"It seems to me that this Blüthner Grand Salon Piano is the instrument I have been looking for all my life, and I am happy that it has found its way to me. It has a humanity in its timbre, along with clarity of polyphony. The individual notes have depth and lightness; this exceptional instrument possesses the eloquence of human speech and a songlike tone.

This piano is from the early 1860s. As the strings are still straight and not overstrung, the registers are clearly different; this instrument has an unmistakable tone quality due to the unique way it is built. It provides an added layer of multidimensionality for the listener.

In 2022, when I played this Blüthner for the first time, I was left speechless at first – and that only seemed to make the instrument’s sheer eloquence all the more impressive. I immediately and quasi-unconsciously felt inspired to try out the beginning of Brahms’ Intermezzo (Notturno) in E Major, Op. 116. The piece’s dialogue between deep inner longing, on the one hand, and the loveliness and grace of the response suggested by the music, on the other – all of this was “simply there” all at once!

Jörg Widmann, on the other hand, has left musical traces of one composer’s thoughts about another in his Intermezzi. All those associations are juxtaposed on several intellectual, emotional, and psychological levels: Widmann incorporates them conceptually into a musical progression while producing a mesmerizing experience for the listener." (comments by Sheila Arnold)