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I believe that this is the only decent way to confront culture:
not to fall into a routine, but rather to go on a search...

Nicolas Harnoncourt

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We also believe that as Harnoncourt said we need to search more and do not get stuck into the trap of habit. In the early keyboards remaining into the trap of habit is to close eyes to the whole variety of great inventions (we don't see them simply as developments or try and errors) that were going on each year of the second half of the 18th century. A golden age of fortepianos which co-existed with other types of keyboards such as the Clavichord, Harpsichord and also the new born transitional instruments like Pantalons and Tangent pianos, clavecin royales and fortebiens etc.

If we stick to only (for us today standard models) such as Stein, Walter, Graf, Pleyel and Boisselot, we have missed a great musical garden of harmonies, colors and beauties. Sticking to standards was explained/coined by Bruce Haynes in his book ''The end of early Music'' as the ''Musical Canonism''. That is like looking only for brands! as if masters who made such instruments were industrial companies like Sony, Panasonic etc.!
There are also a few collections whose collectors only look for such brands and if they come up with the most interesting historical keyboards they turn their faces away from it for those are not ''Brands'' that bring credit to their show-off business.

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Serious musicians (and not necessarily famous ones) look for quality, variety, creativity and more rather than quality of only a few brand names. Usually they also look for brands when they go shopping or check only the loudest news on medias, not searching for its sources before beliving completely to what it says.

In the early Piano society even names like Zumpe are coined while for example Buntebart (his colleague) and some others (like John Geib) made much better pianos alongside the famous pioneer of the English Square Piano forte.
Also we know back in the 18th century Stainer violins were much more saught after than today's mainstream brand of Stradivari!
All these show that we who play the music of that period mostly do not want to go out of our comfort zone and search for what was valued and respected back in that time, rather most of us choose standards and our canonism even goes further and only want to hear the music of famous composers, neglecting the great less known art and talent of other composers who are not celebrated.

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It is rather a psychological weakness explained by many authors like Gustav le Bon who understood the power of manipulation and the loud voices.

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In our Museum with its academic purposes we are interested to come out of our convenient comform zone and accept that we do not know so much, rather we know little about the great unknown and little known repertoire of that period but we have the instruments so we can start now to explore the beauties laid under the dust of centuries.

We can do this with brave, honest and talented musicians who seek and search to learn more.

 

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