A functioning work of art
Every keyboard on display at the Carolina Music Museum has been restored to playing condition, including this 1828 Robert and William Nunns piano. Built in the elaborate style of the late Federal period in American furniture design, it features brass stringing, a Brazilian rosewood veneer, gilt accents and a carved mahogany pedestal.
Photo courtesy of Carolina Music Museum
When Tom Strange’s hair started turning gray, the Greenville engineer, music historian, pianist and author began to ponder his life ahead and what would happen to his beloved collection of early English and American keyboards curated over the past 25 years.
“I began to cast about for what to do, and a vacant art museum became available downtown on Heritage Green,” Strange says. “The covenants of the building stipulated that it had to be a library or museum that was open to the public.”
Wheels began turning. An idea was born. Without any museum experience but with a solid plan, Strange and his co-founders leased the 8,000-square-foot building. Less than a year later, thanks to the help of his wife, Debra, and a team of friends who shared his passion, they opened the doors of the Carolina Music Museum in March 2018.
The opening exhibit—Facing South: Keyboard Instruments in the Early Carolinas—features some of the oldest keyboards in the United States, with a few dating back to the early 1700s. These keyboards were complex, high-tech instruments in their day, and Strange has painstakingly restored every one of them to playing condition.
One of the rare delights is a Broadwood Grand piano that Chopin played while in London. Strange says the famous pianist earned the equivalent of a governess’s annual salary at the time for playing a single morning concert on it.
Another instrument on display is the same kind of five-pedal piano Beethoven sold to his wealthy students as a side hustle; they didn’t know he was earning a commission. One pedal rings bells, another beats a drum. One sounds “almost like an angry wasp in a paper bag,” Strange says.
A showstopper on the tour is the vertical grand piano decorated with a golden, silk cover hand-sewn by Debra Strange.
“It’s a space-saving device,” Tom Strange explains of the piano’s unusual design, “and it’s also a way to have the sound right there, in your face.”
As you tour the museum, video screens feature audio recordings, images and descriptions of the keyboards. Part of the charm of these instruments is the story of the detective work Strange had to do to acquire and restore them. In one case, the hammers of an instrument were wrapped in sheepskin, and Strange discovered that modern sheep, which are bred to produce more wool, bear little resemblance to their 200-year-old predecessors. He searched the world until he finally found matching sheepskin in the Middle East. In the case of a 1787 square piano that was transformed into a lady’s dressing table, Strange could trace the changing shades of rouge the woman wore throughout her life.
Guests who arrive when Strange is on-site are often treated to an impromptu performance on several of the pianos and harpsichords. The mesmerizing sounds these instruments produce are quite different from modern keyboards. Some are lyrical, others are delicate and fine, and a few have a decided, smile-inducing jauntiness.
To visitors who listen and watch, slack-jawed with admiration, Strange comments modestly, “I’m no Horowitz, but I get by.”
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Get There
The Carolina Music Museum is located at 516 Buncombe Street in Greenville, on the city’s popular Heritage Green.
Hours: Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
Admission: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and military, $4 for children.
Details: (864) 520-8807, carolinamusicmuseum.org.