Frederyk Chopin said Pleyel’s piano was his “non plus ultra” (“nothing could be better”), and it was with this instrument’s sound in mind that he composed most of his works. Liszt described how Chopin, on the Pleyel, “recreates the lost art of the German water harmonica – the marriage of crystal and water”. Paul McNulty’s instrument is built after Pleyel’s op. 1619 of 1830, from a private collection.