Mmm, tasteful...
Pianos are black, sometimes brown, and for those lacking taste, white.
However, Baldwin Pianos would seem intent on underestimating the taste of the American public (at least I hope so), with the following:
There is plenty more of the same at the website, but I felt two was enough. Perhaps encouragingly, the press release (registration required) suggests that these are not aimed musicians, but rather at the same people who buy quarter bound books in leather by the yard for decoration rather than for reading:
"From a striking striped zebra print to a whimsical abalone white grand, to a tied-dyed design with a happy face and one with a Hawaiian style sunset, Baldwin Custom House has created pianos that can serve as works of art in any finely designed home or as a stylized gift to fit any personality".
I had hoped to point out that Steinway does not engage in this sort of thing, but they do:
I think I need to lie down in a darkened room for a bit, and in the meantime offer my apologies to any readers feeling nauseous.
However, Baldwin Pianos would seem intent on underestimating the taste of the American public (at least I hope so), with the following:
There is plenty more of the same at the website, but I felt two was enough. Perhaps encouragingly, the press release (registration required) suggests that these are not aimed musicians, but rather at the same people who buy quarter bound books in leather by the yard for decoration rather than for reading:
"From a striking striped zebra print to a whimsical abalone white grand, to a tied-dyed design with a happy face and one with a Hawaiian style sunset, Baldwin Custom House has created pianos that can serve as works of art in any finely designed home or as a stylized gift to fit any personality".
I had hoped to point out that Steinway does not engage in this sort of thing, but they do:
I think I need to lie down in a darkened room for a bit, and in the meantime offer my apologies to any readers feeling nauseous. Labels: Truly the Apocalypse is upon us
This entry was posted
on Sunday, October 07, 2007 at 2:35 pm.
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It's a God-awful idea, but the Steinway's prettier.
Should your eye fall on some of the finer harpsichords they are decorated with flowers, landscapes, parrots, still lives, embellished in gold, chinese red, deepest blue, eau-de- nil, some have positive herds of mythical animals, bare godesses, cloud formations strategically placed, and the whole is often topped off with a latin motto.
Spoilsport.
And the Steinway has my vote too.
I like the Steinway.
The entire concept leaves me with the Old Piano Roll Blues...
Oh well,my aesthetic has always been a bit on the Calvinist side, and musing on this just now, I reckon that my Hell would be Rococo.
I suppose the Steinway deserves some credit for having been created by a recognised artist.
What are you after here? A brooding romantic look, to go with your lieder? Or some Calvinist container for the passions of 19th and post 19th century keyboard music?
Just as the austerities of Francois le Grand can emerge unsmiling from the guilded, painted instruments of the baroque, the tearing emotions of Schumann cannot be contained however black and formal the instrument.
HG - It is an eminently reasonable point that you make, but I will admit to having strayed to a broader canvas, as it were.
HG - Very well made point indeed.
And the Steinway has made an attempt to be pretty and pleasing and your point about harpsichords is spoton. It's a lovely idea to make a musical instrument as beguiling to the eye as one hopes the music performed upon it will be to the ear and soul.
In fact, I think the Steinway looks late 18th Century and very pretty indeed.
'...musing on this just now, I reckon that my Hell would be Rococo.'
The china would be very fine in your rococo Inferno.
Alpine Cottage would be my eternal damned surroundings, with all- wood lumpy throughout, (quite possibly the teacups too), trimmed in peasant drapery, and everything symmetrically placed, chairs at 45 degrees to the corners.
Are other senses to be mentioned in personal Hells? My Alpine Cottage Hell would smell of various cooked offals.
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