microtonal piano

The following is a letter I recieved about two weeks ago:

Sauter Pianofortefabrik's 16 tone microtonal acoustic piano
My name is John Ryan and I am the U.S. Representative handling the import
and
distribution of Sauter Pianos in the United States. Briefly, Carl Sauter
Pianos is the oldest continuous production piano company in the world,
located in Germany in the same town since 1819. It is a small but very
high
quality, innovative company which builds the most beautiful hand-crafted
pianos I personally have ever seen or played, and we import their
traditional
as well as a line of designer pianos.

Early this week, at the Piano Technicians Guild convention in Washington
D.C.
I was introduced for the first time to an acoustic piano which we
persuaded
Ulrich Sauter (the sixth generation Sauter to run the company) to bring
from
Germany to the show mainly as a "novelty" to get the piano technicians
into
the booth to see the other pianos in our line, and to generate
conversation
Germany to the show mainly as a "novelty" to get the piano technicians
into
the booth to see the other pianos in our line, and to generate
conversation
about Sauter. Little did I know what we had on our hands. It turns out
that
Ulrich's father was contacted in the 1950s by a microtonal composer named
Julian Carillo (<A
HREF="http://www.tol.itesm.mx/~esolisw/julian.html">Julian
Carrillo and the Thirteenth Sound</A>) to build a 96 key acoustic piano
built
around the 16 tone system. Carrillo had been looking for a piano
manufacturer who would build him one of these pianos and after being
"politely" turned down by every company (Steinway, Baldwin , etc.) he
found
Sauter enthusiastic to build it. About 15 of the "metamorphser" pianos
were
built and made their way to Mexico and to various conservatories around
the
world. They fell into obscurity until recently when Sauter was contacted
by
the Paris Conservatory to build two of these pianos for them. After quite
a
bit of research, Sauter was able to find in their archives the original
plans, sketches, etc., and therefore took on the commission. Since then,
orders have been coming out of the "woodwork" from different parts of the
world, mostly Europe, and Sauter has filled another 7 orders.

The reason that I am writing to you is to convey the unanticipated
enthusiasm
I encountered from Piano Technicians at this convention towards this
"micortone" piano which has 96 keys but only covers a one octave range of
the
conventional piano, especially those tech's associated with Universities
and
Conservatories. We will most likely come away with several serious
commissions to build more which will be ending up in the United States.

I really don't know where this will lead to; I'm still trying to sort it
out
myself, and I found your website while trying to find out more about
microtonal music which I've had no experience with until seeing this
piano.
I don't know if any of this interests you, but I want to make myself
available for any information that you may wish to know and which I can
supply you. I will have the piano in the U.S. for a while. It is
currently
still in Washington D.C. for the convention and we will be bringing it to
our
distribution headquarters in Melbourne, Florida this coming Monday.
Sauter
is here from Germany and will be in Florida next week from Monday -
Wednesday. In the meantime, I'm going to find out more about this
microtonal
music because I am fascinated by it, and it seems to me that Sauter and we
have something really special, not just a novelty after all.

Sincerely,
John Ryan
Europianos (a division of Unique Pianos)
Import and Distribution of Fine Quality Hand Crafted Pianos

John Starrett
"We have nothing to fear but the scary stuff."
http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/microtone.html