Piano instruments
The piano instruments are equipped with hammers that beat the strings, one for each key. There are many variants of them, some having horizontally placed strings as grand pianos and square pianos, others standing strings as uprights. The actions are adjusted to whether the string band is lying or standing.
Normally the grand piano is wing-shaped and made in many different sizes. The so called ‘banana’ grand has a quite straight resonance bridge and so turns off to the left, the tail rounded like the top of a banana.
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| Grand piano by Johan Söderberg 1812 (MTM X5788, photo MTM) |
Grand piano Malmsjö/Billberg 1854/c. 1870 (KH 412) |
Grand piano Georg Bolin 1960s (MTM X5787, photo MTM) |
"Banana grand" J.G. Malmsjö serial no. 14001 made in 1934 |
The square piano is usually table-shaped but there is also a model having curved rim sides (karnis) that was common here c. 1870-1890. In Sweden we usually call early square pianos without reinforcing iron plates or bars ‘hammerklavier’. In these cases we list the instruments as ‘square piano/hkl’. In spite of its name, the so called ’Ecke-grand piano’ is a square piano with a special construction that was built in the 1930s in rather few copies (c. 40).
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| Square piano by Mathias Petter Kraft serial no. 27 made in 1788 (MTM M66, photo MTM) |
Square piano by J.G. Malmsjö & Co. serial no. 1530 made in 1864 (KH 499) |
Karnis by J.G. Malmsjö serial no. 4559 made in 1885 (KH 106) |
Ecke grand piano Östlund & Ahlin serial no. 25, 1930s (KH 208) |
There are many variants of upright pianos from tall to small and low ones. Since the height of the case in principle corresponds to the height of the strings including pin-block we give the height of the instrument without lid and wheels to indicate the model of the pianos we have in our collections.
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Piano J.G. Malmsjö c. 1860 (KH 226) Piano Johan Henrik Löwendahl & Co. c. 1860 (KH 254) |
Cabinet piano Pehr Rosenwall 1845-1850 (KH 373) |
Piano David Hansson 1870/80 (KH 513) |
A-piano Georg Bolin c. 1960 (KH 129) |
Links (Excel) :
List of Swedish piano instruments
List of piano instruments made abroad
