---------------------- multipart/mixed attachment From: "Museum of the American Piano" <event@museumforpianos.org> The Museum made the front page of the New York Times Friday's (5/6/03) edition in the Weekend section, page E29!! Please read it and pass it along to your friends. If you would like to get a copy, please let us know. ---------------------- multipart/mixed attachment A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 06PIAN.1842.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 14160 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/0d/8f/1e/b0/06PIAN.1842.jpg ---------------------- multipart/mixed attachment ---------------------- multipart/mixed attachment A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 06pian2.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 37264 bytes Desc: not available Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/4d/f5/60/ff/06pian2.jpg ---------------------- multipart/mixed attachment June 6, 2003 Fanfare for the Uncommon Piano By DIANE COLE Love a Piano," Irving Berlin's anthem to the keyboard, has been music=20= to my ears ever since I began tickling the ivories at the age of 8. But=20= New York's love affair with the keyboard has been going on a lot=20 longer, as several museums, a landmark showroom and this country's most=20= famous piano factory all attest. In addition, gala concerts at Carnegie=20= Hall this weekend commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding, in=20= New York, of Steinway & Sons. But while that venerable piano manufacturer may be the best-known=20 symbol of the instrument in New York, there are other places connected=20= to the piano that can delight the casual visitor and surprise even the=20= connoisseur. The best place to begin exploring the piano's=20 extraordinary popularity in the United States and its advent as a=20 status symbol in this country is at the Museum of the American Piano,=20 at 291 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Entering this compact, basement-level institution, founded in 1984, is=20= like walking through an auditory time machine and hearing the unusual=20 plunk and plink of keyboards made 200 years ago. Many once-popular=20 piano makers displayed here =97 Knabe, Chickering, Osborn, Geib and=20 Nunns, Clark & Company, among others =97 no longer sound familiar = because=20 they have gone out of business. But more than a century ago hundreds of manufacturers proliferated=20 across the country. Piano ownership conveyed a sense of middle-class=20 refinement and domesticity, and such was the demand that by 1850 about=20= 60 piano manufacturers existed in the New York area alone, making it an=20= important local industry that provided factory work for new immigrants=20= and created jobs for salesmen, tuners, movers and music teachers. By=20 the end of the 19th century, about one in six New Yorkers worked in=20 some piano-related job, says Kalman Detrich, the museum's founder and=20 executive director. (Mr. Detrich or an associate will provide a guided=20= tour if you call in advance.) As you walk through the two chronologically arranged galleries, don't=20= be surprised if you find yourself rubbing your eyes as you count only=20 61, or in some cases 73 or 75 or 85, cream-colored keys on instruments=20= of earlier eras, rather than the standard 88 of pianos today. One=20 eerily glistening keyboard has keys made from mother-of-pearl. The foot=20= pedals are not always where you expect them to be, either; on one=20 instrument there is one each on opposite ends of the piano. In some=20 instances, you might not even realize that the once-fashionable but now=20= obscure-looking piece of furniture before you is a parlor piano of yore. One such oddity is the giraffe piano, essentially an upright with a=20 grand's harp-shaped frame with strings standing atop it. These pianos=20 became popular in the 1880's, promising to provide the resonant sound=20 and high-class d=E9cor of a grand while taking up much less space. One=20= catch: no stand for sheet music. Another 19th-century space saver is=20 displayed: a piano whose music desk folds up and disappears, allowing=20 the piano to masquerade as an exquisitely carved rosewood cabinet with=20= no telltale keyboard, pedals or strings in sight. Still another obsolete style well represented here is the so-called=20 square piano, whose actual shape more closely resembles an elongated=20 rectangle. One intricately carved 1815 example is supported by six=20 fluted legs. No wonder this style's massive size, compared with the=20 more compact