An "excellent instrument"!

I'm gearing up for two more recitals of pieces from Austen's notebooks. Both are on pianos from the early nineteenth century. In the last few years, I have played several instruments from Austen's time, but period-piano performance remains largely new and exciting to me. I have to make several adjustments to adapt to pianofortes from the early 1800s; the most significant is getting used to the way that they are tuned, where "A" is about a half-step lower that the "A" I am used to. It can be pretty disorienting. There are other adjustments too, including how I use the pedal, articulate, and phrase. The first time that I performed the Austen program on a piano from the author's time was about two years ago, when I played it on an 1813 Broadwood grand. I was able to practice on the instrument for a full week before the recital. This time I'm not so lucky! I will only have a couple of hours with the piano before my first performance, which is on July 8 at the Cobbe Collection in Surrey. That said, I am incredibly excited about the instrument that I'll be playing; it's an 1816 Broadwood, which was signed by John Baptiste Cramer. (See the instrument in the above photograph.) Since I'll be playing one of Cramer's works, it's an excellent match! The piano is also interesting because it is almost identical to the instrument that Thomas Broadwood (son of John) gave to Beethoven as a present in 1818. Cramer actually helped to choose the pianoforte that Broadwood sent to Vienna, and apparently he chose well; Beethoven, who was already completely deaf by that time, was deeply touched by the gift of the instrument. He wrote to Broadwood on February 7, 1818: "As soon as I receive your excellent instrument, I shall immediately send you the fruits of the first moments of inspiration I spend at it...I hope that they will be worthy of your instrument."