As Christopher Beach stood in a room with eight top-of-the-line Steinway grand pianos, it all came down to a single question: Which one should he buy?
The instrument was for the La Jolla Music Society, where Beach is president and artistic director. And he was well aware of the significance of the decision.
La Jolla Music Society
Steinway & Sons is the legendary maker of highly prized pianos, including the La Jolla Music Society's new instrument.
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“This is a piano that's going to be here for 50 years, which is pretty important,” Beach said of the Steinway that will be played this season by such stellar soloists as Emanuel Ax, Yundi Li and Garrick Ohlsson. “Choosing it was one of the most extraordinary musical experiences of my life.”
Beach wasn't alone in the selection process. He was aided by Ohlsson, a longtime friend and colleague, as well as by veteran piano technician Earl Kallberg.
“To listen and play so hard was actually very exhausting,” Ohlsson said. “I probably gave the equivalent of two recitals that day.”
This week, the new concert grand makes its debut.
Called “The Belanich Steinway” in honor of music society supporters Raffaella and John Belanich, whose $100,000-plus donation paid for its purchase, the instrument will be feted at Tuesday's invitation-only celebration at La Jolla's Sherwood Auditorium in the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. On Wednesday at Sherwood, it's the special guest at the first local screenings of the documentary “Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037,” presented by the music society in partnership with the Cinema Society of San Diego (and shown to Cinema Society members).
The piano's inaugural public appearance is Feb. 22, when Ax launches the music society's 2008 Piano Series at Sherwood. (Tickets/information: (858) 459-3728 or www.lajollamusicsociety.org.) Sherwood is a world away from the Steinway factory's selection room in the New York City borough of Queens, where Beach, Ohlsson and Kallberg deliberated on Oct. 1. They spent 5-½ hours assessing the eight instruments.
They knew precisely what they wanted – a piano suited to the 492-seat Sherwood Auditorium, site of the society's chamber concerts as well as the majority of performances in La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, the prestigious festival held each August.
“The acoustics in Sherwood are rather dry so we needed a piano with a good singing quality and the ability to sustain tones,” said Kallberg, who has been a piano technician since 1979. “We also wanted a piano that had clarity. That's something you might not think about as much in a large, resonant hall. But in Sherwood you would notice. You can hear everything.”
In the past, the society rented pianos from Greene Music, the San Diego County outlet for the illustrious company Steinway & Sons, founded in 1853. The society paid approximately $1,000 per rental (including tuning and transportation).
Thanks to the Belanich donation, the organization could purchase its own piano through Greene Music. But that didn't make the selection process any easier.
“Though all the pianos were made in the same factory, every single one had its own personality,” Beach said of the 9-foot, 1,000-pound Model D's.
To better determine their qualities, Beach and his colleagues assigned a number to each instrument and evaluated them one by one.
Ohlsson was in charge of giving each instrument a thorough workout. He's experienced at picking out pianos, having helped individual music-lovers as well as organizations such as the Baltimore Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony find Steinways to suit their needs. Ohlsson first aided Beach about 15 years ago, when Beach was then director of the Performing Arts Center at New York's Purchase College.
“A concert grand is a like a race car rather than like the car you use to shop for groceries,” said the San Francisco-based virtuoso. “There are thousands of working parts. Everything has to be in exquisitely good working order.”
Ohlsson began by going from piano to piano, playing excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, Bach's “Goldberg Variations,” Chopin's Concerto in E Minor and Mozart's Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 488. The one composition he played on every instrument was Chopin's Polonaise in A-Flat Major, the celebrated showpiece that includes full-bodied chords and thrilling chromatic scales.
It was up to Kallberg to check the inside of the instruments, much like an expert mechanic looks under the hood of a car.
“One of the more important jobs (in choosing a piano) is looking over the construction to make sure there are no gaffes,” said Kallberg, who helped choose the San Diego Symphony's new Steinway in 2002.
Though Kallberg doesn't consider himself a pianist – “I just sort of dabble” – he got a feel for the instruments by playing a favorite piece by the late Swedish composer Carl Leopold Sjöberg.
“Steinway is setting a lighter touch weight than they used to,” he said, referring to the effort it requires to depress the keys. “This is what pianists want. They don't want to work so hard.”
As each piano was tested, Beach took notes. His jottings reflected the unusual parlance that's used to describe pianos. No. 5, for instance, was “very bright” with a “laquer-y sound” while No. 6 was “really pointy.”
Beach, Ohlsson and Kallberg were all enthusiastic about No. 4, which had the rich tone qualities they were seeking.
“We thought we'd found it,” remembered Beach, who had savored the sound of Brahms and Schubert excerpts.
But they changed their minds as soon as they listened to the last piano under consideration.
“The minute Garrick started playing No. 8, we all thought 'This is it!' ” Beach recalled.
Ohlsson was immediately taken with the instrument's responsiveness and warm, resonant tone, saying “This piano makes me happy to play on it.”
After all the artistic and technical considerations, it came down to a “matter of intuition,” Ohlsson explained. “It's the piano you like the best. We knew we couldn't go wrong with either No. 4 or No. 8.
“But No. 8 felt more alive,” added Ohlsson, who will play it during Tuesday's event and in his May 16 recital at Sherwood. “We were so happy.”
At dinner later that day, the three men drank champagne to celebrate. But the work wasn't finished.
The piano was treated to a high-polish finish and given larger wheels that make it easier to roll. It's stored in a specially constructed “piano garage” at the museum, which has partnered with the music society and will use the instrument during special events.
To make sure it's in top condition, Kallberg will complete a painstaking, 32-step process. It includes regulating the action (so that all 88 keys are exactly the same height) and voicing (which ensures that the tones are smooth from the lowest to highest registers).
Perhaps no one is more pleased about the piano than Beach, who speaks with almost paternal pride.
“It's an instrument that San Diegans will hear long after I'm gone,” he said. “It's a gift that keeps on giving.”