upright, led to the square's extinction by the end of the=20= 19th century. A 1920's Player Piano On his tour Mr. Detrich saves the most novel item for last: a 1920's=20= Nickelodeon Company player piano that also encases a mechanically=20 operated tambourine, cymbal, bass drum, triangle and accordion. Although the museum also offers examples of French, German and British=20= pianos, the emphasis on American ones highlights the fact that the=20 piano was the first American product to supersede its European=20 counterparts, Mr. Detrich says. The turning point, he explains, came in=20= 1850, when the American-made Chickering piano beat out European=20 competitors to win a gold medal in Paris. The piano industry also presaged today's trend toward globalization,=20= Mr. Detrich said. Exotic woods like rosewood originated in South=20 America, ivory was imported from Africa, felt for the hammers came from=20= New Zealand and Australia, and shellac and finishing materials were=20 made in Asia. More piano history =97 and additional exotic pianos =97 can be seen in = the=20 Metropolitan Museum of Art's musical-instruments collection, which=20 houses the oldest piano in existence, built in 1720 by the Italian=20 instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori. In outward shape, Cristofori's=20= unornamented, slim-cased, fragile-looking wooden instrument with=20 yellowed keys resembles a harpsichord. But his interior music-making=20 mechanism was revolutionary, essentially replacing the harpsichord's=20 string-plucking quills with fast-striking hammers. The keyboard on this piano, though only four and a half octaves, could=20= produce a wider range of sound, high and low, and could play, as=20 suggested by the instrument's new name =97 the gravicembalo col piano e=20= forte =97 soft and loud. By the end of the 18th century, five octaves = had=20 become standard, and pianos were so popular that wealthy music lovers=20 were commissioning ornate, custom-made instruments. Around 1790, for=20 example, Ferdinand Hofmann of Vienna built an elegant cherry grand,=20 with delicately carved arcades above an ebony-and-bone keyboard, and a=20= music rack with a tall Gothic-arch window design. Mozart, Haydn or their contemporaries might have played such an=20 instrument. By the time Beethoven died in 1827, the octave range had=20 grown even larger and, thanks to the use of steel to reinforce the=20 previously all-wooden frames, pianos could withstand greater wear and=20 tear. Such are the conclusions to be drawn from the far heftier,=20 heavily legged Brazilian rosewood grand piano built by John Broadwood &=20= Sons of London in 1827. The prize for showiest instrument goes to the splendiferous,=20 honey-colored satinwood grand built in 1840 by Erard & Company. It has=20= a Louis XV-style inlaid wooden case with elaborate gilt trim, massive=20 sculptured legs and painted scenes of lutenists, singers, birds, lions,=20= floral arrangements and nudes. More down-to-earth keyboards are also on view at the Metropolitan,=20 however, and not just in the musical-instrument collection. In the=20 painting galleries, two canvases by Renoir, for example, display=20 upright pianos =97 ubiquitous in middle-class homes throughout Europe = and=20 the United States by the 1890's =97 surrounded by sweet-faced girls = eager=20 to show off their musical accomplishments. Temples to Music-Making While the antique, handcrafted pianos at the Museum of the American=20 Piano and the Met may be rarities, the skills that go into piano-making=20= have not been lost. A glimpse of this can be gleaned at Steinway &=20 Sons, at 19th Avenue and 38th Street in Long Island City, Queens, where=20= piano manufacturing is still a respected craft honoring the spirit of=20 that company's founder, Heinrich E. Steinweg, who was a master=20 cabinetmaker before he came to the United States in 1850 and Anglicized=20= his name. New York remains the very place to learn a fine way to treat a=20 Steinway, as Berlin wrote =97 especially this year, the 150th = anniversary=20 of that piano manufacturer's founding. To celebrate, Steinway & Sons is=20= sponsoring three gala concerts at Carnegie Hall this week, the final=20 two tonight and tomorrow, with each performance intended to highlight a=20= different musical style. Tonight's concert is to feature the jazz=20 pianists Herbie Hancock, Ramsey Lewis and Ahmad Jamal. Tomorrow night=20 the spotlight is on pop, with a bill that includes K. D. Lang, Peter=20 Nero and Roger Williams. Tickets for these events can be pricey, but the Steinway factory =97 = in=20 Astoria, Queens, since 1870 =97 offers free tours showing workers as = they=20 assemble the approximately 12,000 parts that go into a new concert=20 grand. You can see the finished product by stepping inside Steinway's=20 Manhattan showroom at 109 West 57th Street, a building whose 1925=20 Beaux-Arts exterior and ornate interior rotunda were designed by Warren=20= & Wetmore, the same firm that gave New York its Grand Central Terminal.