“The three musicians gave committed performances throughout the evening. Mr. Lepauw played with sparkling clarity on the bright-toned Fazioli piano … “

I will leave it to others, at least for now, to extol on his virtues and how far he brought the Newport Festival. I am going to comment on what it means to know somebody who truly is a “being of music”.

I first met Mark in 1980 when I went to Newport to maintain the Bosendorfers that were used as concert pianos. Later I went back every year in my role as Artist Services Director for Yamaha as Yamaha had become the official piano of the Festival.

Mark and I collaborated on 3 recitals at Alice Tully Hall in NYC. We presented Sergio Fiorentino (twice) and Dubravka Tomsic. Now maybe you don’t know those names (lots of professionals did not know Fiorentino) and that’s OK. But if you do, you know the almost unbelievable level of artistry that these two humble, relatively unsung pianists represented. Hearing these 2 artists at Newport and again at Tully were among the highlights of my music loving life.

Mark brought me into the world of these artists, and many more like them, as well as into a world of repertoire that is almost beyond imagination. And through it all he was brilliant, funny, supportive, loving and unique. Music was his life, his soul and his being and it showed. His loss will show too.

I’ve said before that I think the Newport Festival is the greatest music festival in the world. It was Mark’s artistic vision, management and humanness that made it so. Go here to learn more about the festival and click on the Newport Festival category on the right to read my earlier posts.

Rest in peace Mark. Your friends will miss you.

If you’ve been exposed to marketing in the piano industry you realize that just about any construction trait can be justified and explained, even if it seems in direct opposition to other makers. For example, the proponents of the new Phoenix bridge system say that it eliminates the need for down bearing in a piano. However in traditional design down bearing is, next to tuning pin torque, a fundamental requirement. More important, frankly, than 88 keys!

Quality is not necessarily the most important trait of a piano. Calling a piano high quality may mean next to nothing especially if the characteristic of a particular maker falls short in a more critical area: consistency.

To be consistent means that you can build something the same way more than once, and in the piano world this is important since most pianos are lifetime purchases. In fact with most pianos, their true tonal nature is not necessarily obvious when they are brand new. Consistency means that the high quality a particular company’s marketing material refers to is more than just random chance. If you can do something consistently, it means you really understand what you are doing and mean for it to turn out that way. Consistency implies quality, because it is intentional.

There is a prominent piano maker who is known for “quality”, but they are also known for being maddeningly inconsistent. In fact they have turned this, remarkably, into an attribute, stressing that no two of their pianos are alike and one should try a number of their pianos to find one that one likes. It is true that when one is of these brand of pianos is properly made they can be, to those that like their individual sound, wonderful instruments. However the degree of variability goes from sublime to unplayable. In fact, it is a certain badge of honor among accomplished piano technicians that they can make these actions “work”, regardless of the regulation specification. These technicians take great pride in the fact that they use regulation specifications as “guidelines” since regulating an action perfectly to specs does not guarantee that that action will play; that is how great the manufacturing variability is.

Now it is true that pianos by their very nature vary to some degree. They are very complex items made out of materials that are not known for great consistency, such as wood and felt. And yet, there are makers at most price points that turn out remarkably consistent products. There may be one brand that appeals to an individual more than another, but they all play fine, tune and regulate fine, and sound comfortably within the norms of that particular maker.

Consistency does not necessarily mean that you will like the end result. Many makers from Asia are known for remarkable consistency. However you may not be a fan of the sound, even while honoring their consistency of construction. However, I believe that this consistency is a higher measure of quality. This trumps the quality of the one example of a makers output that is beautiful, while 4 are unplayable and 5 are varying degrees of so-so.

After all, it’s your money and maybe you are not the best positioned to judge the ultimate quality of a piano. Shouldn’t you be able to count on something from a maker than just hollow marketing claims and the luck of the draw?

For example, who knew that accordions were such important instruments in Europe? There were probably 30 accordion makers and stunning displays of accordion virtuosity. We suffer under the Lawrence Welk impression of accordions in this country. In the hands of a skilled European artist, it is an instrument of uncommon richness and expression.

