The Maene-Viñoly piano, which Jonathan Biss played at Carnegie Hall on November 28. Photo: Rafael Viñoly Architects.
In Tuesday’s (11/28) New York Times, James Barron writes, “There’s something different about the piano that will be onstage at Carnegie Hall tonight. ‘It looks like you’re looking at a normal piano through funny mirrors,’ according to Jonathan Biss, who will play Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto on it. The piano has a curved keyboard… The architect Rafael Viñoly … came up with the idea and worked closely with Chris Maene, the instrument maker in Belgium who built the piano. Viñoly, who died in March, was an advanced amateur pianist and wanted an instrument that would be more comfortable to play than a conventional one…. The piano has the same 88 notes any other modern version has, from that very low A to that very high C. There is also a very high price tag—465,000 euros, or about $509,000 … The Maene-Viñoly piano, as it is known, began with a dinner-party conversation among Viñoly and two old friends, the pianist Martha Argerich and the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim…. [His son] Roman Viñoly said that his father said something like, ‘What if the keyboard were curved?’ ”
