I learned a couple of interesting things about Forster pianos during my visit. Click on each thumbnail to enlarge. They have this cool slot cut in the inner rim that allows it to resonate somewhat separately. I’ve seen a number of Forster pianos over the years but had never noticed it, not that it is easy to notice on the completed piano. You’d have to look carefully at the very bass end where the soundboard meets the inner rim and ask yourself why there appears to be a very precise gap there.

While August Förster pianos are not plentiful in the US, they have been sold here long enough to be known for their consistently high quality and dark, rich tone. This kind of consistent, identifiable tone does not come by chance, but rather from generations of consistent work and dedication. I met up in Löbau Germany with Bert Neidhardt who has been the US distributor for August Förster for something like 40 years. Löbau is deep inside what had been the DDR, or East Germany and has not, at least to my eyes, thrived under the DDR or reunification. But I have always admired the Förster piano and was really looking forward to visiting. I was not disappointed. You can find my photos of the August Förster factory here on Flickr

To recap my philosophy, I do not see the worlds true high end makers as competitors. With the idea of “tonal diversity” firmly in mind, I think these makers support each other in trying to reach prospects who might otherwise have, from pure marketing exposure, a narrow idea of what represents true quality in the piano world. These European makers have very specific, very individual tone that usually appeals in a very direct, individual way. If someone truly loves the sound of X, they probably won’t be interested in Z. And this is a good thing, since there are many music styles and many approaches to interpretation. There should be, logically, many tonal options available to support this wonderful world of individuality. Therefore I find it personally and professionally rewarding to learn as much as I can about these makers and they have all, so far, universally accepted my visits

Fall means catching up on some travel and I headed south to the Orlando area and Naples. I flew into and out of Orlando, driving down to Naples and back. This is a bit of a drive but I had a pretty nice car due to an upgrade from Hertz. I visited my dealer who also handles Steingraeber and saw my first Steingraeber carbon fiber soundboard. The idea here is NOT that carbon fiber works as well as wood. I heard it and it doesn’t. The point is that this allows high quality pianos to be installed in hostile (at least to pianos) environments that would ordinarily eat soundboards for lunch. My understanding is the the Moscow Conservatory owns a couple of these and that makes sense. Harsh climate, long cold winters, old facilities with no chance of adding enough humidity to the bone dry winters. This board sounds reasonable

My recent travels have taken me to a well known retailer in the East and a well known university in, well, the US.  Both are staffed by  serious piano people and to me, both represent a problem this industry is facing. They both are basically sending the message that new piano manufacturers have little value. In the case of the retailer, they are emphasizing their very idiosyncratic approach to rebuilding, essentially sending the message that the best piano is an old Steinway. To be clear, they are not a Bosendorfer dealer and another high end European maker ended their relationship with them recently. In the case of the University, they are an active rebuilding shop focusing on rebuilding a motley but carefully selected collection of rather worn out pianos. The rebuilds are high quality, done by very serious people. Both of these organizations have specific, carefully thought out reasons to

PTG of course is the Piano Technicians Guild and this years convention was held in Grand Rapids Michigan. Grand Rapids is a pain to get to but is a lovely little city with a fantastic convention facility. For the past number of years Ferdinand Braeu, our Technical Director has given a class on Maintaining the Bosendorfer Tone. The class combined theory and hands on voicing and has been well received. Ferdinand couldn’t make it this year due to his being needed at the introduction of the new Audi designed Bosendorfer at Audi headquarters in Germany. The replacement instructor got hung up in Paris with passport problems. It seems that the US introduced a new regulation on July 1 requriing that visitors from europe use a passport with an embedded computer readable chip. It didn’t matter that he was using an otherwise perfectly valid Swiss passport – he couldn’t get on

The Van Cliburn Competition just ended with barely a ripple on the surface of public awareness. To a certain extent this is to be expected since the world of serious piano playing is relatively small and arcane. However in my memory the Cliburn used to generate quite a bit more awareness. The biggest advantage of competitions is that they provide performance opportunities to serious students. No, I’m not referring to all the career opportunities that are supposed to come to the winners. In that area competitions seem like American Idol to me; the best careers often come to those who did NOT win. The performance opportunity is the competition itself, whether or not the individual makes it past the preliminaries. For a serious piano student, playing for themselves only goes so far. The purpose of being an artist is to communicate and to do that one must have an audience.

The word from Vienna is that my pal Gabriela Montero (yes, she played at the inauguration) just had a big success in Vienna, playing Brahms 1 on a Bosendorfer 290 with the Vienna Philharmonic. Gabby is the real deal and if you don’t know of her, you should.  Sublime musical intelligence, warm personality, beautiful, huge sound with the added twist of being a skilled and natural improvisationist (is that a word?). This is improvisation in the classical sense, the ability to take a theme and spontaneously turn it into a polished performance. These were considered common skills for performers 100 (maybe 150) years ago but they have since disappeared from the scene. Properly done it is more than a parlor trick. There should be  all the structure of the sonata allegro form, including a development of the theme, often with variations as well as a recapitulation and coda. The idea

The Shostakovich 4th is one of my most favorite pieces perhaps due to the way I first heard it; performed by the Boston Symphony, me  a naive college student walking in completely unprepared. I walked out a different person. This video is short. Make sure you listen to the end.

My idea of cultural mecca is the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago. It’s has a spectacular old world lobby and is just steps away from the Art Institute and Symphony Hall. I took advantage of it’s proximity to the latter tonight and attended a performance (under Bernard Haitink) of Webern Im Sommerwind, Mahler Ruckert Lieder (with Christianne Stotijn) and Brahms Symphony Number 1. To an orchestral music lover, this is a multi-course meal at a fabulous restaurant. One comes away content  on a number of levels, marveling at the display of mastery that one has just witnessed. And, ultimately, the only thing one takes away is a memory. The Webern was the biggest surprise. A huge romantic tone poem from the master of modernist  miniatures. I will use this piece, in addition to Schoenberg’s Gurralieder and Transfigured Night as proof that one needs to have complete mastery of the current