With the collection "Historical Piano Bases" Clarius Audi Didactic is going to offer to the professional singers, to the students and also to the simple fond of the possibility to be accompanied by the sound of ancient instruments which have been accurately restored, for which the piano part of these musical passages had been conceived.
In this publication the famous melodies of Gabriel Fauré are executed with a Erard Paris instrument, the model "Grand Piano de concert", of which the author owned a similar model. This esemplar, provided with 85 keys (A-A) and with a length of 248 centimetres, has been, for almost all the XIX century, the favourite instrument supported by all the big concert artists, like Liszt, Moscheles, Clara Schumann mainly due to its excellent pertaining to tone-colour and dynamic features, for the perfect of the central register, for an unsurpassed depth and facility of listening of the low register.
Characterised by a structure of the harp having parallel stringed and metallic frame (of which Erard remained a brave supporter even after the advent of pianos with crossed stringed) and by a refined mechanics of doublé exhaust patented by Sebastian Erard at the beginning of 1800), this instrument also boasted of a particular constructive care that has permitted the survival of some exemplars until our days. The instrument used in this recording, matriculation number 71701 and property of the performer, has been constructed in 1894 and then restored in 2006 with the revision of the mechanics, the remaking of the covering of the hammers and the substitution of the original stringed with modern copies having the same constructive characteristics. The recovery has been completed with the restoration of the finished furniture of palissander wood "frisé" and the pad painting.
Alberto Mondini