“It feels like there are more keys”: this curved grand piano just made its debut at Carnegie Hall, and is praised for its “effortless” playability
Has keyboard development turned a corner or gone round the bend?
Whether the evolution of curved pianos will follow a similar trajectory remains to be seen, but the audience at Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall got a taste of what the future could look and sound like last night when a curved piano was used for a recital.
The instrument is a collaboration between piano maker Chris Maene and the late architect Rafael Viñoly, who died earlier this year. The New York Times reports that the idea stemmed from a conversation that Viñoly had with two pianist friends, who were expressing their frustration at how challenging a standard 88-note keyboard can be to play.