Alois Graf & Conrad Graf fortepianos

[Pianoman]

Hi all

In Vol.2 of Beethoven's Piano & Cello Sonatas played by Bilson & Bylsma
(http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Fort...9873399&sr=1-8)
the fortepiano used is a 1825 ALOIS Graf. Never heard of it and couldn't find much information.

Is there any relation with the notorious piano maker CONRAD Graf (author of Beethoven's last piano). Does anyone know where is this 1825 Alois Graf?. Any pictures of it, please?

Thanks
Pianoman_PT

[Peter]

Sorry Pianoman I'm as much in the dark as you, never heard of Alois - why do you desribe Conrad as notorious?

[Pianoman]

Maybe it was a word badly chosen (English is not my first language...).
What I meant is that Conrad Graf was a very well known piano maker in his time. He built pianos for Beethoven, Mahler, Clara & Robert Schuman, etc... We can easily find information about him.

And Alois Graf...well...I really don't know anything about him, except that he was the maker of the 1825 piano used by Bilson in Beethoven's Piano & Cello Sonatas (acording to the booklet) as I said in my first post.

[Hofrat]

Conrad Graf is perhaps the most famous of Viennese makers next to Walter, and much like Walter and Mozart, because of his association with a famous composer: Beethoven. While it is true that Beethoven had a Graf piano at his disposal near the very end of his life, the whole episode appears to be nothing more than a marketing ploy of the shrewd businessman Graf is known to have been (he invested heavily in the booming Viennese housing market). He probably took an old quadruple-strung instrument which was lying around the shop (he had given up on the idea of quadruple-stringing years before because the instruments were untunable), cleaned it up, and loaned it to Beethoven, ostensibly to help overcome the composer's hearing trouble. When Beethoven died a year or so later, Graf immediately took the instrument back, had the fellows down in the veneering department inlay Beethoven's name on the damper rail. Graf then sold it as "Beethoven's piano" for a handsome sum to a dentist, effectively making a silk purse from a sow's ear!

[Peter]

More about this Graf piano (including picture) can be found on this site.

www.kingsbarn.freeserve.co.uk/bpianos.html

[Hofrat]

Graf's instruments represent an aesthetic which is more proto-Romantic than late-classical Viennese. Everything about their design is tailored to provide a long singing tone, which unfortunately can only be had at the expense of clarity and transparency. If you really love the music of Schumann and early Brahms, a Graf is just the thing for you, but if you are more interested in Beethoven and Schubert, I'd recommend a late Classical instrument like those of Fritz, Brodmann, or Rosenberger. Graf's instruments are significantly heavier than their contemporaries because of the solid oak framework. Despite their reputation, they are actually not any louder than instruments by other makers - perhaps even less so.

[Cetto von Cronstorff]

Hi all

In Vol.2 of Beethoven's Piano & Cello Sonatas played by Bilson & Bylsma
(http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Fort...9873399&sr=1-8)
the fortepiano used is a 1825 ALOIS Graf. Never heard of it and couldn't find much information.

Is there any relation with the notorious piano maker CONRAD Graf (author of Beethoven's last piano). Does anyone know where is this 1825 Alois Graf?. Any pictures of it, please?

Thanks
Pianoman_PT

This should be Alois Graff who was active as piano builder around 1820 in Vienna. The Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg owns an instrument by him.