# Grand Piano by John Broadwood and Sons > John Broadwood and Sons (Thomas Broadwood) - 1817-1818 (built and shipped from London, 1817; delivered to Beethoven in Vienna, May 1818) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/john-broadwood-and-sons/beethoven-broadwood-piano-budapest/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-18 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** John Broadwood and Sons (Thomas Broadwood) - **Date:** 1817-1818 (built and shipped from London, 1817; delivered to Beethoven in Vienna, May 1818) - **Medium:** Wood (mahogany case) over an iron-braced timber frame, wire-strung, with English grand action; six-octave keyboard compass - **Dimensions:** Not published in the sources consulted for this record - **Object type:** Musical instrument - **Period:** Regency London (manufacture) and late Beethoven Vienna (use) - **Current location:** Hungarian National Museum, Budapest - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A six-octave grand piano built by John Broadwood and Sons of London and sent as an unsolicited gift to Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna, arriving in May 1818 after a sea and cart journey of some five months. Beethoven, by then substantially deaf, kept the instrument until his death in 1827; it was bought at his estate sale by the Viennese publisher C. A. Spina, who gave it in 1845 to Franz Liszt, an avowed admirer of Beethoven who never played it himself. Liszt bequeathed it to the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, where it arrived in 1887 and remains today.The popular version of this story compresses easily into a single warm anecdote: a grateful Englishman, a deaf genius, a piano that changed the music. The documented record is both better sourced and less tidy than that. Beethoven's own thank-you letter survives and is quoted here in full. The persistent claim that he had the piano's legs removed to feel the music through the floor does not hold up against the surviving instrument, which still has its legs. And the instrument's own recent history is not fully resolved: restored to playing condition in 1991-92 and toured and recorded through the 1990s, it is described in at least one 2018 account as no longer playable, with no source consulted explaining what changed or when. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1817-1818** John Broadwood and Sons, London (in transit) `[documented]` (commission and gift) Built and selected by a panel of five London pianists at Thomas Broadwood's instruction after his 1817 meeting with Beethoven in Vienna; shipped from London (date disputed between sources, either 27 December 1817 or 6 October 1817) via Trieste and overland to Vienna, arriving early May 1818. - **1818-1827** Ludwig van Beethoven, Vienna and Modling `[documented]` (use) Kept and used by Beethoven for the rest of his life, at his Vienna lodgings and at Modling. Confirmed by his own thank-you letter to Broadwood of February 1818 and by consistent secondary accounts of his ownership through his death. - **1827** Beethoven's estate `[documented]` (death and estate auction) Beethoven died 26 March 1827; his possessions, including the Broadwood, were sold at an estate auction in Vienna. No hammer price for the piano was found in the sources consulted. - **1827-1845** C. A. Spina, Viennese art dealer and music publisher `[documented]` (purchase) Spina bought the piano at Beethoven's estate auction and kept it for close to two decades. Little is documented about this period of ownership beyond the purchase and the eventual gift to Liszt. - **1845-1886** Franz Liszt, Weimar `[documented]` (gift) Spina gave the piano to Liszt, most sources dating the gift to 1845 (at least one gives 1846). Liszt kept it in his library in Weimar as a personal relic and, by report, never played it himself. - **1873-1886** Franz Liszt (pledged, not yet transferred) `[documented]` (pledge) In a letter to the museum's curator Ferenc Pulszky dated 3 May 1873, marking the jubilee of his fifty-year career, Liszt pledged the piano and other personal relics to the Hungarian National Museum. Physical transfer did not occur at this time. - **1886-1887** Hungarian National Museum, Budapest (bequest in process) `[documented]` (bequest) Liszt died 31 July 1886. The pledged relics, including the piano, reached the museum under his bequest; the museum's own published account gives the arrival as September 1887. Some secondary sources round this to a general donation date of 1874, apparently conflating the pledge letter's year with the delivery year. - **1887-present** Hungarian National Museum, Budapest `[documented]` (acquisition (bequest completed)) Held continuously by the museum since 1887. Restored to playing condition in 1991-92, toured and recorded through the 1990s, and described in at least one 2018 source as no longer playable. