The 1816 Broadwood grand, serial number 7005, is the same model as the piano made the following year, number 7362, and given to Beethoven. Thomas Broadwood, son of the original John Broadwood, met Beethoven during a visit to the continent in 1817. As a result of the meeting, he decided to present one of the firm’s pianos to the composer.

Upon returning to London, he invited five pianists to choose the piano to be presented to Beethoven, including names still remembered inscribed on the pinblock: Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Ries and John Baptist Cramer. The front displayed Beethoven’s name in large letters and the inscription, Hoc instrumentum est Thomae Broadwood londini donum propter ingenium illustrissimi Beethoven. Upon the arrival of the Beethoven Broadwood in Vienna, pianists who tried it found the tone appealing for its fullness and dynamic nuance, if also somewhat muffled compared with the brighter sound of Viennese pianos. After a period of use by Beethoven, Broadwood sent a representative to service the piano, who described the broken strings as resembling “a thornbush after a storm.” In 1823 the pianist Ignaz Moscheles borrowed the Broadwood for a recital, writing afterward that his effort to show the “broad, full” tone was to no avail, his Viennese audience preferring the more brilliant sound of pianos of their countryman, Conrad Graf. At the auction of Beethoven’s effects, a buyer for the Broadwood that ten years earlier had represented the high point of piano building could scarcely be found due to what was perceived as its limited sonority. The eventual buyer was a music dealer by the name of Spina who later presented the piano to Liszt. It now stands in the National Museum in Budapest.