Bach WTC in F/f

Finally caved in and bought a Steinway.  It almost seems like a betrayal of Mr. Baller. He had a Bösendorfer 225 and Yamaha C7. He believed the Steinways had problems.  He would always ship his Bösendorfer around to wherever he performed. (And eventually so did I!)

My first piano (other than the Knabe I grew up on in my mother's house) was a Yamaha S400 back in '92. I loved it—still do. My second piano was a Bösendorfer 225. I spent some time at the factory outside Vienna, meeting the artisans, testing several out, and finally choosing the one I liked. I shipped (yes, a ship) it to California in '00. When I built the second house in Wyoming, I shipped the Yamaha out there, where it remained (until '21). Eventually I picked up another second piano for the CA house, a used Baldwin, which I love—I've always liked the older Baldwin pianos. Very sturdy. If you visited the dungeons of Dinkelspiel @ Stanford, the Baldwins held up the best. Well, when Smule opened up our new office in San Francisco, I decided to move the Baldwin up there, allowing friends from the company to play in our office. It's been great. And last week, I replaced the Yamaha/Baldwin as the second piano with a Steinway B. I haven't played the Bösendorfer since. It almost seems like we broke up.

I decided to try and record a couple new pieces on the Steinway. I think I would be better off recording on a broken down piano so that my technique and mistakes could be blamed on the instrument (including that missed F vs E-flat on the recap of the f-minor Prelude below).

Prelude in F major, Vol. 1, WTC
Fugue in F major, Vol. 1, WTC
Prelude in f minor, Vol. 1, WTC