I saw an antique square piano for sale today - at least it will be for sale once the shop has reconditioned it. What are square pianos like to play and what do they sound like? How does the shop know how old it is?

A rich non-musician friend has a square piano because it looks nice in his period lounge. He asked me to try it out. From its size and appearance I expected it to sound and feel rubbish, but in fact it had a nice (if slightly light) action and as good a sound as many modern uprights - with much more volume available than I had expected. (It coped well with a mixture of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven and Debussy, plus a few popular songs and a bit of jazzy improvization).

I am sorry that I didn't notice the make, nor how the action difffered (if at all) from a modern double escapement. This was all before I got back into serious study/practice a couple of years ago.

Square pianos are, relative to the general market in early keyboard intruments, fairly common - they occupied the musical place now given over to the upright piano, in houses which couldn't accommodate grand pianos. Some are dated on the nameplates - others will be stamped inside with a serial number (for instance, Broadwoods did this) and therefore can be dated by those. The other clues to age are the escapements used, hammer coverings and the overall style of the casework to some extent - there are relatively massive ones, and rather graceful and more slight ones, the latter usually being older. Many surviving instruments have lost their pedals if they had any - another feature which was added partway through the history of the square piano - and also no longer have the tray which used to be fitted at about mid-shin height and was convenient for parking spare music on. Those instruments not having pedals would have moderators operated by handstop levers, making damping more of an either-on-or-off facililty than the footpedals are.

Square pianos, like early grand fortepianos, sound rather lighter in tone than modern ones - since they are wood-framed and don't have such heavy stringing, that's hardly surprising. They are beautifully suited to playing classical and some early romantic repertoire - they don't have the range for the biiiig Sturm und Drang stuff - and are expressive, but on a small scale, making them ideal for very domestic music-making. Tuning should not be in equal temperament, but rather in one of the later unequal ones.

*stares wistfully at the square piano across the room from where she's sitting, wishing it had strings in it*.

I've tried the Broadwood at Benslow. It was the first time I actually used the whole keyboard on a piano, including the last notes on both ends!

If it was in unequal temperament, would that be a problem for a beginner like me?


Thanks for all the information everyone It would never have crossed my mind to get a square piano but I quite took to it when I saw it and it would be easier to fit in than an upright acoustic (at least I think it would, but I really ought to measure it). I'll have another look at it and try and find out more about it. Might come back with some more questions!

Temperament won't affect your ability to play - but it can affect enjoyment of the sound. Since modern pianos are generally tuned to equal temperament, which involves compromise with intervals to make them fit within the octave, our ears get used to that, but intervals other than the octaves are ever so slightly out of tune. The lighter stringing and action of a square piano will sound dull and sour in equal temperament, and benefits from the greater resonance found by having some intervals in the most common keys slightly better in tune.

The trouble is, it can be difficult to find a tuner who can produce you a good alternative to equal temperament - and fortepianos and square pianos do need tuning more often than modern instruments do. But - square pianos are such pretty things..... .

In April '08 I went to a slide show talk at our local history centre. The interesting talk was given by Madeline Goold, author of 'Mr Langshaw's Square Piano'

As mentioned the pianos were often bought as pieces of fine furniature rather than instruments.

I bought a signed copy of her book which has a great story as well as loads of detail, dates etc.

A website you could try is www.mrlangshawssquarepiano.co.uk You can click on and hear a short piece played on a square piano.

Aren't they?! I don't know that I'd ever even heard of them before reading this, but I did a quick google to find and image and found this http://www.friendsofsquarepianos.co.uk/ Lovely (and I don't just mean the kitten!)

Thanks for this... hmmm, I'm not sure now. My aural skills at the best of times aren't all that good, and I'm wondering if it might not help if it makes it more confusing to get an unequal temperament piano which sounds slightly different from a modern one. At the moment, the one I've seen hasn't been reconditioned - I think I'll have to wait until it's been reconditioned and then see what it sounds like...




Thanks for reminding me of this book. I remember oldnotes mentioning it some time ago and it slipped my mind to get it. I've just looked online for it and see that there's a new edition being published in November, so I'll wait for that to come out and then get the new edition





Thanks for that link - a very interesting web site (and cute kitty )