Anne Francis

This was an interesting piece in today’s Globe (read it here).

Did you notice the dark keys in the low bass on the Bosendorfer 290 Imperial in the photo? This model has NINE extra keys in addition to the traditional 88. I am not familiar with any music this low, but according to the manufacturer’s website, it was created to accommodate certain pieces by Bartok, Debussy, Ravel and Busoni. A few years ago I attended a technical demonstration on how to tune these extremely low bass notes, by Mark Zillmann of Lowrey’s Piano Experts, which sells the 290 Imperial.

One thing: The pianists interviewed talked quite a lot about the touch of different pianos, and, while it’s true that every piano has a distinct tone and touch, some of their comments left the impression that there’s not much you can do about how a particular piano feels or sounds.

Not true! Much of what piano technicians do (especially concert technicians), besides tuning, involves voicing the hammers and regulating the action to satisfy both the manufacturer’s specifications and the player’s preferences (and sometimes to find the middle ground between the two!). Of course, as the article explains, touring artists quite often arrive at the hall to a piano they’ve never played, and there is minimal time for rehearsing, let alone for customizing the tuning, voicing and regulation. But pianos are made of organic materials like wood and wool felt, and they are actually quite malleable, when time and resources permit.