Frederic Chopin's last piano gets its 19th-century features back

The serial number 14810 inside the last piano that Frederic Chopin played and composed on, and that after his death in 1849 in Paris came to his family in Warsaw. The 1848 Pleyel piano is seen at the Frederic Chopin Museum in Warsaw, Poland, where a Texas-born expert Paul McNulty is doing renovation work on it. Photo: AP

The last piano on which Frederic Chopin played and composed in Paris is being renovated by a US expert who is giving it back its original mid-19th century characteristics.

Paul McNulty is spending days at the Frederic Chopin Museum in Warsaw filling in some cracks in the soundboard and putting in wire strings like the ones used by Paris piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel - Chopin's favorite - in 1848.