?
as far as I know the E was 280, not 270. Other than that, I do agree. They are marvelous pianos. And if you want a concert grand for your hopefully really big house, a used E280 can be had for MUCH less than any Steinway D or Bösendorfer 275, 290 or 280
@Thlat The E was a 270cm grand. In 1974 (or 1975?) it was replaced in production by the EN-280. The EN-280 was built on the same design principles as the E-270, just bigger. Both models had 88 agraffes, no capo d'astro in the treble. Also individual hitch pins for all treble wire, just like the Bodendorfer 290.
Einen aussermasen grosser dank für diesen beitrag über C.Bechstein klaviere. Den klang ist einzigartig, ich hoffe das C.Bechstein auch im zukunft, dieser klang behalten wird.
Many old pianos ie 100 years had broad growth rings and they sounded great as did18century english harpsichords I think the superiority of fine ringed spruce is a myth it is just that it looks great in fact most italian spruce i have bought is medium to fine without me actually asking for it.
I have a C Bechstein EN (9 ") I'm my living room. I had many different high end grand pianos, including Steinways and none to my humble point of view come close to my Bechstein EN. The only problem is the weight when comes time to move it!!! The price is also a deterrent for many.
Please, do not forget to mention Shostakovich as another posessor of Bechstein pianos. Supposedly, taken from some shoot noble in the Great Revolution.
At 10:20, they talk about teaching the apprentices, but they are not doing well in their hearing conservation, the EAR Classic foam earplugs are not inserted correctly for the first person and essentially not at all for the second. One must hope that the noise levels are not hazardous.
Yes, through vigorous, often aggressive promotion of their product, offering financial/advertising support to promising young pianists to play their pianos so that the name STEINWAY in gold leaf is always towards the audience.
Liszt own favourite piano was a Bechstein and we still have it. Bechstein is far superior to Steinway which is more of an immature american musical piano for sounds like Gershwin (not the cucumber, the composer). To prove the point in 2021 I was in the market to buy a Grand and having spend two phone calls with Steinway's showroom lead salesman in nyc suddenly he thought he was bragging when he told me : "We are the best, we provide pianos to the likes of lady Gaga and the late night show". I thought excuse me , who ?? That shows how low their musical standards are. If you want a Grand piano in the historical classical music style then old Bechstein are right on. Steinway no thanks. Unfortunately Bechstein is also falling in the trap that a piano has to be a precision instrument to go to space. Precision is not the most important, the woods and the design are more important than excessive precision. A lot of the choice these people make are arbitrary and they spend half their time convincing themselves it is absolutely necessary, when it's not. I am an engineer, i know the field. There is a lot of wasted money. If you'd removed all of what isn't necessary you could make a piano of equal sound and action quality at a fraction of the cost without the luxury.
The level of fussyness in this video is hilarious. Never mind the precision and the so-called exactness and the "spruce from the tree line" high up in the Alps. If this were all so important our ancestors wouldn't have been able to build one single decent piano.
@Christian Wouters fussyness is a fair description. This only shows that they have lost it and no longer know what is essential in making a piano, they are chasing their own tail with non needed expenses. This happens when each senior employee exaggerates the importance and merit of his/her specific task for job security, making fussy requirement and the management is no longer the true mastercrafts thinks they have to listen to these senior employees. Over time they use more and more unecessary processes that keeps those employee necessary to run them. At the end the cost of the instrument is ridiculously high and not even with sculpted finish or nice wood as old pianos were.
@Goognam Gowi Indeed. I don't understand that the Bechstein firm doesn't see that publicity of this pretentious kind has the opposite effect and let's ask the question: so all Bechstein piano's prior to the digital area inferior? In a way the computer saved the Bechstein Company?
@Christian Wouters Exactly. In the 19th century those piano makers were still lean and efficient family enterprises they understood the priorities and the factory floor tasks, materials and the accounting of the business. Generations later intermediary level of hierarchies have disconnected the top management from the actual art of piano making and business. Job security at intermediate management levels drive companies costs high by seeking to make their positions important misleading by improving a process that didn't need improvement. The pretentious publicity is a giveaway that this is happening in their internal company poliics. They end up believing their own error that such process needs rocket science level engineering accuracy to the micro meter whatever the cost. This tends to plague companies as they age. The top executives become disconnected fat cats, who learn a "play book" of public relation bs to look the role, but are really only looking for profit and trusting a midlevel management whose priority is job security and high salary. The sad part is the actual skills and knowledge to make a good piano without wasting money are still within the company but they added all those layers of unecessary processes.
@Goognam Gowi I am a piano technician for Yamaha Company in Belgium and never encountered such pretentious publicity as in this Bechstein add. We tune here by ear withouth any computer or tuning app.
Nor Schimmel nor Fazioli nor Bosendorfer nor Kawai nor Steinway nor Petrof nor even the big Yamahas need worry about being up-staged by Bechstein. If they are that good, where are the concert halls, town halls and auditoriums buying them? The prolific English Broadwood and Marshall & Rose were, in their day, the equal of any Bechstein.
