#bechstein

[tristanginger]

Give me some vibrato- pitches love vibrato.

[pianotunerwolverhampton]

On behalf of me and to everyone at Broughton Pianos I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year in 2024.

www.broughtonpianos.co.uk/

www.matthewjamesrichards.co.uk/

#christmas2023 #piano #broughton #kawai #yamaha #bechstein #steinway #whoffmann #Hailun #danemann #Dudley #stourbridge #brierleyhill #belbroughton #kidderminster #christmasmusic #pianist #pianotuner #pianoteacher #pianotuning

[thomschroeder]

© 2023 All Rights Reserved

No. 8056

[loveisinthebat]

Screamin

[rate-every-bat]

hii!! i love this blog because im a big fan of bats and love learning about ones ive never heard of before!

may i request the bechstein's bat and the common pipistrelle ? theyre probably my favourite bats from where i live, id love to hear your opinion!! thank you for running this blog!!!

Thank you for your patience! I just posted about the Common Pipistrelle, so let's dive into the Bechstein's Bat!

Today's Bat: Bechstein's Bat

Environmental Impact: The Bechstein's Bat is a British native species currently being threatened by a loss of deciduous tree habitat. In other areas of Europe, they qualify as near-threatened, while they are actively endangered in Wales. They're arboreal roosters with interesting social habits (more on that later), and they're vital in the areas they inhabit for insect control. An article I found from 2008 cited a distinct lack on conservation effort for the species, and my (admittedly brief) research didn't turn up anything to dispute that.

🦇🦇🦇🦇/5

Beauty: How photogenic! Their ears are their true beauty. So amazing are those lovely ears, the Bechstein's bat actually listens for insect sounds rather than relying on echolocation to hunt. The pink skin that peeks through the lighter areas of their fur is just adorable.

🦇🦇🦇🦇/5

Power: Alright, time to talk about socialization! Because these bats roost in trees, their colony sizes often outgrow the surface area of their chosen roosts. Therefore, they've developed an interesting social habit: individuals cycle from roost to roost, maintaining relationships with every colony and ensuring that everyone has a friendly place to rest their head. During the autumnal mating season, this behavior is taken even further, as colonies meet and swarm in order to introduce as much genetic diversity as possible. The power of friendship!!

🦇🦇🦇/5

Overall: A beautiful friend who deserves some eyeballs. If you're aware of any specific conservation efforts being made for these little guys, please let me know so I can update my information!

🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇/5

(Today's sources: BCI, PTES, Bats.org, 2008 article from British Wildlife)

[oeuvrinarydurian]

This is going to be my first scheduled post for Snarky Little Shit Sunday. It’s also the first one I’ve posted myself. I was re-watching Fugue, and I wanted to showcase this absolute “go fuck yourself” hairy eyeball situation he’s shooting at the back of the departing Jakes in the train yard. 

I’m celebrating my niece’s graduation from college and my nephew’s graduation from high school, and we’re throwing my birthday in a little belatedly so I won’t be around much. Have fun celebrating our beloved little Snark monster.

[adarkrainbow]

Do you know about Ludwig Bechstein? Well you should.

But do not worry: if you never heard of his name until now, it is perfectly normal. In a similar way to madame d'Aulnoy in France, Ludwig Bechstein was one of the great names and influential sources of the fairytale in Germany, but fell into complete obscurity due to being overshadowed in modern days by a contemporary (Charles Perrault for madame d'Aulnoy, the brothers Grimm for Bechstein).

Ludwig Bechstein was, just like the brothers Grimm, a German collector of fairytales (Märchen in German), and just like them he published an anthology of them. However, whereas the brothers Grimm started publishing their work in the early 1810s with re-editions later on, Bechstein published the first volume of his collection in 1845, and the second volume in 1856.