Other displays centered on the strong tradition of civic brass bands in Germany, and included interesting instruments and a variety of uniform makers.These unusual brass instruments included a wide selection of opera specific trumpets (one set just for Aida, another for specific Wagner operas).  I didn’t notice  many performances by brass or woodwind artists but there were a number of what appeared to be spontaneous performances by acoustic guitar solo artists and small ensembles and a stunning duet playing what appeared to be the professional version of blades of grass held between the palms and blown through (you had to be there).

There were, of course ( I guess), Alpen Horns on display, harmonicas of every possible size as well as the normal room after room of guitars, amplifiers, speaker systems, drums and the like.

I was not there for the accordions, however. I was there for the pianos and specifically the high end ones which this year had their own display room.

Trade shows have been problematic for piano makers over the past years. The cost of renting display space is significant onto which one adds the cost of transporting the instruments as well as the tuning and prep that goes into making them ready. Large parts of the music show floor, whether at NAMM or Frankfurt, have very loud volume levels from the guitars screaming and the drums pounding. The brass displays are particularly loud with every trumpeter bent on proving their ability to hit a fff high C, over and over! This is NOT the environment in which to listen to the fine details of piano sound.

A number of the European makers chose not to attend the Frankfurt show last year for these reasons. That caused the the show organizers to create a separate piano salon this year, quite apart from the noise and the bustle of the regular show floor. From my perspective the piano salon was quite pleasant and a number of the makers agreed.

Still business conditions kept some of the makers away and others have a tradition of not displaying. The makers that were there included  Blüthner, Forster, Steingraeber, Grotrian, Fazioli, Schimmel, Seiler and Petrof.

By most reports, business for the piano makers was quite good, considering overall business conditions. There was what appeared to be a good flow of visitors and meetings clearly had to be scheduled since a couple of the makers did not appear to have any spare time at all.

Blüthner had the biggest booth of the group and had a separate display for the recently acquired Ronisch brand. Schimmel displayed and announced that they had renegotiated with creditors and were back in family control. Seiler displayed with no hint of the ownership by Samick.

Click here to see a slide show

On March 30, Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. announced that, pursuant to the previously announced subscription agreement, Samick Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. has exercised its option to purchase an additional 1.7 million shares of ordinary common stock at an exercise price of $16 per share. Steinway intends to use the proceeds to retire outstanding debt and for general corporate purposes.

Today is March 31, the last day of my current direct involvement with Bosendorfer. It’s been great, thanks to everybody involved, but I’m itching to move on.

Stay tuned.

Unlike some European makers, it’s hard to miss Steingraeber, being just off Steingraeber Passage.

Let’s see, isn’t there a piano company around here someplace?

My street cred must be higher, and my timing was right because this time Udo Steingraeber took me around. You cannot imagine a more involved, knowledgeable, enthusiastic proponent for the world of high end pianos and his in particular.

The Steingraeber factory also exudes history, being in continuous use for, well I forget the exact number, but a number of years.

Steingraeber places GREAT emphasis on the perfect mating between inner and outer rim. They go so far as to create the outer rim, using the exact inner rim that will be on the same piano, as a mold. Here 2 inner and outer rims are being created at the same time, numbered and matched forever.

There is a vast array of construction and design details that go into a Steingraeber and many of them have been adapted, modified, or dropped in recent history. This is an active, living breathing maker, not content to build historical artifacts. Here I must add that I found this trait in all the makers I visited, but Steingraeber is particularly active offering carbon fiber soundboards and the new phoenix bridge.

This piano has both

The problem I have is that this CD was obviously made from different takes, and on some of the takes there are unisons that are noticeably and distractingly (to me) out of tune.  This is Horowitz, for gods sake. You mean nobody noticed?!

This confirms my experience that very few people, including concert pianists, truly know what a piano should sound like. I know that is heresy, but how can you otherwise explain how many out of tune pianos get recorded?