LIHU‘E — A historic piano belonging to Rev. Hans and Dora Isenberg will be on display starting next week at the Kaua‘i Museum. Museum curator Chris Faye said the piano has been in the collection since 1996 when it was
LIHU‘E — A historic piano belonging to Rev. Hans and Dora Isenberg will be on display starting next week at the Kaua‘i Museum.
Museum curator Chris Faye said the piano has been in the collection since 1996 when it was anonymously donated to the Kaua‘i Museum, but because it needed work, it was kept out of the public.
Piano specialist Paul F. Kennedy has been working behind the scenes, restoring the historic piece which he believes was specially built to travel from the Bluthner factory in Leipzig, Germany to Hawai‘i.
Faye said Kaua‘i Museum contacted Kennedy after getting his name from the St. Regis in Princeville after Kennedy did some work for their piano.
One of the more obvious clues of the piano’s historic past comes in the “Bluthner” nameplate which is engraved onto a metal plate and screwed onto the instrument, Kennedy said, noting the regular piano just had lettering and gold leaf applied to the instrument.
“This had to withstand some hard travel and because of all the extra work which has gone into the piano, it wouldn’t surprise me if Julius Bluthner, the founder of the factory, did the work himself,” Kennedy said.
Faye said Rev. Hans Isenberg is from the Paul Isenberg lineage. Paul arrived in 1858 and took over managing the sugarcane plantation in Lihu‘e in 1862 following the death of his father-in-law, William Harrison Rice, in 1862.
Rev. Hans, whose name is Johannes Friedrich Wilhelm “Hans” Isenberg, according to online sources, was brought in to the pastor of the first Lutheran church.
Paul Isenberg, called the father of Lutheranism in Hawai‘i, according to the Lihu‘e Lutheran Church website, was the son of a Luthean pastor in Hanover, Germany, and arranged for his younger brother, Hans, an ordained Lutheran pastor, to serve the congregation from 1887 until his passing in 1918.
Following his death, Dora Rice Isenberg assumed much of the responsibility of the ministry, the LLC website states.
Faye believes the piano was ordered and shipped to Hawai‘i on one of the Isenberg trips to Germany. On other trips, the Isenbergs also brought over what Faye believes to be the first automobile on the island.
Kaua‘i Museum, with ties to the Isenberg family when Dora Jane Isenberg Cole, Paul’s granddaughter, became its first manager when it opened on Dec. 3, 1960, became the recipient of the historic upright piano after it went to The Salvation Army, Faye said.
Kennedy said the instrument, built to last for more than a century, did sustain some damage, but was able to restore the instrument and with its voice restored, the instrument was moved into public view.
The Kaua‘i Museum is open Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit www.kauaimuseum.org or call 245-6931 for more information.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
