Keyboard, Manufactors

Wim Winters shows you around at Joris Potvlieghes workshop

 

FINALLY !! A major update on the pianoforte project. If you are new to this: I (= Wim Winters) asked Joris Potvlieghe to build a Viennese pianoforte, mainly for Beethoven’s music (or Schubert, or …). We let us guide by one main criteria, a conditio sine qua non for Joris, which was the requirement of having the historic instrument that would be copied in his workshop for the entire building process.
That condition lead us to a Fritz pianoforte, built in 1816, which was in a very bad condition, but… was sold to Joris in 2013. The bad shape of the instrument gave wonderful opportunities for taking all thinkable measurements and views.
Fritz was an important piano builder in Beethoven’s time. The instrument Joris is copying -and that was a requirement from me- leans still towards the 18th century. It is a style that not yet incorporates that of the somewhat later Graf pianofortes, which might represent a sound and style that Beethoven has known, but not heard anymore…

The recording that binds this video together is played by Howard Shelly, on a very similar Fritz pianoforte, built in 1814. It is a CD, recorded in 1984, released at AMONRA records.

If you are interested in Joris Potvlieghe,  there is an interview, which I found on the official Joris Potvlieghe website 

Interview

 

 

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