Next month marks the fifth anniversary of my acquisition of a 97-key 2.2 metre Stuart & Sons grand piano. So it seemed appropriate that I write something of a report card on the current status of the piano, my playing and other relevant bits and pieces.
The piano is still in absolutely pristine condition as though it had just come out of the factory. The huon pine veneer has matured beautifully, and is now a somewhat richer golden colour than when I first acquired it. The interior of the piano looks and feels exactly like it did when I first played it at the factory five years ago.
The sound if anything is better now than at any stage of my ownership. The piano has settled down well as one would expect, and the action, dampers, hammers etc are virtually as new. In fact, this piano could be sold as a new piano and no-one would be able to tell the difference. The action is still very precise and even over the entire keyboard, and there is, as always, no discernable tonal breaks or differences throughout the range.
The tuning stability is still outstanding, and in reality the piano needs tuning only once per year at this stage. Even then, the tonal drop is only a matter of one or two cents at the most, and some slight adjustment in some unisons is all that required to bring it back to scratch again. Even the extra bass and treble notes are stable over long periods of time.
From a personal point of view, I still get a buzz simply by sitting down at the piano. My enthusiasm to play a piano has for most of my life exceeded my ability to play it, but I’m finding that my fingers are in better shape now at my advanced age than at any time I can remember. My eyesight is still a problem, but then again it always has been and always will be – I simply have had to get used to it. The extra notes as I have said many times are no problem to me at all, and I am finding more and more that selective use of them can add immeasurably to all kinds of music, from classical through to modern.
I fully understand the piano now – I know what it is capable of doing and I’m much better at getting that out of the piano than I used to be. My trips to the factory to play the latest Stuart pianos have added to that understanding, and I’m able to translate all of that into the sound coming out of my piano.
The piano has been everything I expected of it when I first acquired it, and more, much more. It has opened up myriad new sensations, interpretations and performance possibilities that I have not been able to reproduce on any other make of piano – and I’ve played quite a few now. Each time, whilst I appreciated the qualities of all high quality pianos I have played, I found myself coming back to the Stuart simply to prove time and time again that I can do things with this piano that I just can’t do with the others.
Music has, as I get older, become much more important to me and there is no doubt that my acquisition of the Stuart, mad and emotional though it seemed at the time, has been the cornerstone of my music for the last five years, and there is no doubt that it will continue to be so until the day when I can play no more.