C. Bechstein R4 Residence “Classic / Contour” Upright Piano

Product Overview

The C. Bechstein R4 Residence upright piano, meticulously designed and crafted over 8 months and 180 hours, stands tall at 47.2” (120 cm). Available in both Classic and Contour versions, this medium-sized model showcases a harmonious blend of aesthetic appeal and exceptional performance, making it a superb choice for both private and professional settings

Classic:
The C. Bechstein Residence R4 Classic epitomizes balance and elegance. The moment your fingers touch the keys, you experience extraordinary refinement and effortless playability. Its sound is elevated by wonderfully balanced overtones, creating a pure, sublime sound and a uniquely singing, melodic line. This exceptional sound is easy to shape, thanks to the piano’s extreme responsiveness and large dynamic range.

Externally, the R4 Classic boasts perfect proportions and a classic profile that blends elegantly yet modestly into almost any interior. The piano’s construction is designed to optimize the preservation of its action, ensuring that every subtle nuance of your music is accurately transformed into the wondrous C. Bechstein sound.

Contour:
The C. Bechstein Residence R4 Contour, with its fine brass accents and graceful design, invites you to revel in its rich, crystal-clear sound. Crafted like a gentle melody, this piano allows you to lose yourself in the sounds of any genre, offering a broad range of interpretation from delicate pianissimo to dazzling fortissimo.

The Contour version’s design is inspired by the concept of musical contour, highlighting the sequence of motions between the notes of a melody. Its slender profile and gentle contours, combined with the strategically placed visual accents, such as the brass highlights found under the lid or at the lower end of the console, make the R4 Contour a visually flawless piece. This piano’s elegant architecture not only enhances its aesthetic appeal but also ensures exceptional playability, allowing you to interpret and arrange individual voices or motifs in your unique way.

Both versions of the C. Bechstein Residence R4 exemplify the superior craftsmanship and attention to detail that the brand is renowned for, providing a durable and outstanding performance that meets the high standards of discerning private owners and professional settings alike.

Action

The action of the C. Bechstein R4 is a masterfully crafted professional system, composed of 2,000 finely tuned components. Built according to C. Bechstein’s stringent standards for Keyboard and Action Engineering and Geometry, this action mechanism guarantees outstanding precision and dependability.

Incorporating the cutting-edge Friction Control System (FCS), the C. Bechstein R4 delivers an exceptional upright touch. Leveraging the latest in engineering design technology, the FCS fine-tunes weight and friction coefficients to produce a touch that is both highly responsive and impeccably balanced. The use of top-quality materials and meticulous assembly further elevate the action’s performance, ensuring optimal repetition speed. This advanced action mechanism provides pianists with unmatched control and playability, making the C. Bechstein R4 the perfect choice for those who seek both precision and expressive potential in their performances.

Sound

The C. Bechstein R4 enchants with its impeccable voice and touch, delivering a powerful sound volume and unparalleled freedom of interpretation. At the heart of this tonal excellence is the advanced Bridge Calibration System (BCS), which utilizes premium German solid red beech bridges. These bridges, crafted with precision engineering and CNC technology accurate to a hundredth of a millimeter, ensure flawless transmission of sound and frequencies to the soundboard, resulting in crystal-clear sound projection.

Complementing this is the Dynamic Touch Balancing (DTB) system, which offers superior precision in touch-weight distribution and spring tension for each individual note. This intricate design provides a dynamic and responsive playing experience, allowing pianists to explore an extensive tonal spectrum with remarkable sustain. The integration of high-quality components further enhances the instrument’s voicing capabilities, ensuring that each note is rich and resonant.

The C. Bechstein R4’s clear, resonant tone makes it an exceptional choice for those seeking a robust and nuanced acoustic experience. It embodies the distinctive and sophisticated European sound that Bechstein is renowned for, offering musicians an instrument with a perfect voice and touch that supports maximum sound volume and interpretative freedom.

Hammers

The hammers of the C. Bechstein R4 are exquisitely crafted in Germany by C. Bechstein, offering superb dynamic capabilities and a rich array of tonal nuances. Each hammer is constructed with a walnut core, producing a colorful, voluminous, and precise sound. These hammers are covered with felt made in Germany from the finest New Zealand wool, manufactured using a proprietary traditional method to guarantee unparalleled quality.

This meticulous craftsmanship imparts a nuanced and expressive tonal quality, significantly enhancing the instrument’s overall performance. Each hammer head is carefully built and individually voiced by skilled technicians, ensuring precision and excellence in every detail. The result is a hammer that not only meets but exceeds the demands of discerning pianists, providing a dynamic range and tonal clarity that elevate the C. Bechstein R4 to an exceptional standard of musicality.

Soundboard

The C. Bechstein R4’s soundboard is crafted from mountain spruce, carefully sourced from trees grown slowly at altitudes above 1,000 meters in the Val di Fiemme, Dolomites—the same region known for its exceptional tone wood used by Antonio Stradivari. This choice spruce is celebrated for its superior acoustic qualities, guaranteeing excellent sound and resonance.

The soundboard is meticulously designed as a resonant membrane, with its projection surface precisely tailored to complement the piano’s specific acoustic structure, much like the craftsmanship found in fine violin-making. This careful adjustment enhances the piano’s tonal depth and clarity, producing a powerful yet detailed sound that enhances the C. Bechstein R4’s overall performance. This attention to detail ensures that every note played on the C. Bechstein R4 is rich, warm, and full of character, offering a truly exceptional acoustic experience for discerning musicians.

Cabinet

The C. Bechstein R4’s cabinet and frame are masterpieces of meticulous craftsmanship, assembled at the renowned C. Bechstein production facility. Comprised of about twenty premium components, the cabinet is fashioned from the finest spruce, mahogany, pine, and sycamore maple, showcasing the dedication to quality. The cabinet’s stunning high-gloss lacquer finish is achieved through an intricate process of manual sanding and polishing, resulting in an impeccably smooth and luxurious surface.

The uniquely designed cast iron frame, with its specialized composition and shape, is engineered to minimize internal vibrations while optimizing string energy. This design ensures swift sound transmission, significantly enhancing the piano’s tonal excellence. The seamless integration of the cast iron frame with the wooden acoustic components further diminishes frame resonance, contributing to the instrument’s remarkable sound quality and performance.

Furthermore, the R4 features agraffes that ensure precise string alignment for all 88 keys, a signature detail that has defined C. Bechstein pianos for over 163 years. This meticulous attention to construction and detail guarantees exceptional structural integrity and consistent tuning stability, embodying the rich, dynamic sound and outstanding performance that are hallmarks of Bechstein pianos.

The C. Bechstein R4, a standout in the C. Bechstein Residence series, epitomizes impeccable sound and touch, offering powerful volume and expressive versatility. In addition to its superior acoustics, the Residence series dazzles with a variety of design choices, including Classic, Contur, Elegance, Millennium, and Style. Whether you prefer traditional lines, elegant details, timeless designs, or modern award-winning aesthetics, each Residence piano is a distinct masterpiece, perfect for elevating any space. These qualities make the C. Bechstein Residence upright pianos unparalleled in their category, enchanting everyone who encounters these stunning embodiments of German piano craftsmanship.