David Klavins
David Klavins ( Latvian spelling: Dāvids Kļaviņš) (born July 5, 1954 in Bonn ) is a German-Latvian piano maker. With the "Model 370" in 1987, Klavins introduced the world's largest piano to date. In 2012, the instrument was implemented as a software piano .
Life
David Klavin's parents Paulis and Zeltite came to Germany as refugees from Latvia in 1945 . David is the third of eight children. The mother played the piano, the father - in the 1990s a member of the Saeima - violin. After completing secondary school in 1971, David Klavins accepted an apprenticeship as a piano maker at the Wilhelm Schimmel Pianofortefabrik and completed his apprenticeship in 1974. He then worked as a piano tuner and piano technician in Bonn, where he founded the “Klavins Piano House” in 1976. The craft business restored and sold used instruments, and later also new pianos and grand pianos. In 1980 Klavins passed the master's examination.
The model 370
Through his experience with the restoration of concert grand pianos, Klavins became a critic of the traditional construction method. In particular, the materials used can only be justified traditionally and do not correspond to the state of modern materials science. With this premise, Klavins constructed a keyboard instrument whose size and design should primarily follow acoustic motifs, instead of standard specifications and restrictions. This is how the “Klavins Piano Model 370”, presented to the public in November 1987, was born. In contrast to horizontally built concert grand pianos, the Model 370 is built vertically. It weighs two tons and is built over two floors due to its height of 3.70 m. The pianist sits on a kind of gallery at the keyboard. The soundboard area of the instrument, which is relevant to the sound, is twice as large as that of a normal concert grand, which leads to a fuller sound and a greater wealth of overtones . At 3.03 m, the deepest bass string is about three times as long as a standard piano. In addition, Klavins uses a new type of string anchoring technique for the 370 model, giving the string a longer rebound ( sustain ), especially in the treble area .
The pianist who officially introduced the Model 370 was Cyprien Katsaris . Today the instrument is in the care yard in Tübingen (the photos come from a multi-purpose hall in Bochum). In May 2012, the Berlin music software company Native Instruments released a software version of the instrument created by Uli Baronowsky under the name "The Giant". The sampling recordings for this took place in the multi-purpose hall.
Klavins had no plans for series production with the Model 370; it stayed with this single specimen.
In March 2015 called Nils Frahm the piano Day and released an album with piano "solo", which was originally inscribed on Klavins Model 370 in January, 2014.
Concert grand model 408
At the request of numerous pianists for a (horizontal) concert grand piano built with the latest technology, Klavins designed the model 408 together with the qualified designer Frank Lenz. The concert grand piano design has essentially the same sound system as the vertical piano 370 unknown type of grand piano mechanics. Such a wing has not yet been built; there was no funding for further development. Other names (including Gildemester) could be read on the last 3D CAD representations of the concert grand piano design.
Una Corda
In 2014 Klavins developed, in close collaboration with Nils Frahm, a new type of piano that, unlike normal pianos, only has one string per tone, the Una Corda Piano. This resulted in the founding of Klavins Piano Manufaktur KG in Balingen , where Una Corda pianos are manufactured in small series.
In 2015, Klavins constructed an 88-key version of the piano on behalf of Uli Baronowsky from Native Instruments. Baronowsky created a software instrument from the real instrument - as he did before with the Model 370 - which can be played as a prepared piano with fabric and skin dampers, among other things. It was published by Native Instruments in December 2015 under the name Una Corda .
Model 450i
Frahm also suggested the construction of the Klavin model 450i, an equally vertical (instead of horizontal) concert piano based on the model of the model 370. It was installed in 2016 in a concert hall in Berlin. The price of the instrument with steel girder construction, which can stand free, wall-mounted or ceiling-mounted, is around 450,000 euros.
Music label and travel years
In 1988 Klavins founded his own music label, "Klavins Music", and invited well-known pianists to make music on the Model 370. Eleven publications were made with Michael Ponti , Thomas Duis , Joachim Arnold , Gülsin Onay , Michael Denhoff , Simon Nabatov and Wadik Polyonow . Because of the strong response in Asia, the label was bought by "Elite Music" in Taiwan and then sold on to BMG-Asia.
In 1998 David Klavins moved to his parents' country, Latvia, where he was politically active. In 2006 he went to Woodbridge in the USA to continue his piano constructions . In 2011 he returned to Germany. David Klavins has eight children and lived in Balingen until 2016.
Web links
- Klavins piano house in Bonn [1]
- David Klavin's homepage with details on piano construction and criticism [2]
- Vertical concert instrument model 450i [3]
Individual evidence
- ^ The Organ , Musical Opinion, 1990, pp. 199-202
- ↑ Edwin M. Good: Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos: A Technological History from Cristofori to the Modern Concert Grand . Stanford University Press 2002, p. 306. ISBN 978-0-8047-3316-8
- ↑ James Parakilas: Piano Roles: A New History of the Piano . Yale University Press, 2002, p. 57. ISBN 978-0-300-09306-3
- ↑ Report on the sampling activity on the Model 370 in the music magazine Sound & Recording , issue 10/2012, p. 104 ff.
- ↑ http://www.klavins-pianos.com/mod450_en.htm
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Klavins, David |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Klavins, Davids |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Latvian piano maker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 5th July 1954 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bonn |