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Restored
Streicher returns
to
the conservatory

Earlier this year, experts and faculty members at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague determined that the rare Streicher grand piano from the collection of the Musical Instrument Fund was in need of extensive restoration. Maene took on the restoration, and after three months, the instrument was reunited with the conservatory students.

News
16 November 2023 by Indy de Vries

Streicher for Students

This rare, late-Romantic grand piano was built by the Johann Baptist Streicher company in Vienna, 1874. The Musical Instrument Fund has loaned the grand piano to the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, so that a large group of students (Early Music Department) can use this historic instrument during their studies. When pianists and faculty members at the conservatory noted that the playing comfort and tonal balance needed improvement, the foundation contacted the Maene company to carry out the restoration. The keyboard and action were thoroughly improved. Age-related defects in the soundboard, the strings, the bridges, and the sound post were also addressed.

De transporteurs gaan zorgvuldig te werk!

The Musical Instrument Fund decided to have the Streicher restored extensively, because the grand piano is played intensively. Maene: “It’s like with a classic car: you can maintain it well just to take it out for the occasional spin, but it’s a whole different story when you want to race it regularly.” After this restoration, the grand piano could become one of the most important instruments in the Early Music department.

A Good Return

The restoration took three months. Fortunately, Maene provided the Royal Conservatory with a replacement instrument in the meantime, so that the young pianists’ studies weren’t put on hold. Now the grand piano is back in familiar hands.

"Brahms Grand Piano"

During the restoration, Chris Maene made a remarkable discovery: the grand piano turned out to have been built a few years earlier (1874). Composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) always played a Streicher piano in Vienna. Emil, the son of Johann Baptist Streicher, gifted a grand piano to Brahms in 1870. Because of its year of manufacture, the grand piano in the collection of the Musical Instrument Fund is the same model and can therefore rightly be called a “Brahms grand piano.”

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