Besbrode Pianos - the acclaimed Leeds piano shop finding a new audience online

It’s estimated that around 50 million Chinese children study classical piano where piano sales are booming. Not surprisingly, the country has been a leading export market for Melvin Besbrode, who runs the eponymous Besbrode Pianos, in Leeds.

Then, as dramatic as any Rachmaninov piano concerto, China banned ivory keyboards, wiping out the market in old piano exports overnight.

“We don’t sell pianos to China any more – old pianos have ivory keyboards, even if you have a certificate for them China won’t accept it,” says Melvin.

You can export any ivory keyboard piano in Europe with certification, but one of Melvin’s Chinese customers almost ended up in prison when he bought a keyboard he thought was plastic but turned out to be ivory. “That market just completely stopped.”

This year has also had the impact of the lockdown, meaning customers could no longer visit the Besbrode warehouse, and of course, concert pianists had nowhere to play.

Melvin Besbrode is proof of the cliché that necessity is the mother of creation, and of course Leeds has a powerful reputation to maintain. “The piano has a fabulous heritage in our city and we’re part of a momentum to ensure this legacy endures,” says Melvin

Inside the unassuming warehouse tucked away in Holbeck, on the edge of the city centre, Besbrode Pianos is a treasure trove showcasing hundreds of pianos, from the ornate and antique to concert grand Steinways.

“We’re only two hours from London and a quarter a mile from the railway station. One of the advantages we have is people will come on the train and stay here all day and play 20 pianos – you can’t do that in many places. Some treat us in the same way as a museum and just come and have a look at what we do.”

With Chinese sales drying up, Melvin immediately stopped buying old pianos to concentrate on Steinways to restore and re-sell. “They’re like Rolex watches or Gold – Steinways have a world-market value.”

Melvin explains that as Steinways are only made by Steinway, the brand dictates the price. “They always go up – whatever the economy, it doesn’t make any difference – they put the value up every year by between three and five per cent, so in ten years’ time it will cost you around 50 per cent more to buy a Steinway than now.”

A new Steinway costs a whopping £70,000. “The Steinways we have are not new, but we take them to Germany where they are restored by Steinway technicians and all the parts are Steinway certified. When you buy a restored piano from us it comes with a certificate to say all the parts are Steinway, anything that’s been done to it is Steinway approved.

“A restored Steinway is basically exactly the same as a new one – the whole of the action in the keyboard is new, the strings are new – so effectively you’re buying a new piano but it costs you half the price.”

But the bespoke nature of a Steinway means buyers like to experience it before they buy. “We have 40 or 50 Steinways here so people can come up and compare one piano against another.”

How to do that if buyers can’t visit the showroom? The conundrums of Covid-19 brought with them a stroke of luck – one that Melvin thinks could transform the way pianos are now sold.

“My daughter is a TV producer and director who lives in London. She happened to get stuck at our house when the curtain came down in March. I said, ‘you make TV programmes, why not make movies of my pianos and people won’t have to physically come?’”

His daughter recommended getting an iPhone 11 pro, saying it was effectively as good as a professional camera, so he bought one and set up a studio in the warehouse.

“One of the other ideas that came to me at that point is there are many concert pianists who can’t play anywhere at the moment. We can film each piano individually, we can have a concert pianist play on it, and film it.

“We did that with 12 pianos and now have the finished edited films which will go on our website. A Chinese associate who works for me said he had a friend who is a Chinese pianist who can play on our pianos, and she agreed.”

Ke Ma turned out to have an international career, playing in New York and Wigmore Hall among other illustrious venues. She played eight of Melvin’s pianos and will return to Yorkshire before Christmas to perform a concert on the Steinway that Melvin lent to York Minster for two years while their organ underwent repairs.

Lockdown potentially transformed the analogue world of piano sales. “If you go to most piano websites at the moment, it’s just a picture and description of the piano. We’re hopefully going to change the nature of selling pianos.”

Remarkably, the value of Besbrode sales has remained the same as last year, despite losing the Chinese market and lockdown, thanks to this repositioning.

As households looked to create their own entertainment in lockdown, electronic pianos, which you can buy online, sold out. “The physical nature of acoustic pianos makes it more difficult to do that. But in the same way people have been sitting at home, they’ve done the gardening, they walk round the block every day, and a certain percentage would have bought a piano if they had known in advance that they were going to be sitting at home all the time.”

Melvin sees himself as an artisan craftsman above all else. Bur when it comes to business, selling one Steinway is the equivalent of selling 15 regular pianos. Clients have deep pockets, big houses and often a discreet profile, however Melvin does spill a few famous names when pushed.

“We’ve sold two pianos to Oasis, to Jennifer Lopez, we supplied pianos for the Royal command performance for Tony Bennett – where’s my list? Bryan Ferry, Petula Clarke, Alison Moyet...” he says.

Repairing instruments is something Melvin clearly enjoys. “It’s a bit like The Repair Shop – that must be one of the most popular programmes on the television. I feel that’s what my business is like.

“There’s really a pleasure in taking something you can repair that is then good for another hundred years and the people who go away with it are happy. You tend to be surrounded by people that like what they do, and the people who buy them like what they buy.”

For more information visit: www.besbrodepianos.co.uk

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James Mitchinson