Piano Video Lesson: What Piano do Concert Pianists Play at Home?

Welcome to Livingpianos.com. Robert Estrin here with such an interesting subject. What piano do concert pianists play at home? Well, the first thing to think about is, what are they playing when they concertize? If you've been to concerts, what do you usually find on stage in classical concerts? Most of the time it's going to be a Steinway Concert Grand Model D, just under nine feet. Sometimes in smaller halls, it could be a seven-foot or just under seven-foot Steinway, but usually it's the nine-foot piano. So, anybody who's touring around, they may occasionally encounter other great pianos, but usually it's Steinway, the last company really servicing the concert market globally. So, you'd think they'd want to have that piano at home, so they're used to it when they go to play concerts, they don't have to adjust to something different.

But the fact of the matter is, if you've ever been at a concert, and let's say, there's somebody who's playing a Rachmaninoff concerto with a full orchestra, and you're in the back row of the balcony and that pianist, can fill the hall and even balance with the orchestra, there's a tremendous amount of volume that these instruments can produce. So, in somebody's home, an instrument like that is oftentimes impractical. You have to have the right room to be able to handle that sound pressure levels that an instrument like that can produce. So, the instrument that many concert pianists have at home is the Model B, that is just under seven foot, Semi-Concert Grand Steinway, which is what I'm sitting in front of here. Now, the challenge with that is a new B is around $125,000.

Now, of course, a pianist like Lang Lang or some of the very famous pianist can afford it, and that's what they'll have at home is a new one. But there are many budding young artists who can't afford a new B. So, if you look in the used market, and the challenge there is this. Even a late-model Steinway can be very expensive, when you get to the older ones, the challenge is that Steinway has been making the Model B since 1878. However, the design has changed, and the specifications keep evolving over the years, so that in rebuilding an older Steinway, the choice of parts is very difficult, because the geometry might not be right with the current Steinway parts.

Some parts aren't even available from Steinway, like soundboards. So, you have to count on somebody being able to craft a great soundboard, and how do you know if they're going to be able to craft the kind of soundboard that was on the piano originally? That's why coming across a piano like this is such a pleasure. This is a 1981, one-owner Steinway, California piano, kept in beautiful condition with a Steinway technician in a very moderate climate, barely played, and our technicians have gone through and refined the heck out of it. I want you to hear what this instrument is capable of, and I'm going to play two selections for you, Mozart and Debussy. First Mozart to show the subtlety of expression in his Fantasia in D minor.

Interesting thing about the fantasies. He wrote two fantasies, both in minor keys, and it gives you a glimpse as to what Mozart may have improvised. He was known to be a great improviser, but of course, there's no audio recordings from that long ago. But in his improvisations, you can hear the fantasy kind of element that you'll hear in this, because in most of his writing, they're really well-crafted structurally with Sonata forms, Rondo forms, and such. In his fantasies, it's almost like an improvisation. Listen to this D minor fantasy. It's a glorious little piece.

[music]

The accelerated action, diaphragmatic soundboard, this has got all the enhancement that Steinway's come up with, and it's a fresh young piano that's well seasoned, meaning that the piano is stable after being well-cared for so many years.

However, with Mozart, you're only hearing about five octaves in the midrange of the piano, because Mozart's piano only had about five octaves on it. So, of course, you want to hear more of the instrument to hear what it'll do in the high and low registers, in a completely different style. This one from the 20th Century, Debussy from his Children's Corner Suite, Golliwog's Cakewalk. Incidentally, in the middle section, he pokes fun at Wagner. They were arch rivals. He plays his serious Tristan theme, and pokes fun of it with almost like laughing as you'll hear in Golliwog's Cakewalk.

It's a joy to play this piano. If you want to compare the sound of a Steinway B to a Steinway D, you can listen to almost any recording of concert pianists, the vast majority of whom record on Steinway D's, and you could hear that this comes so close. Not only that, but with larger pianos, the action feels different. This feels very close to a nine-foot piano. Whereas, when you play smaller pianos, even a foot smaller than this, the action has a different feel, because the keys are shorter. Of course, not the part you see, but behind the fallboard, so that you don't get the same feeling, particularly when playing close to the fallboard, you get a very, more of a key dip and you can control it so much better.

Not only that, but the scale design is such that you get a rich sound all the way into the base, as you could hear, and the roaring end of that Golliwog's Cakewalk. I hope you've enjoyed this. Any comments or questions, address them here at Livingpianos.com your online resource or on YouTube. Thanks so much for joining me. Ringing the bell with the thumbs up, helps to bring these videos to more people. Thanks again. Robert Estrin here, Livingpianos.com.

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