Golden Sound

Frederick Chopin, the great composer who elevated music for the piano, was said to have possessed the remarkable ability to imitate the human singing voice at the piano...Franz Liszt, the ultimate virtuoso was said to make the piano sound like a full range orchestra, blending and shading nuances to a high degree.  Indeed, audience members in the packed concert halls would often swoon from the intoxication of these heavenly strains that emerged from the instrument...In the 1960's eager fans would brave the cold uninviting streets of Manhattan and wait on line through the night, wrapped around 57th Street hoping for a chance to score a ticket to a concert of Vladimir Horowitz...

What was the magic that all these geniuses of the piano possessed in such abundance?  It was, among other things, their ability to draw from the piano a richly beautiful tone...a tone that translated into a vehicle of communicating musical and para-musical ideas in the most compelling way.  This manner of playing would draw the audience to a rapt, nearly hypnotic state of attention--This was clearly a time to receive a message, and through the purity of the tone, each audience member was made pliant and receptive.  There would be no 'dozers-offers' in the hall...and no background snores to compete with the music at hand.

I have always been a big fan of historical recordings.  Legendary pianists of the past such as Cortot, Paderewski, Hoffman, Rachmaninoff and more recent pianists such as Rubinstein and Horowitz would always be the ones I would turn to for inspiration.  I was around 13 years old at the time, and didn't yet have the analytical skills to be able to pinpoint what it was about these performances that drew me in, but yet any comparison to a modern approach always justified my preference.  The funny thing was, in my mind I was hoping that in the live concerts I would attend, this kind of playing would automatically be found, but it was not so. 

It began to dawn on me that this kind of tone, which I later found out was referred to as the 'golden tone' of piano playing, possessed by the descendants of the schools primarily of Chopin, Liszt and Leschetizky seemed to only be an aural fossil of the past.  

But in 1990 I struck pianistic jackpot.  It was then that I did for the first and only time in my 30+ years of life hear this 'golden tone' in a live concert.  The concert was given in NYC by a pianist named Mordecai Shehori (www.cembaldamour.com)  I sat in the balcony of Carnegie Hall, the lights dimmed and the first notes that emerged from the piano were so compelling, so vibrant, so crystalline pure--It was absolute magic and I must say with each passing note the effect was made even more intoxicating.  

I had the good fortune to study for over ten years with this musical titan...Through stroke of fate, the technique required to produce this kind of 'golden sound' was imparted to him painstakingly and tirelessly from his teacher Mindru Katz.  And as he transmitted these invaluable lessons to me, I became aware of the level of commitment required to achieve it.  It was not a simple quick fix--To be able to produce even a small iota of this kind of sound would require a complete relearning and recalibration of approach--one that would span many years.

Tone used to be a pianist's biggest prerequisite at the end of the 19th and into the mid 20th century.  It was commonplace to be able just on the hearing of a few notes to identify the performer instantly.  Somehow from the 1950's and beyond, virtuous tone got replaced with other considerations--speed, percussiveness are just two that come to mind.  To boot, the knowledge of how to produce the golden tone was also getting more distant, like a xerox copy that is generations away from the source.

Is tone important?  Especially for an instrument that is at it's essence mechanical like the piano?  I obviously think, yes, even more so because pianists have to reach beyond the limitations of the mechanics to produce the sound.  Other instrumentalists, for instance, violinists have the advantage of having direct contact with the string and bow which produces the tone--as for pianists, they have a intermediary to contend with, that is the 'key' which is depressed by the finger and through which an intricate array of parts called the 'piano action' is set into motion.  This chain reaction of events  finally gets to the conclusive heart of the matter when tone is produced: the hammer hits the string.  

Because the pianist never gets an opportunity to directly feel the string or the hammer as the sound happens, there is a lot of focus on the part of the process that the pianist can actually control--that is the approach of the finger to the key.  This being an indirect approach having very direct consequences, I can attest there are many schools of thought on the subject and sadly many misconceptions that have arisen, preventing people from achieving the tone that their inner ear and heart longs for.

Piano...or Death!!

Growing up, there has always been one element of holidays and family get-togethers that I have always cherished.  It would happen at the dinner table, usually when the main meal has been cleared and in the interim until dessert that my father would start his storytelling.  A big personality, with a remarkable ability to spin a good yarn,  he would start in with his carefully measured words and heavy Polish accent, while the rest of us listened, always attentive and often amused.

Recently at one of these post-dinner wrap-ups I requested to hear the 'piano story' again.  It is one that I've heard many times, but always the details are so worth hearing time after time. And it is always a hard ticket to get--as these stories always depend on my father's mood and requests could often be rejected...But last Christmas, I got lucky.