=20= Grand is indeed the word for the multitiered Waterford chandelier that=20= dangles from the domed ceiling of the main room, which is graced by=20 tall marble columns and oversize paintings of heroic-looking composers. The two lower floors of this 16-story structure have the feel of a=20 private mansion, but with a difference. The cathedral-like main room,=20 where a polished black concert grand sits regally in the center, can=20 also double as a recital room for private performances, often by piano=20= teachers and their students, and for occasional public seminars. Only slightly less intimidating are the five salons down the hall,=20 each filled with at least a half-dozen grand pianos in different sizes=20= and models. You would think you are in a hall of mirrors except that=20 each instrument differs slightly from the other, in wood type=20 (satinwood, rosewood, dark cherry, mahogany, pear and ebony, to name a=20= few), style (compare the elaborately decorated, stubby-legged retro=20 Victorian model with the austere, pared-down lines of Karl Lagerfeld's=20= design) and vintage (the oldest, from the 1890's, have 85 keys rather=20 than today's traditional 88). Each instrument sounds different, too. You can hear this in the jazz=20= riffs and rippling arpeggios, some passages more mellow, others=20 brighter, that float through the building, a cacophony provided by=20 piano shoppers happy to test the merchandise. If you put your hands to=20= the keyboards you can feel the different resistance in each action as=20 well. As you roam you might also see the former company president, Henry Z.=20= Steinway, the 87-year-old great-grandson of Heinrich Steinweg, who=20 established the firm on Hester Street, on the Lower East Side, in 1853=20= before moving to Astoria in the 1870's. Wearing a natty bowtie and a=20 dark suit with Steinway's trademark lyre on a lapel pin, the=20 white-haired Mr. Steinway reports every day to the second-floor office=20= he calls his "very own Old Curiosity Shop." This is a conference room=20 lined with metal file cabinets and graced with memorabilia like a=20 framed lock of Liszt's hair; a beige doorman's hat bearing the Steinway=20= & Sons insignia, dating from more gracious days when businesses=20 employed doormen; and a fire helmet with the Steinway name, from the=20 1890's, when the Astoria factory had its own fire company. "I'm the last Steinway, a sort of icon they show off from time to=20 time," Mr. Steinway said, introducing himself. The family no longer=20 owns or runs the company; it was sold in 1972 and since 1995 has been=20 part of a corporation known as Steinway Musical Instruments Inc. These=20= days, Mr. Steinway observed, his chief duty is autographing pianos, a=20 task he performs with the single flourish of a black-inked laundry=20 marker. Oddly, he never learned to play the piano himself. "I had a few=20= lessons, but they never really took," he says. The procession of distinguished musicians associated with Steinway=20 began in 1872, when the company sponsored the first American tour of=20 the European piano sensation Anton Rubinstein. Another 19th-century=20 matinee-idol pianist, Ignace Paderewski, played the inaugural concert=20 at Carnegie Hall in 1891. Since then it has been host to more than 520=20= additional pianists in solo performances. This is the focus of an=20 exhibition paying tribute to those great pianists, which is on display=20= at Carnegie Hall's Rose Museum through July 3. Concert programs, posters, autographs, photographs, sheet music,=20 record covers and newspaper clippings document the parade of pianists=20 who have played at Carnegie. Most notable is the continuously playing=20 videotape of piano performances by, among others, Artur Rubinstein,=20 Claudio Arrau, Vladimir Horowitz, Rudolf Serkin and Eubie Blake, who=20 all knew how to get to Carnegie Hall. And even if, as hard as we=20 practice, we can't, we can always hum along with Irving Berlin. Copyright 2003=A0The New York Times Company= ---------------------- multipart/mixed attachment--
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