Ludwig Van Beethoven: Beethoven's pianos

A 5 octave Walter piano of the 1790's. Beethoven thought highly of these instruments as did Mozart. Haydn however preferred Schanz and said of Walter that they were 'expensive with only one instrument in ten being a good one.' In 1802 Beethoven requested a piano from Walter providing it was Mahogany and had a proper una corda stop - a device that only the English manufactures could provide at that time. Walter was unable to comply for technical reasons.

This instrument is a copy based on the 1816 Nannette
Streicher piano in the Yale Collection of Musical
Instruments. Compass is 6 and a half octaves.

Nanette Streicher (1769-1833) was a close friend of Beethoven's and the daughter of the famous piano manufacturer Johann Stein from Augsburg. She married Johann Andreas Streicher (also a piano manufacturer based in Vienna, whose instruments Beethoven thought most highly of).

The instrument has four pedals : damping,
moderator, bassoon, and una corda (the pedal
can be depressed part way for a due corde, or
eased on or off for a swell or diminuendo);
Gilt nameboard mounts are cast from the originals.

The string quartet (Beethoven-haus, Bonn) presented to Beethoven by Prince Lichnowsky in 1800. This is the description of the instruments by Alois Fuchs in 1846, but some of the details are doubted today :

1) Violin by Giuseppe Guarneri 1718
2) 2nd Violin by Niccolo Amati 1667
3) Viola by Vincenzo Ruger 1690
4) 'Cello by Andrea Guarneri 1712