Mathias Weber / Piano Recital

Around the time piano virtuoso Franz Liszt was touring Europe in the nineteenth century, the Frenchman Sébastien Érard rose to become the world’s leading piano maker. Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin and Schumann were all influenced to no small degree by the sound of this precursor to the modern concert grand and the new possibilities it offered in terms of playing technique. For more than 200 years, the company was one of the world’s most prominent piano makers. Mathias Weber, pianist and professor at the Hamburger Konservatorium, is a great lover of Érard pianos – he has been organising the Érard Festival since 2016. He now gives a guest performance in the Elbphilharmonie Recital Hall with his two Érard grand pianos from 1840 and 1857, and a programme specially selected to demonstrate their qualities.