And here's the thing: Bechstein was MUCH, MUCH more well-known in Germany than the brothers Grimm, for the rest of the 19th century. While yes the brothers Grimm were a big success and a huge best-seller, Bechstein's fairytales were even more so. In fact his fairytales were THE de facto German fairytales of the 19th century - until the brothers Grimm's international celebrity (because their fairytales had crossed the Germanic frontiers into English and French-speaking countries, while Bechstein's had not) came back and made their own fairytales overshadow, and then completely eclipse/bury Bechstein's own fairytales.

Why is this important? Because Bechstein had in his collection several fairytales that overlapped with those of the Grimm: for example, as I will show above, both collections had an "Hansel and Gretel", and " Little Red Riding Hood". But while we know today the Grimm's version better, it was the Bechstein's version that the 19th century children knew about. And there is one big difference between the two sets of tales: while the brothers Grimm were obsessed with an "accuracy" of the stories (or what they believed was an "accuracy"), stitching stories together or writing them so as to create what felt like a traditional oral story as it would be told to you by a random German person, Bechstein allowed himself a more "literary approach". He never reached the level of an Andersen or a d'Aulnoy that would entirely rewrite a folk-tale into a long poetic epic... But he allowed himself to correct inaccuracies in the stories he collected, and to add personal details to make the story fit his tastes better, and to develop the dialogues into more than just nonsensical little rhymes, so while he kept short and simple stories like the Grimms, they definitively were more literary stories.

To give you two good examples of the differences, here are Bechstein's changes to the two stories I described above.

The main change within Little Red Riding Hood is Bechstein making the girl more intelligent and well-meaning than in the Grimms version, and the Wolf's deception even more devious. When the wolf tells the girl she could go pick up flowers and play outside of the path, like in the Grimm's tale, Bechstein's Riding Hood stops and asks roughly (not a quote I recap here): "Hey, mister Wolf, since you know so much about herbs and plants within this forest - do you know about any medicinal plant around, because if there is an herb that could heal my sick grandma, it would be super cool!". And the wolf jumps on the occassion, pretending he is a doctor - and he lists to her a whole set of flowers and herbs and berries she can pick up that would heal her grandmother... except all the plants he describes to her are poison, and the Wolf just mocks his intended victim. The joke also relies on the fact that all the plants he lists are named after wolves, with the beast convincing the girl it is because wolves are good and great things. (There's the wolf's-foot, the wolf's milk, the wolf's berries, the wolfswort - names which do correspond to real-like plants such as the spurge laurel or the aconit).

The ending is also slightly modified. The hunter is attracted to the grandma's house by hearing the unusually loud snoring of the wolf - he thinks something is wrong with the grand-mother, maybe she is dying, only to find the wolf in her place. He immediately grabs his rifle to kill it but then pause wondering "Hey, the little grandma is nowhere to be seen... and she was a scrawny woman... Better check if he did not eat her". And so he opens the wolf's belly (and the wolf is still asleep during all that, he really is a deep sleeper). When the humans decide to put stones in the wolf's belly, they explicitely reference in-universe the "Wolf and the seven goats" story, which gives them the idea. (Quite a fun and accurate detail since we know that the brothers Grimm attached the episode of the stone to the Little Red Riding Hood story by taking it from the "Wolf and the seven goats" one)

As for Hansel and Gretel, the witch is described differently from the Grimms (she is still a very, very old woman who has something wrong with her eyes, but she isn't red-eyed like the Grimm, rather she has "grass-green" rheumy eyes, and she has no cane or crutches, Bechstein rather insisting on her being a hunchback and havin a very, very large nose.) But the main difference occurs in the climax, which is very different from the Grimm.

The witch still tries to push Gretel in the oven, but she doesn't ask the girl to check if it is "hot enough". Rather she put bread in it to go with her Hansel-roast, and she asks the girl to check if the bread is brown yet. And Gretel is about to obey... when the snow-white bird that led them to the house reappears and warns her of an upcoming danger with human words. The girl immediately guesses the trick, and pushes the witch in the oven. Second big change: the "treasures" the children obtain are not the witch's, nor do they find it on their own. As they exit the house, the treasure literaly rains on them - because all the birds of the forest arrived and dropped the precious items on them while singing "For the crumbs of bread / Pearls an gems instead". As the children understand, the birds were grateful for what they believe was food offered to them (the bread crumbs) and reward the children with the treasure.

