A unique semi-circular 1929 Seiler baby grand piano (150cm long) with a semi-circular case. We are grateful to have got this piano into stock. There were very few Seiler grands less than 180cm made.
We had a technician from Seiler come in yesterday who said this was the case. I’m not surprised, I’ve never seen one myself. We have seen longer Seiler grand pianos.
If you take a look it’s almost semi-circular. We’ll have a look at a slightly longer piano. This is a Bosendorfer 170 grand. You can see it curves in, as most pianos do. Whereas the Seiler goes like a semi-circle all the way. And that’s so they can get the bass strings longer. And indeed it does have a wonderful tone throughout the whole piano.
Before we listen to that just see how beautiful the whole piano is. If you are in the trade, then Seiler, you will know, are a wonderful make of piano. And there aren’t enough of them in the UK. We really try and get as many as we can.
Look at the way they put their logo underneath the strings. Uprights have the same type of logo, although you never see it unless you open up the front piano and work on the inside of the piano. Beautifully made, no cracks on the soundboard and the tuning pins are very tight. So as I say we are really grateful to get this piano.
Let’s listen to the tone of it.
In the middle area, slightly echoey at the moment as the bass dampers are quite not working yet. We have done a lot of regulation already but the dampening we have got to do as the last thing. Listen to the bass strings as we compare them to a longer piano.
I can’t compare this with a Bosendorfer at the moment as we are changing the bass strings on that piano. And there is no action in it. But this Bluthner here is 5’7″. Again it is a wonderful piano. We do try and collect great pianos.
Back to the Seiler. So for a 5′ piano, the Seiler the strings are 116cm long, on the Bluthner they are 124cm long. Interestingly on the Bosendorfer 170 which is similar in length, is also 124cm, Seiler has managed to get a wonderful tone from a wonderful string. This has to do with the bridge and the soundboard combined. And apparently, the technician came in yesterday who said they shaped the soundboard at the edge which is another reason they get the power.
The other part that is remarkable is the celest. You can see the celest coming up which makes a remarkable difference. Listen to the difference.
There are cuts in the Celest that stop the felt transferring the hammer hit to other notes.
I meant to show you earlier the pedals as they are beautifully designed, the back plate there. Also, you can see the right-hand pedal does not show much more wear than the left-hand one which is very encouraging.
Also it is very encouraging that they have a wingnut screw the bold to take out the cheeks for removing the action. This is a sign of caring for technicians and the maintenance of the piano.
Now I have the action out, we can take a look at the hammers. We have refaced them already, you can see there is nearly 100% of hammer left. We are having to voice them.
There is no looseness on the centre pin, which is very encouraging. And also the roller is not very indented, so that is very encouraging. We have regulated it as you can see. They are usually sitting on the rail when you find them. It has been regulated, and the tone as we are saying we are voicing, a beautiful tone though.
By the way this is a Langer action, not a Renner action. If you are a technician you would have come accross many Langer actions they are extremely well made.
Before we listen to the piano I thought you might be interested to see how the celest was fitted.
As we move the lever up you can see how the celest comes up. You can see how they fixed it on. You can see how the celest moves up and down as well as the cuts on the felt for thickness. It is a very thick felt. In my mind a celest is much better than a silent-system.
On retrospect looking at how they fitted it in, fitting one might be a bit of a worrying task to make a hole in the frame to fit it in. Retro fitting one might be a worrying task.
So that’s a Seiler grand piano made in 1929 and a 150cm long, 4’11” 1/2. And as we’ve tried to show, it’s quite a remarkable piano. The tone of it, you can’t do better than this for that length of piano. It’s as good as any Bosendorfer/Steinway. Well Bosendorfer nor Stienway do a piano of this length. Steinway’s model S is slightly longer.
Bluthner model 4 is much more common and we have sold many many of those. This is unique for me. I have never sold any of these before. I have sold many Seilers which are wonderful pianos, as we have said in other videos.
Let’s look at the celest system as well, this lever puts on the celest system as well. Let’s hear it without and with the celest. If you are annyone the neighbourghs and or household the celest can help with scales etc. Remarkable. Again with and without the celest.
So one of the most wonderful 150cm pianos we’ve ever had. Thank you very much for listening.
