The Institute of Music and Dance launches its new vortal www.piano.instruments.edu.pl. Devoted to historical pianos in Polish collections and containing unique photographs, recordings and descriptions of nearly 100 exhibits, the vortal is a subsidiary of www.instruments.edu.pl.

The vortal will be presented on 17 October 2015 (11 am) at the Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Music Hall prior to the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute’s conference concluding the 3rd stage of the 17th International Chopin Piano Competition. The website will be launched to ennoble the Competition and commemorate the anniversary of Chopin’s death.

More information / source: www.imit.org.pl/news

The vortal presents 100 historical pianos, unique instruments dating back to the 19th an early 20th century exhibited in the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Andrzej Szwalbe Collection at the Ostromecko Palace, and the Museum of Industrial History in Opatówek. The database includes some of the most intriguing and beautiful instruments representing three different types of pianos – grands, squares, uprights, pianos, and hybrids.

All these instruments are a material testament to our musical past. They document the role of the piano in everyday life, as well as the achievements of the national and foreign piano-making industries. Each decade of the 19th century is documented with instruments built in accordance with the dominant taste and fashion of the era; among them we will find tremendously elegant grand pianos favoured by Fryderyk Chopin, Zygmunt Noskowski’s instrument with which the composer was presented by the nation, numerous grand pianos by the nearly forgotten polish companies (many pianists are amazed that these instruments have survived until today), as well as curiosities such as a piano for children which “grows” together with the performer.

The Project has been implemented by the Institute of Music and Dance from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.