Part Three: "A first step"

[With the Celviano hybrid piano], we have developed something entirely new… which is a first step. (From the CEO of the Bechstein piano company in this video.)

What are the long-term prospects for the flagship pianos: the nine-foot Steinway D concert grand (list price: about $150,000), the Yamaha CFX ($180,000), the Bösendorfer Imperial ($250,000)?

What are the prospects for the somewhat smaller 6’11” Steinway B and its cousins of various sizes from Steinway and other builders? Will this be the “next step?” for the hybrid builders?

The answer may turn on the function of such instruments. The concert grands are almost always purchased by institutions, and such a piano on the main stage is a statement that “we are important.” But $150,000 (and up) is a lot of money, and music is a low priority for most schools. When will some budget-strapped college take the leap and put a Yamaha N3 on stage?

More to the point: Can the best of the hybrids be the solo instrument for a piano concerto with the top-level orchestras of the world, and the top concert artists? Can they do the job for chamber music, again with world-class performers? Can they satisfy pianists whose career is on the line, and their fellow musicians, collaborators in music such as Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise, the Brahms violin sonatas, Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time?

Here, I draw on my experience in church music and organ. The “king of instruments” has for decades faced the challenge of electronic substitutes, starting with the Hammond. Pipe organs are an order of magnitude more expensive than even the flagship pianos. They make large demands on the architecture of any space they will occupy – and sometimes dominate, visually and aurally. They are immobile. Many of them are as much at the mercy of electronic component failures as the lowliest electric “keyboard.” The electronic builders, such as Allen, are reaping the benefits of computer technology just like the makers of electronic and hybrid pianos. And they are doing good work, but their best customized work is almost as expensive as a similar pipe organ. Despite the disadvantages and expense of pipe organs, the electronics have not driven them from the field and there is no evidence that this will change anytime soon.

One reason that the pipe organs have maintained their place is this: I have yet to hear an electronic organ that supports congregational singing as well as even a modest-sized pipe organ, such as our Pilcher – if it is a quality instrument. This last is important, for there are many pipe organs that are not much good, especially from some of the “factory” builders of the mid-twentieth century, and I would take an Allen over such an organ any day. And there are many acoustic pianos that are not much good, including quite a few grand pianos. I have been comparing the Yamaha and Casio hybrids to the best of the grand pianos and finding it a tossup. Given the choice between the hybrid and a used (or new) piano that was never of high quality, the choice would be obvious: go with the better sound, the better action feel, and that would be with the hybrids.

There seems to be something about the sound that comes from a good pipe organ that blends with the human voice in a way that the electronic sounds from speakers – even the large arrays of speakers scattered through the room that one finds in top-level electronic installations – cannot match.

That makes me wonder how a hybrid piano would sound with, say, the Cleveland Orchestra. I would be very interested in the answer to that. [Edited in August 2018 to add: Hybrid pianos revisited]

My closest personal experience for comparison would be from graduate school, when our choir sang with the New York Philharmonic. On one occasion we sang in Carnegie Hall, a space that does not have a pipe organ (neither does their “home,” Avery Fisher Hall – now “David Geffen Hall,” after they sold the name to the highest bidder in 2014: price tag, $100 million). The program began with the Berlioz Te Deum, which has a large and important organ part. Leonard Raver on an Allen electronic did his best (and, given the setting, the Allen people surely did their best as well), but in passages such as the beginning of that piece, where organ and orchestra trade off fortissimo chords, the Allen was clearly the loser. It was sufficiently loud, but sounded cheap and tinny in comparison with the orchestra, and in the tuttis, the organ sound, loud as it was, entirely disappeared under the orchestra and chorus [“Cheap and tinny” does not apply to this performance from King’s College, Cambridge, but it shows how important the organ part is to the piece.]

That was thirty-five years ago, but even then the electronic builders were claiming their instruments were equal to the best pipe organs. When played solo, they sounded pretty good; it was only in a situation such as that poor outclassed instrument in Carnegie Hall, or a church organ with a vigorous congregation singing, that their limitations became obvious.