Oh yes and the mother (no stepmother here) doesn't die. Rather she and her husband are miserable in their house because they regret leaving their kids, so they are very happy when they return, and with the treasure they all are certain to never go hungry again. Happy end. (Because here the mother isn't a bad person like in the Grimm - she just really, REALLY was a desperate woman who didn't want to see her own children die before her eyes)

[deutschland-im-krieg]

A sketch of Adolf Hitler from 1926, by Ernst Paperfait. Several people who knew Hitler said this was the best-ever likeness of him, regardless of the time period. Paperfait was introduced to Hitler in 1925 by Helene Bechstein. Hitler sat for 90 minutes in Frau Bechstein’s hotel room at the Hotel View Zahreszeiten while Paperfa toiled away.

Her son-in-law said in 2001, "this is exactly as Hitler looked in the early days. It captures his eyes, his determination and it just looks exactly as he did." Egon Hanfstaengl said the same thing before his death in 2007. Bild published his remarks, "it’s neither flattering or unflattering, it’s just him precisely (Es ist bloß ihn, ganz genau)."

Hitler himself loved the sketch and presented the original to Frau Bechstein (of the Bechstein piano concern). The sketch was made into a postcard and Hitler signed many of these at the 1928 and 1929 Reichsparteitag der NSDAP

[mask131]

A trivia not many people know about: the Humperdinck opera of "Hansel and Gretel" is NOT based on the story by the brothers Grimm.

While, yes, the "Hansel and Gretel" story most well-known and famous today is the version given to us by the Grimm, there was actually another collector and writer of fairytales who was much more successful and more well-known than the Grimms back in the 19th century Germany. It was Ludwig Bechstein, who published a collection of fairytales a few decades after the Grimms released theirs - and he immediately overshadowed them in German literature. The German children of the 19th century were more aware of the Bechstein tales than the Grimm's.

And in his collection Bechstein wrote several fairytales that were alternative versions of the Grimms - including his own version of "Hansel and Gretel". The Humperdinck opera is not an adaptation of the brothers Grimm story - but of Bechstein's own take on the fairytale. You notice this due to a lot of small details in the opera that can be found only in Bechstein's version of the tale, not the Grimm's version.

[ghostjelliess]

Ludwig Bechstein's books were initially more popular than Grimm's in their competing era of publication (~1800s). I got these from a library book sale and this is what I went to look up. But here's what else I learned from Wikipedia:

*His mother was a German countess and his father was NOT THE COUNT. 👁️👄👁️

*His father was a French immigrant who mysteriously disappeared before his birth. 👻

*He grew up in the nearby orphanage in poverty, like, within sight of his mother's castle.

*His uncle Johann (mother's brother) was a respected scholar, we're talking: naturalist, forester, ornithologist (birds), entomology (insects), heptologist (amphibians) etc. In a time when the natural sciences were not necessarily divided between biology, zoology, botany, etc. The guy founded schools, classic wandering scholar archetype.

*Unkle Hans returns home and finds out he has a nine year old malnourished nephew living in the streets. Pissed (I assume). He adopts little Ludwig and immediately sends him to school (which would take a lot of catching up for NINE YEARS in these streets).

*Luddy boy studies philosophy, has connections with some big sponsors, apprentices as a pharmacist, ugh, moved to literature.

*Lutz gets a lifetime post as a Duke's librarian, where he happily writes romance novels, poetry, and published collections of folk tales.

*When he died they built a fountain (not a bench) in the English garden of the estate.

[oeuvrinarydurian]

Literally everyone is re-blogging this, and I don’t want to get left out. This is one of my top three episodes, but it is jarring. It pulls me out of S3-onward rapturous lust-filled reverie (read: dirty thoughts) in order to revisit Baby Morse’s episode 2 hair and the terrible cheap suit.

However, we get excessive levels of Snark, which perhaps compensate. Perhaps there’s a direct correlation between Snark and glow-up. Somebody needs to make a graph.



endeavour - ep. 2 - fugue

[loveisinthebat]

No Soliciting!

