She used to hide her 'Beano' in her sheet music to avoid practice, but in spite of her initial resistance to the piano, the instrument won her heart, writes Arminta Wallace
WHEN I was a little girl, my parents couldn't afford a piano. From the age of four I was dispatched to practice in my granny's house, where an instrument by the somewhat unlikely name of Beethoven sat in lonely state in a little-used front room. I was, in truth, a reluctant pianist. I'd never heard of Beethoven, but I was a big fan of the Beanoand used to smuggle comics into the parlour along with my sheet music. When my grandmother heard nothing but silence emanating from within, she would open the door and coax sound out of me by promising to make me a custard pudding, the ultimate treat in those pre-junk-food days of perpetual sugar cravings.
My grandmother, though ridiculously soft-hearted, was no fool. She knew perfectly well that, behind that closed door, I was making music with one hand while reading comics with the other. She must have figured that it was better than making no music at all. And somewhere along the line, that old piano magic worked its way into my heart. By the time I reached double figures I was using both hands - and even, occasionally, ears - and was seated at a beautiful, over-strung Bechstein upright which my folks, God only knows how, had borne home in triumph from Walton's of North Frederick Street.
Made in the first decade of the 20th century, the Bechstein was black and severely plain, with a crisp upper register and a bass which, if you gave it plenty of welly, could make sound waves chunky enough to swim in. In time it became my best friend. Which sounds like an exaggeration. But intense relationships between people and pianos - relationships which transcend the purely musical and move into the realm of pure emotion - have, if anything, been the norm throughout the instrument's 300-year history. TE Carhart writes about humanity's perpetual passion for the piano in his elegiac memoir, The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, as does Daniel Mason in his rumble-in-the-jungle novel about the quest to restore a rare Erard grand in deepest Burma, The Piano Tuner.
The piano has even had its moments of big-screen success in the shape of The Piano, The Pianistand Shine. In her recently published book, A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano, Katie Hafner tells the tragicomic tale of how the Canadian pianist spent years searching for a piano which he could customise to his enormously exacting requirements. Once he got it right, he brought his special piano everywhere. In and out of concert halls and recording studios, up and down stairs, you name it. Until the day a team of hapless piano-movers dropped it out of a window and it smashed to smithereens on the ground below.
Now you see it, now you don't. That's pianos for you. My heart goes out to Gould because my Bechstein also disappeared with heartbreaking suddenness. When human circumstances change, pianos sometimes just melt into the mist.
BUT THEN, sometimes the opposite happens as well. At the end of the month, New Ross plays host to a festival which celebrates the instrument in all its joyous versatility. Why did they dream up a purely piano festival?
"The truth is that we've been putting on concerts since 1995, but we've never owned a piano," says the festival's director, Connie Tantrum. "So every time our group, Music for New Ross, wanted to have a pianist, we had to hire an instrument. In 2005 the husband of one of our committee members said: 'Well, next time you're getting a piano, why don't you do more than one concert?' Almost immediately, the idea exploded. So we're doing a piano festival because we don't have a piano. Which is quite sensible, when you think about it."
The programme, put together by the festival's artistic director, Finghin Collins, puts the spotlight on contemporary pianism with a series of concerts and recitals. But it also aims to spark the interest of a new generation.
"Last year we started a students' concert," Tantrum explains. "We rounded up students who really enjoyed being a bit, well, show-offish really. We contacted teachers in the south-east and asked: 'Who would enjoy playing a grand piano?' This isn't a competition and it isn't for high-achievers. It's for anybody from Grade One up who will go up there, play without stopping, and enjoy the experience of using the grand piano."
It made for a wonderfully atmospheric opening night, she says, so they're planning to repeat it this year with about 25 young pianists taking part. For the Saturday night, meanwhile, they have also planned something special.
"We're putting on a late-night concert specifically in order to do Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time," Tantrum says. "It's his anniversary this year, and we wanted to do this piece, but it has a very different feel to the other concerts. When you have three pianists playing on the one night you go out with a smile on your face. The quartet has a totally different effect. So we're going to start the main evening concert at 7.30 on Saturday. It will last until about 9.15, then, for those who want to stay, we're going to have hot chocolate and other nice things, and then the Messiaen."
The other-worldly feel of the quartet will doubtless be enhanced by the setting of St Mary's Church of Ireland, the main venue for festival events.
"Originally we had all our concerts in a working courthouse," says Tantrum. "So we always had to be ready - if drugs were found in Rosslare or something - to move our concerts somewhere else. They never were, as it happened. It was a beautiful little room, all wood inside. The acoustic was smashing and it held about 100 people, which for chamber concerts was ideal. But then it got dry rot and we couldn't use it. Now St Mary's has very kindly stepped in."
Further evidence of the festival's interest in the next generation of pianists comes with a public masterclass by Brazilian pianist Cristina Ortiz. She will coach three local students, one of whom, Jonathan Morris, has participated in each of the three festival masterclasses to date - and he's still just 15.
"He's from a farming family just outside of town," says Tantrum. "He goes to Newtown School in Waterford and he got a scholarship, so on Wednesdays, when he has an afternoon off, he goes to the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin for lessons with Hugh Tinney. He takes tuition beautifully and has a permanent smile of sheer delight on his face."
Tantrum, meanwhile, has embarked on a piano love affair of her own. "I've always played the piano - in a very amateur way," she says. "I've had choirs and put on musicals, played for concerts and singers, things like that. I play for my own pleasure, really."
For the past two years, however, she has been playing on her very own Kawai baby grand. Did helping to run the festival inspire her to invest in this upper-crust instrument?
"It did indeed," she says. "And the SSIAs. Why not? Why not spend my SSIA on something really beautiful that I can sit down and really enjoy playing?"
Why not, indeed. That old piano magic. It works every time.
• New Ross Piano Festival runs from Thursday to Sunday; www.newrosspianofestival.com
Piano proliferation: New Ross and beyond
Debussy, Beethoven and Schumann are among the piano masters on the menu at the New Ross Piano Festival, alongside new music and a sprinkling of salsa-style Latin American dance music.
The main concert each day will feature solo contributions from pianists Cristina Ortiz, Philip Martin and Finghin Collins, as well as chamber works in various combinations - piano trios bv Mendelssohn and Brahms, and Stravinsky's Suite from The Soldier's Tale- in which they'll be joined by violinist Corinne Chapelle, cellist Marc Coppey and clarinettist Emma Johnson.
On Saturday evening, Martin will give the Irish premiere of his own piece, Prisms. There will also be daytime recitals by Peter Tuite, who'll play a wide-ranging programme of Haydn, Berio and Messiaen, and Nicolas Stavy, who sticks to Chopin and Liszt.
If you can't catch any of that, there are plenty of treats in store for piano fans over the coming weeks and months. The NCH's Piano Greats series continues with Murray Perahia on January 21st, 2009. Meanwhile, the aptly named Piano Spectacularwill see eight grand pianos on stage as all seven winners of the Dublin International Piano Competition join John O'Conor for a keyboard extravaganza at the NCH on October 8th. Philippe Cassard, Pavel Nersessian, Davide Franceschetti, Max Levinson, Alexei Nabioulin, Antti Sirrala and Romain Descharmes will join together in various combinations to play everything from the Paganini variations to music by Lutoslawski and Milhaud.
The competition itself will be held next May.
