When Queen Elizabeth II gave her annual Christmas Day speech from Buckingham Palace recently, lot of people were distracted by the Queen’s gold piano behind her.
The opulent gold piano was made by French firm Erard whose instruments were famously used by Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn and Wagner. The piano is decorated with gold leaf and painted by François Théodore Rochard. This piano was given to the queen in 1856, during the reign of Queen Victoria.
This piano was used as a showpiece for the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace, and still turns heads around.
While many appreciated the speech, there were some who pointed out the hypocrisy, by saying the golden piano could feed many homeless.
Multi-billionaire tells people to be nice to others at #Christmas. A decade of austerity, massive homelessness and food bank usage, yet no irony in a room dripping in gold as the setting for #Queen's speech. Is that piano made out of gold? How many homes could that have paid for? pic.twitter.com/TAr5PkQsmd
— ☃️?Festive Kristian Harstad?☃️ (@KristianHarstad) December 26, 2018
However, there were some who said people were over-reacting.
“I’m not really sure what people expected this person whose job it is to wear bejeweled crowns and use a sword to knight people and wave in a special manner to do in the interior design department. Like, would you want to watch a holiday message from the Queen with a Casio keyboard chilling in the back like she’s a college student vlogging from her childhood bedroom? No, you would not.”
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It definitely won’t be made completely of gold as it will sound rubbish, unless this is just a display piece. I think probably a layer of thin gold on a proper piano.
I think people have become a lot more critical nowadays. Do you really need to come across as poor to show that you care for poverty? Do you need to be an accomplished pianist to own a grand piano at home?
It’s quite possible that those things have probably been around since before she was born and she doesn’t actually own them.