Still playing our tune
From Mr G.M. Simon Sir: Roddy Williams (`Grand strategy', 31 March) seems to have found his visit to Phillips piano auction so exhilarating — he bought a seven-foot grand piano which only goes to show the size of his drawing-room — and was so anaesthetised by the apparent lack of 'personal hygiene' of the other bidders that he wrote in your journal, adopting an analogy with the car business, that 'sadly Broadwood long ago went the way of Triumph and Morris'. The implication 'defunct' springs to mind.
Clearly. Roddy Williams does not know, or was too carried away to remember, that John Broadwood & Sons, founded in 1728 and the oldest piano-maker in the .world, is very much alive. It was awarded one of the Millennium Awards for its new design of grand piano with a special frame (that's the part that takes the tension of the strings. Roddy) which was first played in public at a concert at the Royal College of Music in December 1998. A few weeks ago it was played at a concert at the UK headquarters of JP Morgan. Moreover, the upright version of that design had been launched some five years earlier when Sir Simon Rattle and Peter Donohoe both commented in complimentary terms on the tone of that piano.
A visit to the Broadwood website will enlarge on our activities but, that apart, I suggest that Roddy Williams does two things: first, he arranges to play the Millennium Grand, and, second, he hosts a lunch at which he can meet two of the pianists — one a pupil of Myra Hess — who played it at the Royal College. If, as the title of his article states, he indulged his pianophilia to the tune of £22,400, it will presumably be quite a good lunch. I will be there too, well scrubbed.
G.M. Simon
Chairman, John Broadwood & Sons Ltd, London W1
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