[merriammusicinc]

Bechstein vs Steinway Pianos | Everything You Need to Know

If you're a piano shopper or performer and you're investigating the highest echelons of the piano business, it's going to be awfully tough to miss these two titans - Steinway & Sons and C. Bechstein. Sure, there are a small handful of other pianos in the same top-quality tier that garner an equal level of musical respect, such as Bosendorfer, Fazioli and Steingraeber & Sohne, but no other two piano makers have achieved the same scale and dominance in their respective markets than Steinway or C. Bechstein have.

Whereas Fazioli and Bosendorfer sell just a few hundred units per year, C. Bechstein produces over 4,000 musical instruments annually in Seifhennersdorf Germany, and Steinway also remains well into the four-digit territory between their Hamburg Germany and New York factories.

But what many don't realize is just how close in design these two instruments actually are, despite the fact that they are musically very different from one another.

In today's article and companion video, we're going to cover the musical and technical differences between Bechstein vs Steinway pianos. We’ll also look at their similarities, a rundown of their histories, and a snapshot of how things look for these manufacturers today.

Let’s start with C. Bechstein.

C. Bechstein Early History

German company C. Bechstein has been producing pianos for over 150 years. Their story begins in the city of Berlin in 1853 when German Master Piano Maker Carl Bechstein began constructing highly personalized, bespoke upright pianos for the top artists of the day - a tradition of excellence with the vertical format that continues to the present day.

The small shop quickly grew to a large-scale operation, and by the turn of the 20th century, C. Bechstein was producing several thousand pianos annually.

WWII

At the height of C. Bechstein's popularity, their pianos were the preferred choice of European and British aristocracy, as well as the preeminent concert halls of the day due to their superb build quality, musical capabilities and stunning cabinetry.

Unfortunately, the tensions and the destruction resulting from the two World Wars virtually ended the company. Luckily for us, C. Bechstein has undergone a complete rejuvenation over the past couple of decades.

Today

With new ownership and a massive investment of capital into the company, C. Bechstein has been experiencing a renaissance since the early 2000s. With the purchase of the already existing Bohemia Piano Factory in the Czech Republic, they've also begun producing pianos under the C. Bechstein Europe umbrella with the resurrected W. Hoffmann brand, serving as a high-value European alternative to the top-level professional Japanese pianos from Kawai and Yamaha.

In addition to that factory acquisition, they've also revamped many of their flagship piano models with more advanced scale designs, improved cabinetry, and very notably, a brand new action and hammer division, making them one of the few piano companies worldwide to manufacture their own hammers in-house.

Current Piano Lineup

In addition to the three quality lines from their Czech factory, C. Bechstein produces German-made upright and grand pianos in two quality levels. The lower-priced Academy Series line is on par quality-wise with the very best handmade Japanese pianos and certain other German companies.

The higher-priced C. Bechstein Concert Series sits right at the top of the heap for overall quality and craftsmanship in terms of what’s available anywhere in the world today.

With extensive recent redesigns throughout the entire C. Bechstein Academy and Concert Series lineups, the current C. Bechstein pianos are noticeably superior to what the company was producing even 10 to 15 years ago.

Certain C. Bechstein grand pianos and C. Bechstein uprights are regarded as the best pianos available for their specific size - the C. Bechstein Concert 8 is held by many as the finest upright piano money can buy, and the C. Bechstein C234 is widely considered as the best semi-concert grand piano currently in production.

Differences Between Academy and Concert Series Lines Materials

Some of the specific material differences include the AAA Austrian white spruce in the Academy Series versus the much more expensive Val di Fiemme spruce used in the Concert series - this is an extremely rare red spruce, and is sourced from the same forest that Stradivarius cultivated for his legendary violins.

Mahogany hammer moldings are used in the Academy line versus the stronger and lighter walnut hammer moldings in the Concert line. From there, C. Bechstein uses the high-quality Silver Line Action in the Academy Series versus their top-tier Gold Line Action featured on the Concert Series. The geometry is quite similar between these two actions, but the Gold Line Action is built to an even stricter tolerance level.