Pipe organ (and traditional piano) technology have not changed much since then while the electronics have made great strides, thanks most of all to massively improved computing power for sampling and signal processing. But I would bet that an electronic organ in Carnegie Hall would still disappear under an orchestral tutti.

I would guess – and it is no more than that – that compared to any of the “flagship” concert grands that I named, the Yamaha N3 hybrid would likewise fall short in a pianistic equivalent such as the beginning of Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto.

But not by much.

The best I could tell, with the volume turned all the way up the N3 and Casio hybrids have exactly the same loudness as a large grand piano, vigorously played – and that is enough to balance a symphony orchestra. I think that the sound quality would be close enough to fool most of a concert audience. The visuals of the pianist sitting at what is hardly twice the size of a little spinet – as opposed to a nine-foot black ebony piano, its lid up – would be dismaying, and that alone might be enough to keep the hybrids at bay. For now.

The lockdown of “Steinway Artists” is also a factor. Most of the concert pianists in America are on that list, and they are bound by contract to play only Steinway pianos. But there are plenty of Yamaha Artists, especially in Asia. One of them might give it a try – perhaps at first in concert with a lower-tier orchestra in a hall without a quality piano. Again, I would very much like to hear the result.

Quality mid-sized grands like the Steinway B will continue to be demanded by piano faculty for their teaching studios and for school auditoriums and other venues where a full-scale concert grand would be a bit much. One example would be our parish church. I lead our weekly “middle” service from our Steinway Model L. It does not support congregational singing in the same manner as the Pilcher organ across the way, but when played with intelligence it does a good job in its own way. Would the N3 hybrid do as well? Again, I do not know.

My guess would be that again, it would fall short of our Steinway, but not by much. I am confident that it would surpass the large majority of church pianos in this role – probably ninety percent or more of them, from my experience -- and I would encourage a church that is seeking a piano to give the hybrids a serious look and listen, perhaps a “test-drive” if that can be arranged.

For a church, one factor that would favor an acoustic piano is the longer view. In the previous posting, I noted that I will not be playing the piano in fifty or sixty years. But at the church, I would hope that someone is. I doubted whether the hybrid pianos would still be usable that far down the road; our Steinway is over a century old, and there is no reason why it will not be viable when it is two centuries old, if it is cared for properly and rebuilt a couple of times along the way. The same goes for mechanical action pipe organs, whose enemies in the long run are most often war, fires and other natural disasters, and change of fashion – not irreparable breakdown of the instrument on its own account. The potential longevity of pianos and organs of traditional construction – and other instruments, such as quality violins, many of them centuries old – is a significant incentive for a church to purchase the best instruments and then take care of them. In the long run, that is good stewardship, better than buying something new every few decades. For a piano in the main worship space, I would counsel: Save up the money, seek donations over whatever length of years that it takes, and buy a Steinway or Yamaha acoustic grand, of a size suitable to the worship space. Or consider a quality rebuilt piano, such as the ones sold by Tom Zasadny, who did the renovation on our Steinway. If chosen carefully, such a piano is every bit as good as a brand-new Steinway, and less expensive. If it is clear that it will take a long time to gather the funds, one of the hybrid pianos would be a fine interim instrument, with the plan of eventually moving it to another space in the church, such as a choir room or chapel.

But what about my more humble purpose: a home piano? A mid-sized grand would be a worthy expenditure for a professional pianist who needs a top-quality instrument, especially if she also teaches at home and rehearses with chamber ensembles or singers. For a retired church organist? Not so much.

A used piano is a possibility. I am a piano technician, so I could do quite a bit of renovation work myself: things like hammer and damper replacement and regulation. I have restrung pianos, including two quality grands back in the 1990’s, and I could do it, but it is hard work, and requires either a large workshop or turning one’s music room or living room into a workshop for several months. And I am not so confident in my skills as I would have been twenty years ago; there would probably be some work that I would have to do a second (or third) time to get it right. So, unless it were a used piano needing only relatively minor renovation, I don’t think that I should consider it.

