The general views I am gleaning from discussions I see on the web concerning the Stuart piano are:
1) There is much intrigue from those who have never seen one or played one. Many have heard of the piano in a positive way, very few anything negative.
2) Recordings (other than those on the web site) do not adequately represent the piano’s sound. Comments such as ‘weak bass’ or ‘strident’ sound are much more functions of the recording process itself than any intrinsic property of the piano.
3) Setting up and voicing of the piano is critical. Having played a number of Stuart pianos now, the ones that are voiced properly invariably sound much better than those which aren’t. Revoicing the latter solves the problem.
4) Many people who do get the chance to play are, as is natural, comparing the sound and action to others they have played, and not always favouring the Stuart.
My view on the last is simple. They are just not getting what this piano is about. As I’ve remarked elsewhere in this blog, people feel comfortable when dealing with things within their own square of expectation. If it fits, OK. If it doesn’t …
The Stuart is much more than simply a well constructed piece of wood with strings and keys attached. There are myriads of these in the world today and there are many who wax lyrical about such-and-such a piano, much in the same way I suppose as I do in this blog. But as I grow more and more
into the piano, so that it becomes a virtual extension of me and I know how to exploit its unique qualities, the more I realise that something has changed within me.
I’m beginning to understand what drove Wayne to build the bloody things in the first place. Its still a piano, of course, but finally I’m feeling comfortable enough in my own mind that I’m doing something I could never do before – I have, as I have said before, reinvented the way I play the piano.
Everything so far that I’ve put forward in this blog are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that individually may not mean that much but when brought together as a cohesive whole elevate the entire pianistic experience onto another level – one that I suspect many people would not be able to either understand, appreciate or, more to the point, achieve. Its not that I’ve suddenly become another Horowitz or Ashkenazy – I’m nowhere near that level. But at the level that I
am at, the sounds and music my fingers are producing are taking the music I play above and beyond what the composer could have envisaged given the pianos they wrote on and for.
The Stuart piano I play is not just another piano. Before I bought this instrument, I played many other ‘just another piano’s, including some very reputable brands indeed. The Stuart was the only one that appealed on both the sheer quality of the sound and the intellectual challenge required to play it. Yes, it was much more expensive, but I would remind readers of the Oscar Wilde definition of a cynic –
“a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. The piano is the principle behind dragging myself up to whatever Nietzchean level in practice I can achieve.
So for those people who either listen to one or else have the good fortune to play one, open your eyes and ears and dispense with any intrinsic or built-up myopia and selective deafness.
Tabula rasa.
Speak to the piano. If it doesn’t answer you back in a way you have never experienced before, then close the lid and go away. This piano is not for you, more’s the pity. This is a musician’s piano, pure and simple.
Let go, Luke … Use the Force, Luke …