C Bechstein Hammers Manufacturing Time & Designs

The manufacturing time for the Academy series is roughly half that of the time they spend on their Concert Series. Certain specific design differences include non-tapered soundboards in the Academy Series versus tapered soundboards in the Concert Series. A thicker, full hardwood rim with more laminations is used in the Concert Series along with solid beech bridges and a pinblock that also has more laminations, contrasted with a slightly thinner rim and less complex bridge design and pinblock in the Academy series.

There is some debate amongst C. Bechstein lovers throughout the world as to which design is superior. The mid-20th century C. Bechstein’s had a very romantic sound with a less complex tone and less projection often described as intimate.

The present-day C. Bechstein models use virtually every best practice and design feature known to the piano industry and as a result, the tone is probably described best as something falling between a Steinway and a Fazioli in terms of the dynamic response, extremely wide color pallet and staggering cabinet resonance.

Steinway & Sons Early History

Steinway & Sons is without a doubt the most recognizable piano brand in the world. German immigrant Heinrich Engelhart Steinweg, eventually known as Henry E. Steinway, opened a small workshop in Manhattan in 1853 after years of piano making in Germany.

After obtaining over 100 design patterns, multiple location changes, and of course, anglicizing the family name to Steinway, Steinway would emerge as the dominant force in American piano manufacturing. In the 1880s, wanting to expand to the European market, Steinway opened a facility in Hamburg, Germany to supply Europe and the rest of the world.

Rise to Worldwide Prominence

Into the 1900s, Steinway became one of the most successful consumer brands in the world, pioneering many of the marketing techniques that we would now call product placement. Steinway Concert halls in London, New York, and Germany became the center of culture for many affluent and newly moneyed successful families and business people.

The newly minted Steinway Artist Program created and to this day maintained a monopoly among touring classical pianists.

Today

Steinway still produces pianos in both New York and Germany, with the New York factory supplying the Americas and the German factory supplying the rest of the world.

Steinway is no longer family-owned, and it has changed hands several times throughout the last 100 years. The company has had stable ownership since about 2013 after it was acquired by a New York-based private equity firm.

While the pianos from both factories are renowned for their quality, pianos from the German Hamburg factory are often regarded as superior to New York, though, there has been an effort in recent years to bring the American factory up to a similar standard that was established by its German counterpart.

Current Piano Lineup New York Steinway Steinway Pianos - Model D

Steinway’s New York facility currently produces a single upright piano, the well-regarded 52” K52, which is available in a couple of different finishes.

In terms of the grand pianos, they offer a full lineup ranging from the 5’1” Model S baby grand piano to the 9’ Model D with four models in between. Their pianos are very popular in the high-end market among musicians and play the role of a sort of status symbol.

Despite improvements to quality consistency in recent years, the NY Steinway’s are still generally regarded as a step below their German counterparts.

Hamburg Steinway

Like the New York facility, Steinway’s Hamburg facility also offers the 52” K-52 as their only upright piano currently in production.

The grand piano lineup is the same except for one extra model, - the 7’5” C227. The German pianos are voiced quite differently from their American counterparts and do feature some differences in materials.

Differences between Bechstein vs Steinway Sub-Brands

When we sit down to compare these two venerable brands, several key differences emerge. The first thing is their approach to their sub-brands and sublines. In Steinway’s case, we're talking about the Boston and Essex lines, and with C. Bechstein, we're talking about W. Hoffmann and Zimmermann.

Where Steinway elected to contract the construction of Boston to Kawai (Samick now manufactures one model as well) and Essex to a series of changing Chinese manufacturers, C. Bechstein directly manufactures all aspects of their five European-made lines and contracts the manufacturer of the Zimmermann line only.

The major differences between these two approaches has to do with consistency, both in terms of a model-to-model comparison, but also in terms of the overall quality of a given line from year to year.

