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Music Department Reaches Crescendo with New Pianos
By Mark J. Cadigan
The newest additions to the Holy Cross music department arrived wordlessly, but with a definite flourish. One of them made a grand entrance, hoisted by a crane through a second-floor window.
"It's like a wonderful member of the department, and it sits there in all its glory in Brooks [Concert] Hall," says Professor Marian C. Hanshaw, who has taught at Holy Cross since 1980. She is referring not to a new faculty member but to a Steinway Concert Grand Model D piano. It's one of seven new pianos recently donated to the College by Bill McCormick '59, chairman and president of Jordan Kitt's Music, the largest retailer of keyboards in the country, according to The Music Trades magazine.
Professor Shirish Korde, chair of the music department, calls the Model D, "the standard concert instrument for professional pianists. In other words, it represents the high-water mark for piano performances, whether in chamber music contexts or orchestra and solo contexts."
One pianist who's very familiar with Steinways is Professor Sarah Grunstein - she received the honor of being named a "Steinway artist" in 1987, after performing Bach's complete "Well-Tempered Clavier" in New York, London, and Sydney, Australia, her birthplace. "In this case, we have a most superb instrument," she says. "It offers unlimited capability in terms of palette of sound, timbre and texture. Our hope is that through proper care and maintenance, this instrument will always be at its utmost capacity. Therefore, for every concert, both students and faculty will have at their fingertips--no pun intended--a world-class instrument, which will serve as a wonderful inspiration for the creative spirits of those performing and for the audience."
Since its arrival in March, the Steinway has been utilized by both faculty and students for a number of performances, including: a recital by Grunstein; a voice/piano recital by Jennifer K. Ashe and Alison d'Amato, also of the music department; a Contemporary Music concert; a Holy Cross Chamber Players concert, featuring Grunstein, Associate Professor Carol Lieberman and guests from the Boston Symphony Orchestra; a student-faculty recital; the Student Chamber Music Festival; Brooks Scholar Jonathan Yasuda '05 performing Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra; and student recitals.
"They felt privileged to play it," Hanshaw says of her piano students' reaction to the Model D. "And what they discovered, of course, was that it was a completely different ballgame, because there is so much more resonance there, so much more variety." She states that the students also played better on the new Steinway.
"If we are going to teach the full range of piano literature to students," says d'Amato, "it is wonderful to have this piano to illustrate the wealth of sounds and colors available to us."
The Model D joins a Steinway Concert Grand Model B piano in Brooks Concert Hall, which will now be used for two-piano pieces and rehearsing. The Model B was donated to the College in 1993 by Dennis Hanson '76, chief financial officer of Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. "It's slightly smaller but also a very beautiful instrument," notes Korde.
Steinway & Sons, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, is known for the care that goes into each piano it builds. "Steinway remains one of the last outposts of hand craftsmanship in a machine-dominated industry," The New York Times declared in a May 11, 2003, front-page story. Steinway, a book by Ronald Ratcliffe and Stuart Isacoff, provides plenty of details about the company's approach.
"Combining twelve thousand parts to construct a modern grand piano is a labor-intensive process that takes nearly a year," according to Ratcliffe and Isacoff. "As many as two hundred craftsmen may have worked on a piano before it is sent out for sale."
A group from Holy Cross that included Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., '49, president emeritus, Korde, Grunstein and Hanshaw, toured the Steinway factory in New York (there's another in Hamburg, Germany) in January to observe how the pianos are made and to select one for the College.
"It was a day that I will never forget, really," recalls Hanshaw. "It was quite remarkable. And what I think is interesting is that when it came right down to choosing a piano, three of us there were musicians, and our ears were practically hanging on the strings, listening, because each one had a different reaction to a different part of the piano."
"The selection process gave Holy Cross the chance to be able to select from six concert-ready, nine-foot grand pianos," says Joe McCormick '95, merchandise manager and distribution manager for Jordan Kitt's Music. He accompanied the Holy Cross group on the tour, along with his father and Henry Z. Steinway, great-grandson of the company's founder.
"Each Steinway is unique," he continues, "so when you are selecting an instrument that could last for the better part of 70 years--and could launch the musical careers of some fortunate Holy Cross students--you want to ensure that you are selecting the instrument that is right for you and your institution."
By all accounts, the College is now in possession of an excellent instrument, one that Korde calls, "the Rolls-Royce of all pianos."
"I think it was a wonderful gift," says Hanshaw, "because when the young people play this piano, they have much more of an awareness of what is possible. You play a note quietly, and it carries beautifully. ... And it has more color, more possibilities. We have a lot of very musical people, and they instantly recognized that. So everybody wants to play that piano. It's a great treasure."
The College is also benefiting from Bill McCormick's other recent gifts: two Boston grand pianos for the piano studios--which replace two pianos that have since been moved to practice rooms--and four Roland electronic pianos for the ear-training lab, which should be fully implemented this fall, according to Korde.
"There's a computer hooked up to the piano, and it's going to be used for ear training and also for piano practice and composition," explains Korde, who began teaching at Holy Cross in 1977, when the music department was actually a division within the visual arts department.
"Ear training is a most important component of a musician's training," says Grunstein. "As a musician, one has to have the sound in one's head in order to be able to produce it at the instrument. If your inner ear is not trained to its capacity, you can't, at full awareness, hear all that's in the music, and, as performer, you also can't utilize all the instrument has to offer. For musicologists, composers and theorists, ear training is equally important. Our ears are like the artists' eyes."