The Heirloom

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Andrew's Blüthner grand piano has finally arrived from Melbourne. It was 

purchased by Andrew's great-grandfather Herbert Paul for his wife Florence, 

partly to make up to her for being away at sea so much (he was in the navy), 

but Andrew thinks it may also have been connected to the birth of their first 

child (Andrew's grandmother's elder sister Nerina). It was built some time in 

the 1870s.

Sergei Rachmaninoff with a Blüthner piano. Photo ca. 1905

Wikipedia:

Numerous royals, composers, conductors, artists, authors and performers have owned Blüthner pianos. They include 

Willhelm II, Emperor Franz Joseph I, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Liberace, Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, Dodie 

Smith, Max Reger, Richard Wagner, Johann Strauss, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich. Sergei Rachmaninoff 

commented that "There are only two things which I took with me on my way to America...my wife and my precious Blüthner".

Charles Wyndham and Eleanor née Hunt-Grubbe, Florence's parents.

Andrew has another earlier Florence Wyndham in the family tree, a subject of the poem 

below (from http://www.quantockonline.co.uk/quantocks/villages/watchet/watchet.html):

The north aisle (in St Decuman’s Church, Watchet, England) is known as the Wyndham chapel and contains a number of 

monuments to the family who lived at Kentsford (The last member of the family is now in her 80’s and lives in Williton). 

The monumental brasses are those of Sir John Wyndham (1574), his wife Elizabeth (1571), and his son John (1572) with 

his wife Florence (1596). These brasses are very good for their amazing details of 16th Century costume. Florence 

Wyndham is famous locally she has even had a poem written about her. Her story is quite unusual. The legend goes that 

a year after her marriage she was taken ill, and died, she was taken to the church to be entombed in the family vault. That 

night the sexton, a poor man, crept up to the tomb and opened the lid to take the gold rings from her fingers, but he 

couldn't pull the rings off so he decided to cut the finger off. As he started cutting he was horrified to see blood, and her 

body move. He immediately fled the scene never to be seen in watchet again. Florence now wide awake picked up the 

lantern left by the sexton and walked down the path from the church to her house at Kentsford. It is said that she had 

great difficulty in persuading her household that she was not a ghost. Not long after this she gave birth to a son from 

whom the family has descended. The poem about this event was written by Lewis H Court a vicar of the church, he called 

it “Lady Wyndhams return”. Here are a couple of verses:

“ He seized the slender fingers white

And stiff in their repose

Then sought to file the circlet through;

When, to his horror, blood he drew,

And the fair sleeper rose

She sat a moment, gazed around ,

Then, great was her surprise,

And sexton, startled, saw at a glance

This was not death, but a deep trance,

And madness leapt to his eyes.

The stagnant life steam in her veins

Again began to flow:

She felt the sudden quickening,

For her it was a joyous thing ,

For him a fearsome woe.”

Stephen Cramb
The Piano, 2005
A photo of 'The Piano':
Aluminium and industrial rivets, Scale 1:1 of a 6"8 grand piano.
The photo and the 3D artwork shown at Esa Jaske Gallery.