Description

The pianoforte used for this recording was produced around 1790 in the workshop of the Viennese piano maker Anton Gabriel Walter. Anton Walter had a particular association with both Mozart and Beethoven. Mozart purchased a piano from Walter in 1782, one year after his move to Vienna. Beethoven was so keen to possess one of Walter’s pianos that, in 1802, he rejected all offers of gifts by enterprising piano builders and was prepared to invest his own money to get a piano by Walter. He finally ordered the “deluxe model,” with a mahogany veneer, similar to that the instrument recorded here, which is now part of the collection of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. This is the instrument that inspires and stimulates the Canadian pianist Ludwig Sémerjian in his rendering of these keyboard sonatas, which shows the composer’s so variegated palette.