[log in to unmask] writes:

>Ian Lace, of Musicweb, was reading the cover notes for a couple of old
>Saga LPs of Bach piano music and was very taken with the history of the
>instrument:
>
>http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/July03/Siena_Piano.htm

No matter how beautiful the sound of the Siena Pianoforte is, and it
is undeniably beautiful, the story is entirely phony.  Carmi cooked up
all of that malarkey.  The instrument was the subject, as I recall, of a
long series of exchanges on this very list, in 1996 or thereabouts.  If
I recall correctly, one of the MCML contributors in those days mentioned
that the instrument was illustrated in the catalogue of a dealer in
instruments in Vienna during the very period in which it was supposed
to be going through all of its vicissitudes.

The best record of all the discs that were made on it, for my money, is the
disc of Grace Castagnetta improvising on Christmas carols.

Carrow McCarn