This is a true story and it happened in an area of Poland called Przemysl which is very close to the Russian border.  The time was just after World War II and at that point the border was constantly being switched--from Russian territory to German territory.  As a result, families were forced to relocate all the time, depending on which flag was being waved in their front yard.  

During World War II, it was commonplace for Polish families to receive a knock at the door from German soldiers who would enter forcibly and rifle through the contents of the home removing anything of particular value.  My father, age 9 lived in a small house with his mother and grandmother when this knock came.  Although they didn't have much in terms of valuables, there was one piece that for my grandmother was her greatest treasure and it was her upright piano.

So in the Germans went and of course out the piano went with them.  For my grandmother, this was devastating as she was passionate about music and  it was the one source of escape that she had during this bleak time.  She was an accomplished pianist and also composed...When it was impossible to buy sheet music, she would make her own manuscript paper and write down by ear the pieces that she would hear.  One of my treasures now is a big box of these music papers that she wrote, yellowed in time all bearing the signature of the years from 1937-1945.

Eventually the war ended and as the Germans were pulling out they had huge caravans standing on the street filled with all the booty they had collected from the citizens.  As my grandmother and father passed by these caravans she scanned the contents, always on the lookout for what was stolen from her.  Finally as they passed the tail end of this caravan, she stopped in amazement--jetting out from one of these wagons was her beloved piano.

She surveyed the scene and saw that there was only one lazy soldier who was charged with guarding the caravan.  With the war over, there was a more relaxed 'work ethic' which she instantly recognized as an opportunity for herself.  She called on the help of a friend who was a kind of 'village superman'- a muscular hulk of a guy who from spending years in hard farm labor was able to lift astounding amounts of weight, and then she, the 'hulk' and her 9 year old son set out to right the wrong done to them.

Somehow they managed to extract the piano from the wagon of this caravan and the three of them were pushing this instrument down the street back to their home.  Passers-by were looking in amazement, but undaunted they continued on, growing bolder with each step. Suddenly a blast was heard in the sky--Looking up they saw a plane looming above them. They realized that this was either a Russian or German surveillance plane and that the pilot had spotted them in this act.  As they pushed on frantically, this plane suddenly full throttle started to descend down on them.  They tried to hide, my father cramming his small body underneath the piano as far as he could and the others sidling as close as they could to the side of the instrument...They got lucky; the plan flew off.  They continued to push, shaking in fear. My father wanted to leave the instrument behind and flee home.  But my grandmother wouldn't hear of it.  She had to get this piano back into the home, even if it meant death.  

The plane re-emerged a few minutes later--the angry sound of the engine overhead and now fueled with even more aggression--This time the speed and intensity of the swoop down was so frightful that all three thought that their life was over.  And as the plane came closer, they prayed frantically for mercy.

Of course, because I am sitting here today writing this story, one could guess the outcome--They lived.  The ominous plane flew off in the distance and they made it safely home, piano in tow.

But the question remains--Why?  Why to risk their lives so flagrantly, all for the sake of this piano.  Was it a valuable instrument?  Absolutely not--just your run of the mill upright; it wouldn't command very much money on the open market, especially after having been beaten up from this war.  Was it a family heirloom, passed down through the years?  No.  Was there something stashed away in the interior of the case, like a big wad of cash wrapped up? Wishful thinking, but no.  

The reason my grandmother risked her life and the life of her son was exactly to have  life. The war with all its suffering was not life--it was survival.  Life was in the music. Life was on this alternate plane.  This was the place where souls were kind and loving and gentle; imparting spiritual nourishment and hope through the symbols of notes and rests and staffs...This was the place where humanity could be lifted up from the depth of sorrow that it had inflicted on one another. This was the place where one could find repose.

Music has this power.  It always has and always will.  But, wait,  there's a catch: We have to take personal responsibility for our musical choices. We have to seek out great music and take possession of it...Just as this brave lady sought out and reclaimed her treasure, we must do the same.

In these modern times, where media is blaring at us 24-7 it is more critical than ever that we make conscious decisions in what we chose to let in.  There are two types of music:  the kind that drags us down, with it's negative subtext and simplistic content or the kind that uplifts us. 

How do we know the difference?  Simple--As all things of quality, the music that uplifts us requires participation from us.  It requires--it directs us to stop all we are doing and be attentive only to it.  Like a sermon, it will move our heart and rewire our internal networks in such a positive way--but again, we must make the choice and we must carve out quality time for it.

Piano or death?...Music or death?....Starving the soul or nourishing it with inspiration?  That is our choice to make!