BBC R3 Documentary - 'Chopin's Pianos'
Presented by Catherine Bott
Broadcast May 17, 2008
Coded from a digital source at 128/44.1

BBC Blurb
Catherine Bott and Peter Katin visit The Cobbe Collection
and the Royal Academy of Music to look at three pianos with
Chopin connections, including his Pleyel grand which he
brought to England in 1848.
End blurb

World Opera Quote
Fryderyk Chopin never saw a Steinway. But he was familiar
with the first great piano model, the Broadwood, which was
sturdy enough to stand up to Beethoven's pounding.

When Chopin toured England and Scotland in 1848 John Broadwood
supplied him with three pianos, two grands and a cottage upright.

Chopin's trip to Britain was mostly dreary, drafty, and plagued
with illness, but John Broadwood took care to pamper their star.
'To give you an idea of his English courtesy, one morning I told
him I was tired, and had slept badly. At night I came back from
Lady Somerset's and found a new spring mattress on my bed.

James Broadwood purchased an extra seat – for Chopin's feet –
for the pianist's 12-hour train ride from London to Edinburgh, and
assigned his best piano tuner - Alfred Hipkins - to accompany
Chopin. Hipkins was so taken with Chopin's music that he became
the first to perform all-Chopin recitals after the composer's death.
End quote