Why buy a restored pre-WW1 piano?

The simple answer is tone. The quality of timber used in pre-WWI pianos, especially in their soundboards, was far superior to that after the war. Irreplaceable stocks of mature and fully-seasoned wood were exhausted during the war. In addition standards of craftsmanship, particularly in the great German piano houses, were at their highest ebb.

Accordingly a sympathetically restored grand or upright from this period has an inherently more distinctive, musical and appealing tone than any of the blander, mass-produced pianos of today. At Thornhill Pianos we provide you with painstakingly-restored grand and upright pianos of the highest quality.

Grand and upright piano, fortepiano and harpsichord rental

Let us quote you for a long or short-term rental of the piano or harpsichord of your choice. We rent instruments to top international venus such as the BBC, the South Bank Centre, The Royal Albert Hall, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, Garsington Opera and Grange Park Opera.  Our instruments even go as far afield as Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff with expert tuning and maintenance personnel in attendance.

Piano and Harpsichord Tuning

We offer a comprehensive domestic, studio and concert tuning service for pianos, fortepianos and harpsichords using experienced professional tuners. In addition, we can regulate, tone and voice your piano as needed.

How to Find Us

Thornhill Pianos is located at 22 Albion Square, Haggerston, London E8 4ES.

Our private showroom is open for viewing by prior appointment at any time convenient to our customers, including evenings and weekends.

For exact location, go to “www.streetmap.co.uk” and enter our postcode “E8 4ES”.

Here are some other sites you may find of interest

All Pianos Resource Directory - Worldwide piano-resource Web-site. and

A useful UK piano-related Web-site sponsored by the Association of Blind Piano Tuners

Pianostreet. co.uk Another site listing pianos for sale

To learn more about the complete range of historic tuning temperaments from mean-tone to equal temperament, visit http://www.rollingball.com/

and if you’re interested in the highly-controversial ‘? J.S. Bach ?’ temperament ‘discovered’ in 2005 by Bradley Lehman, go to: http://www.larpis.com

About Us

Thornhill Pianos has been specialising in the rental and sale of pianos, fortepianos and harpsichords in London since 1988.