Today I celebrate the restoration of my century-old Mason & Hamlin AA grand. Short of writing a book, it would be difficult to describe what it means to me to have a truly fine instrument.
My beginnings on the piano date from the age of 3 or 4 when a neighbor in Chicago gave me unlimited access to her upright. It was heaven. I fell in love with the sound, a love that has never abated despite ups and downs of all descriptions.
Needless to say, it is a pure Proustian affair. I have surely carried around in my head and in my heart that sound transformed. During most of the intervening years I was not a pianist, having taken up serious organ study when physical limitations made technical progress unlikely if not impossible, and having built my career in New York setting up a unique non-competitive chamber music program for amateurs. In other words, I had become increasingly committed to the community of people whose desire to play exceeded their technical prowess. That involvement continues, and now extends to including among my students a severely developmentally challenged, blind, autistic young man.
Trying to avoid the book that threatens this post, ahem: My first realization in the presence of a beautiful instrument is how easily music becomes imaginary, literally. This glorious ringing tone reveals a new dimension in every piece I play which, at the moment, includes some of the most intimate piano music ever written: Schubert's Moments Musicaux and the Eclogues of Dvorak.
