Chopin's Pianos

A truly exceptional group of instruments associated with Chopin in Paris, London and Scotland survives in the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands. The history of the three Chopin pianos in the collection offers us a glimpses of the world in which Chopin found himself when he visited London and later Scotland, the people he met, the places he visited, the concerts he gave.

The 1848 Revolution broke out in Paris on 24 February and overthrew the government of King Louis-Philippe. The government and royal family fled the city, along with many of the wealthier inhabitants. Musicians also left to seek work elsewhere, many going to London, one of the few places they could find employment.

So wrote Fryderyk Chopin from London in May 1848.

The Pleyel archive shows that No.13819 was completed and finally varnished by ‘Donsset, vernisseur’ on 8 January 1848, a month later, on 11 February 1848, Chopin wrote from his apartment at 9 Square d’Orléans, ‘I already have here the piano on which I shall play.'

It would appear that the instrument had already been in his possession for some months before Chopin brought the piano to England. Once there, its documentation becomes even more precise. We know from the Pleyel ledger, where the entry for the piano is annotated ‘Londres’, that No.13819 was indeed the instrument that came to London with him. That it arrived in his very first lodging in Bentinck Street in its travelling case is documented in the Broadwood ledgers.

Within the next five days, Chopin visited the Broadwood warehouse/showroom at 33 Great Pulteney Street and chose Broadwood pianos that he would use. These premises included the original house where Burkat Schudi had established the business in the early 18^th century. The rooms were variously set out for practice and display, and the firm maintained a chef and a dining-room there, so that distinguished visitors could peruse and play instruments and be appropriately entertained.

The piano chosen by Chopin for his Dover Street drawing-room, Broadwood No.17093, arrived there on 2 May (as we have seen); by 6 May, Pierre Erard had ‘hastened to offer his services … and placed one of his pianos at my disposal’. Thus three pianos by the three finest makers of the day stood together in Chopin’s grand Dover Street drawing-room. That this circumstance was a source of especial pleasure to him is evident from his allusion to it in several letters.

Neither his lessons nor the concerts that followed in May and June produced the income that he had hoped for. A letter to his friend Wojciech Grzymała, written mid-July 1848 is gloomy about money and complains of the expense of London:

Of Broadwood, Chopin wrote in 1848:

We have no words from Chopin himself on his view of Broadwood pianos, but the notebooks of Alfred J. Hipkins, the 22-year-old Broadwood technician who tuned for Chopin, reveal much. His eloquent report of Chopin, written down later (1899), gives a valuable picture of Chopin’s piano technique, his visits to the Broadwood premises and of the pianos he played, even if slightly coloured by his loyalty to the firm.

The firm stated that the instrument - having been specially chosen by Chopin - was reserved, in case he should return to England. Three weeks before Chopin’s death, when it must have been clear to Broadwood that there was no question of the composer’s ever returning to England, No.17047 was sold on 21 September 1849 for 160 guineas to a George Wigg of 61 Westbourne Terrace.

The present fine instrument, Erard No.713, made by the London branch of the firm, can be associated with almost the entire span of Jane Stirling’s acquaintance and friendship with Chopin. Dating from 1843, it was supplied to her in the year that she became Chopin’s pupil; it survived at the Stirling seat at Keir House, Perthshire, where in October 1848, as Jane’s niece recounted, ‘Chopin had his own sitting-room and his own piano given him by my aunt.’

During the course of 1843, Chopin began teaching Jane Stirling. He had a high opinion of her musicianship. Not one to bestow praise lightly, he told her: ‘You will play, one day, very very well.’ In 1844, the composer dedicated to her the Nocturnes in F minor and E♭, Op.55, works that are far from easy to play, and it is perhaps not unreasonable to suppose that they may have received early performances by Chopin on this instrument.

By now his health was dogged by the general bad weather, and despondency was setting in. His first letter from Keir is famously addressed:

What is it to be learnt from the presence of three of Chopin's pianos in the same building? Having the possibility of playing in immediate succession these pianos by the greatest makers of Chopin's lifetime, allows present-day pianists to debate their relative qualities of sound and touch and how these affect musical interpretation - much as Chopin did.