And there remains the issue of disturbing neighbors and spouse. For me, that would be the deciding factor. If I were to retire today, I would like to go with the Yamaha N3, but it would be hard to justify the $15,000 to $20,000 price, either to my wife or to God. That leaves the lower-priced Yamaha N2 or N1 and the Casio Celviano GP-500 and its lower-priced siblings. They are all good, and within this group it appears to me that “you get what you pay for” – the higher-priced instruments are incrementally better, but even the lowest-price instrument, the Celviano GP-300, would suffice. I would worry a little about long-term reliability – in essence, a race as to who breaks down first, me or the piano – but would otherwise be thoroughly content with any of these pianos.

***
Again, if this is “a first step,” where might it go? The piano has had periods of rapid development, especially from around 1800 to 1860. Since 1900, it has remained pretty much the same – there is little difference between our century-old Steinway at church and the brand-new ones in the showroom. Might the hybrids move beyond imitation of the finest acoustic pianos to lead the way toward a different kind of professional instrument, as different from the current piano as the piano of our time is from the eighteenth century fortepianos?


Afterword: Why not an organ?

I am, after all, an Organist. Why choose a piano instead of an electronic organ?

Price. An entry-level Allen electronic “Historique” organ (their home-line of instruments) starts at around $17,000. For a two-manual instrument with lots of limitations, an instrument with which I would be thoroughly dissatisfied.

I played an Allen for several years, and gave the dedicatory recital for an Allen at another parish in the area. They are acceptable instruments. But I would not want to live with one of them for the rest of my life. There are other electronic builders, each claiming superiority, but they would all be similar. For me, an electronic home organ would always feel and sound like a cheap imitation of a pipe organ, and I would long for the real thing every time I played it. It is telling, in this context, to compare that with my experience of the hybrid pianos.

It is possible to put a mechanical-action pipe organ in a home; many contemporary builders would be happy to make one to my specifications. It would be a small and limited instrument, it would disturb the neighbors even more than a piano, and it would be very expensive.

Versatility. On the piano, one can do a lot of the practicing that is needed to continue as an organist – essentially, everything except pedaling and passagework that demands two manuals. It does not work the other way; playing an electronic organ at home does not prepare one to play Beethoven or Chopin on a piano.

Versatility is another advantage of the hybrids over the acoustic pianos. They are MIDI instruments which can be connected to the electronic world. For relatively little money I could add a used computer plus Hauptwerk software with organ sounds, playable from the hybrid piano keyboard and listenable either through headphones, computer speakers, or external amp and speaker. The result would be akin to a one-manual organ with no pedals. It would be exceedingly strange at first to play “organ” with the feel of a piano keyboard, but I think that I would prefer that to the feel of an Allen organ, or for that matter any pipe organ with a non-mechanical action.

Stage of Life. I have played the organ for a long time; forty years and counting. I am a Fellow of the Guild. I have played a lot of wonderful organ literature and performed recitals, including a few “on the road,” enough to give me a small taste of “Concert Artist.” I have been mostly fortunate in my instruments -- I was part of the fundraising and installation for one of Randall Dyer’s signature three-manual instruments and then played it for more than a decade. It remains the finest organ I have played regularly. [A personal note: the first photo on the linked page from the OHS database, an exterior view of the church, was the view from our kitchen window, for we lived across the street from the church. I would see it every time I washed dishes.] I have now played our Pilcher mechanical action organ for many years, and in its way, it is an equally satisfying instrument.


It has been a terrific life – and I have not here mentioned the joys of working with choral singers young and old, nor selecting and playing the hymns.

There are many aspects of my work that I love, as readers of these pages will know. But there is a lot of it, and I have less energy for it every year, especially around Christmas and Holy Week. Readers of these pages will know about that, too. It is a demanding life. That is not just me; every church musician who takes it seriously finds it so.

For now, I think that my playing is the best it has been, and I continue (with ups and downs) to learn and improve. I am not ready to hang up my shoes, not yet.

But all things come to an end.

Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne Peccet ad extremum ridendus. (Horace, as quoted by Samuel Johnson at the head of No. 207, “The Rambler,” March 10, 1752, which would be the penultimate number. ) Johnson concludes his essay with these words:

He that is himself weary will soon weary the publick. Let him therefore lay down his employment, whatever it be, who can no longer exert his former activity or attention; let him not endeavor to struggle with censure, or obstinately infest the stage till a general hiss commands him to depart.