Beethoven and Schubert would have been familiar with the type of piano that's just become the newest addition to the ANU School of Music Keyboard Institute Research Centre.

The new piano was made by Paul McNulty, the world leader in creating copies of 18th and 19th century pianos. It’s a precise copy of a piano made in 1819 by Conrad Graf.

The instrument was put through its paces for the first time this month by Professor Geoffrey Lancaster and Alan Hicks of the School of Music, who performed works for four hands by Schubert and Beethoven/Czerny at the Turkish Embassy.

Over 200 people attended the instrument’s inaugural concert, including His Excellency Murat Ersavci, Turkish Ambassador to Australia. The concert was featured as part of the 12th Annual Canberra International Music Festival and concluded with a standing ovation for Geoffrey, Alan and the Graf.

The piano reveals Graf’s last expression of the Viennese style of instrument, being uninfluenced by the post-embargo arrival in central Europe of contemporary English pianos in the early 1800s.  

Paul McNulty was commissioned in 2004 to build the Graf copy which is the second instrument by the Prague-based builder to enter the Keyboard Institute's collection in recent years. It is an important addition to the range of pianos accessible to scholars at the University and places ANU at the forefront of research into early-19th century music, instruments and performance conventions.

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