In April 2003, Reinhold Friedl was invited by Elke Moltrecht, the former music curator at Podewil in Berlin to perform a piano recital on the Neo-Bechstein. She had the idea to bring him together with David Balzer, a Berlin-based piano constructor, who owns a beautiful Neo-Bechstein of which there are only seventeen known exemplars world-wide. Friedl’s concept was to create an “orchestra sound” using his inside-piano-techniques on the Neo-Bechstein
About instrument: Between 1929 and 1931 the physicists Walther Nernst and his assistant Hans Driescher developed the Neo-Bechstein Grand Piano at the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin. The idea was to construct an instrument for live radio transmission, because good quality microphones did not exist for this purpose. This was coincidently a difficult time for the piano industry. Piano makers tried to be modern and Bechstein even had their own department for electronic music instruments, as this seemed to be the future!
The main difference to a traditional piano is that instead of amplifying the strings with the help of a wooden soundboard, they are transformed by eighteen humbucker pickups into electrical signals. These signals are sent to a valve amplifier and emitted by a mono loudspeaker. As the piano did not need
a soundboard anymore, the traditional hammer mechanics had to be made differently and much lighter. A lot of sophisticated technical transformations were made. The instrument was built in co-operation with Telefunken who were responsible for the electronic devices and Bechstein who designed the mechanical parts of the instrument. No more than 150 copies of the instrument were produced and it is assumed that only a few instruments still exist, ten are now known to be in various museums. A curiosity of the instrument was the built-in radio receiver. This receiver made it possible to route both the radio signal and the instrument signal simultaneously to the output and mix them. A soundboard in a traditional piano does not only amplify the tone, it also cuts the very high frequencies and damps the oscillation of the strigs due to its mass…” Recorded mixed and mastered by Rashad Becker.