Pianist says movers dropped and destroyed her rare concert grand piano, worth about $200K
Movers accidentally dropped and destroyed pianist Angela Hewitt's one-of-a-kind concert grand piano, according to an account posted to social media by Hewitt on Sunday.
Hewitt, who is known for her interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach's music, says the drop broke the piano's iron frame among other damage that rendered the instrument "not salvageable."
"I adored this piano. It was my best friend, best companion. I loved how it felt when I was recording--giving me the possibility to do anything I wanted," she wrote.
The piano was an F278 Fazioli, made by a high-end Italian company that only makes about 140 pianos per year, according to an emailed statement from Pierre Julia, owner of Los Angeles Fazioli dealer Pierre’s Fine Pianos.
“Fazioli pianos are considered by so many professionals to be the finest piano in the world today,” Julia wrote.
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Julia agreed with a CNN report estimating the piano could have been worth about $194,000, as described in Hewitt's post.
One reason for the high value: "It was also the only F278 Fazioli in the world to have the 4-pedal mechanism," Hewitt wrote.
No one was hurt in the incident, which happened after recording sessions in Berlin, according to Hewitt's account.
"The movers of course were mortified," she wrote. They broke the news to her while she was in a control room with a producer.
Hewitt is now working through an insurance process and hopes to purchase a new Fazioli in Italy in coming months, she wrote.