For example, Essex have gone through different manufacturers over the years, with varying degrees of success. On the other hand, every single W. Hoffman acoustic piano from all three lines (Vision, Tradition, Professional) leaves C. Bechstein’s Czech factory with no detectable differences from one year of manufacture to the next.

Design C Bechstein Design

There are of course also a number of design differences between these two manufacturers when comparing lines of equivalent quality. Virtually every structural part of a Steinway grand is made with hard rock maple, including the rim. This focus on a specific, very dense wood colors the tone in a very distinctive way and also creates a very resonant structure.

C. Bechstein uses a variety of dense hardwoods in their grands as opposed to only maple. In addition to maple, they also use mahogany as well as beech. Whereas maple tends to produce a mid-range heavy tone with great projection, C. Bechstein’s use of multiple hardwoods combined with a super precise structure produces a tonal profile that is much closer to that of a Fazioli - very colorful, but with a dynamic response closer to that of a Steinway.

New York Steinway & C. Bechstein actions are also quite different. New York Steinways feature their patented Accelerated Action while C. Bechstein uses an action that is much closer to a Hamburg Steinway action. On first touch, C. Bechsteins feel lighter with a sense of a deeper key bed, whereas a Steinway will have a heavier touch and the sense that the key bed is more shallow.

Musical Differences

Musically speaking, Steinways tend to have a much more broad range of tone between dynamic extremes. In other words, the character of tone is quite different when playing softly versus when playing loudly. This is less consistent from model to model and less consistent through the top to the bottom of the range, however, whereas C. Bechstein’s tend to be extremely consistent throughout all ranges and across different models.

Steinway’s tend to have a slightly darker color in the upper range with less clarity, and the softer dynamic ranges are more notably flat in tone compared to a C. Bechstein. Bechstein’s are also known for their unique bloom-like character of tone.

What These Differences Mean

The real-world implications of these musical observations mean that anyone considering a Steinway will most definitely want to play the exact piano in the showroom that they’ll be taking home due to the lack of consistency from piano to piano and model to model.

This also brings us to another question people always ask; will a piano from either of these manufacturers increase in value over time? The short answer is no.

Although there are instances where one could sell their piano for more than they bought it for, i.e. a high-end piano purchased in the 1920s will of course sell for a higher price than one hundred years ago, this completely ignores the effects of inflation.

Ultimately, these instruments are highly complex machines that unfortunately do not improve with age over time. Unlike a violin or cello, in which age may legitimately make the instrument more valuable as the wood seasons, a piano is at its absolute peak at some point within the first five years of its ownership. When inflation is accounted for, the best that an owner can probably hope for is a lifetime of wonderful music-making with a slow and predictable depreciation against its replacement cost.

Similarities Between C. Bechstein & Steinway & Sons

Despite many differences, there are surprising similarities between these two manufacturers that not everyone is aware of. For one, C. Bechstein Concert and Hamburg Steinway grands use a treble bell in their larger models. This is something that was originally innovated by Steinway and later adopted by C. Bechstein.

A second similarity is that both manufacturers use a highly tapered, old-growth spruce soundboard in their top German instruments. Steinway doesn't disclose their exact type of sourcing of spruce, but by all accounts, they still use Alpine Sitka. C. Bechstein on the other hand is a little more transparent in this regard and they use a minimum of 1,000-meter altitude red spruce from the Val di Fiemme, which is in Italy, of Stradivarius fame.

Closing Thoughts

We hope that you've enjoyed this exploration of the history, similarities and differences between C. Bechstein and Steinway & Sons pianos.

Thanks very much for reading, and be sure to check out the companion video!

The post C Bechstein Concert 8 | Upright Piano Review first appeared on Merriam Pianos

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[adarkrainbow]

Do you know if you can find an English translation of the Ludwig Bechstein version of "Hansel and Gretel" anywhere?

Yes! And it is very easy to do so because there is a website that posted all of Bechstein's tales translated in English. It is "worldoftales.com", and the Hansel and Gretel story can be found here, and at the bottom of the page there is a link to the other tales of Bechstein.