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1827** Beethoven's estate auction, Vienna, - Estimate: Not applicable; no pre-sale estimate found - Hammer: Not published in the sources consulted - With premium: Not published in the sources consulted - The only recorded sale of this instrument. C. A. Spina is documented as the buyer; no price figure for the piano specifically was found in any source consulted, though the general estate sale is well attested. ## Exhibitions - Permanent historical exhibition, Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, 1887-present - European concert tour on the restored instrument, with fortepianist Melvyn Tan, Vienna, Bonn, Bath, London, Budapest, 1991-1992 ## Open questions - Which dispatch date is correct: 27 December 1817, as almost every popular account states, or 6 October 1817, as a Broadwood shipping ledger cited by the Surrey History Centre records? No source consulted reconciles the two. - Did Beethoven actually have a metal shell or frame fitted above the piano to amplify or reflect sound toward him, as more than one secondary source reports, or is this a later embellishment? No conservation or museum-level technical source confirms the addition survives on the instrument. - Was the piano given to Liszt by Spina in 1845 or 1846? The majority of sources consulted give 1845, but at least one gives 1846, and none of the sources consulted explains the discrepancy. - What happened to the instrument's playing condition between the mid-1990s, when it was toured and recorded, and 2018, when a source describes it as no longer playable? No source consulted documents an intervening deterioration, damage, or conservation decision. - What proportion of the surviving instrument (strings, hammers, action, soundboard) is original to 1817-18, and what has been replaced across Nanette Streicher's original repair, later use, and the 1991-92 restoration? No organological condition report was located. - Is the workshop serial number 7,632, given in one source, correct? It was not corroborated against a second, independent source. - What became of the promised composition Beethoven told Broadwood in his 1818 letter he would send as a personal souvenir? No source consulted identifies a surviving manuscript answering that promise. - What price, if any, is recorded for C. A. Spina's purchase of the piano at Beethoven's 1827 estate auction? None was found in the sources consulted. ## Sources - [1] Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum), "Collection of Musical Instruments," official museum page, describing the Broadwood piano's provenance and 1887 acquisition. - [2] Ludwig van Beethoven, letter to Thomas Broadwood, Vienna, February 1818, transcribed at Piano History Online (piano-tuners.org). - [3] Anett Fodor, "Exceptional Provenance: the story of Beethoven, Liszt and the Little Broadwood," Classical Music Daily, 3 April 2020. - [4] University of St Andrews Museums Collections Blog, "Beethoven - Two men and a fortepiano," 2 February 2018. - [5] Surrey History Centre (Surrey County Council), "Beethoven Broadwood Piano Bicentenary, 1818 to 2018," piano manufacturers research guide, citing the Broadwood shipping ledger. - [6] San Jose State University Beethoven Center, "Broadwood & Sons Grand Fortepiano." - [7] Beethoven-Haus Bonn, "Beethoven and Great Britain," online exhibition. - [8] Wikipedia, "John Broadwood and Sons." Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a firm history or trade catalogue where available. - [9] Gatwick City Times, "The Broadwood Family and Beethoven," 13 July 2017, local history blog on Thomas Broadwood and the Holmbush estate. - [10] Piano History Online (piano-tuners.org), "250 Years in the History of Broadwood Pianos" (Wilkinson). - [11] Wikipedia, "Period Piano Company," on David Winston and the 1991-92 restoration. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with the Period Piano Company's own conservation record where available. - [12] Classic FM, "Listen to Beethoven's epic 'Hammerklavier' Sonata, played on the composer's own piano." - [13] notesfromapianist, "It started with a kiss - or did it? Liszt and Beethoven meet in Vienna," 15 February 2020, drawing on Alexander Wheelock Thayer's Life of Beethoven and Anton Schindler's conversation-book transcriptions. - [14] Skagit Symphony, "Beethoven's Pianos," on the surviving Erard, Broadwood and Graf instruments and the debunked piano-legs legend. - [15] Wikipedia, "Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven)," for the Hammerklavier's composition chronology. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a scholarly edition or Kinderman's study. - [16] XpatLoop, "The Piano Once Belonged To Beethoven And Liszt On Display In National Museum In Budapest," 2012. - [17] The Cross-Eyed Pianist, "Broadwood Pianos celebrates 200th anniversary of giving Beethoven the piano that inspired his late piano sonatas," 27 April 2018. - [18] Popular Beethoven, "Beethoven's Broadwood piano." - [19] Wikimedia Commons file page and metadata, "File:Budapest, Hungarian National Museum, Broadwood piano once belonging to Beethoven and Liszt.jpg," photograph by Dguendel, CC BY 4.0. - [20] Wikimedia Commons file page and metadata, "File:Joseph Karl Stieler's Beethoven mit dem Manuskript der Missa solemnis.jpg," public domain. - [21] Wikimedia Commons file page and metadata, "File:Portrait of Franz Liszt by Friedrich von Amerling.jpg," public domain. - [22] Early Music Studio, "The Broadwood Restoration in Photos," documenting a different Broadwood grand (no. 4553, 1809), cited here only to distinguish that instrument from the Beethoven Broadwood. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. 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