介绍:
Sitting atop a hill and at the end of a winding trail on Gulangyu Island is the Shuzhuang Gardens. In here, the grass is always green, the flowers bloom all year long and the music is forever playing. At the center of the garden is the Gulangyu Island Piano Museum, which houses over 100 pianos from all over the world. Some of them are big and clunky and some are strangely shaped.
The pianos are collected over the years by Hu Youyi, whose is a local of Gulangyu. His passion for pianos had once prompted him to sell his house in order to buy one at an auction. The museum is divided into two sections and has some of the oldest pianos in the world. In the first section, there is a Clementi piano from the early 19th century, known as the four corners piano. Clementi was the world's largest manufacturer and had the most resonant sound.
Right next to it is a harpsichord keyboard made in 1906. It's a big and complicated instrument consisting of four sets of double strings, eight pedals, and two levels of keys. Unlike a piano, the colors of the keys on this instrument are reversed. In addition, the museum also has a three-crown piano that was used by royalty. It was made in 1878 by Byrd and the piano legs are "S" shaped.
There is also one that looks more like an accordion rather than a piano that was used by street performers. What you do is, like a music box, you wind it up and it plays music for you. There was usually a monkey dancing somewhere nearby.
In the second section of this museum are some of the oldest and most beautiful pianos collected by Hu Youyi. Liu Xiaolin is a tour guide for this museum and also a piano player. Here's her introduction to one of the most rare and expensive pianos in this room.
"One of the distinguishing features on this piano is its soundboard, which is made by the Xuan-de-lu gilding process used during the Ming Dynasty. It's made of 24K solid gold and looks very beautiful."
Right next to it are two pianos which are the predecessors of the grand piano. They are known as the square-shaped pianos. There are two shortcomings to this kind of piano. One is its size. It's so big that it would occupy a large percentage of space in a house. The other one is the opening at the top of the piano. Unlike the modern grand piano, which opens to the side, its predecessor has the opening facing the player. Because of this, the audience would not be able to enjoy the best sound quality.
The making of this style of piano was discontinued in the year 1880. The two on display at the museum are the oldest pianos in here, made in Scotland in 1788.
In here, you can also see the world-renowned piano brand, the Steinway. Here is Liu Xiaolin again.
"The market sales price for a Steinway is 1.5 million RMB in China today. 80 percent of the piano is handmade. The Steinway come in 400 different shapes and sizes. It usually takes 6 months to a year to make one. It's a pianist's dream to possess one of these."
On the walls in this museum are pictures of different composers such as Bach, Beethoven and Schumann. However, there is one exception. Hung above the Steinway pianos is a picture of a Polish politician, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who was also a well-known piano player.
In here, you can also find a piano that was especially made for Napoleon III of France in 1868. There is also a piano that was moved all the way here from the collections at the Forbidden City in Beijing.
In the corner of the wall is a strangely shaped piano. The first question that comes to mind is if you can play it. Unfortunately, it cannot be played. It's made by severing the corners of a normal piano and then gluing the two corners together and perpendicular to each other so that it would fit perfectly into the corner.
At last, we come to the only playable piano in this museum, which was a gift to the collector from his mother. The song our tour guide is playing is a childhood favorite of Hu Youyi. As you listen to the music, you can almost hear the echoing of the waves lapping against the rocks in the sea and feel the beauty and the romance of this island.
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