Klarinet Archive - Posting 000024.txt from 1998/06

From: Kenneth Wolman <kwolman@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Pianos & choosy musicians
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 20:26:45 -0400

>>...Baldwin seemed to get a little disrespected. The top
>>of the line Baldwins, grand, studio or console, are good enough to stand
>>comparison with anything on the market today. And when it's a piano for the
>>parlor or studio that you're after, the Baldwin Acrosonics are unbeatable.
>>Plus you're buying American, if that's important to you.
>>
>I think Baldwin pianos must be the Selmer clarinets of the Piano world:
>one of the top three makes, but somehow disrespected. Maybe they are just
>too midwestern! Bosendorfers (owned by Kimball) and Steinways (owned by
>Selmer) are somehow considered more exotic?!?

I'm slightly surprised that Steinways--given Selmer's aggressive marketing
techniques (ha)--have even been heard of....

According to my S.O., who plays the piano, Steinways and Baldwins tend to
be a toss-up, and what you buy depends on the kind of sound you want. One
is brighter than the other: I forget which is which. Yamaha has been
coming on strong in the piano business, too, I gather. The Metropolitan
Opera used to have Knabe as its official piano: now they use Yamaha
instruments, which also are reputed to have a very bright sound.

Concert pianists tend to be very picky about what they play. Several years
ago, Vladimir Feltsman, after emigrating from the USSR to America, was
contracted to play a recital at the Wayne, New Jersey YM-YWHA (this is MUCH
more prestigious than you might think!). He showed up and discovered that
the management had rolled out their on-premises Baldwin concert grand. He
said "I asked for a Steinway" and left. The concert had to be rescheduled
and the people who'd bought tickets had to exchange them or get refunds.
Some months later, Feltsman got his Steinway.

That's not the weirdest: it's legendary and probably true that Vladimir
Horowitz insisted on his own personal Steinway. When he traveled--be it to
Lincoln Center across town or to Russia--the piano had to be lowered out of
his townhouse window and transported with him.

Picture Morales showing up at the Met one night to play Forza del Destino,
and having to use not his LeBlanc but a plastic Vito...it still might sound
like Heaven but I think the soloist might be a bit miffed, y'might say.

Ken

"The East River. But it was not a river at all. Merely a column of water
connecting the upper harbor to the Sound. Yet everyone called it a river.
They chose not to think about it. They clung to the surface of things."
--Peter Quinn, "Banished Children of Eve"
Ken Wolman kwolman@-----.com/SoHo/Gallery/1649

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