This is a story that goes back further than I think Marc and I care to remember.
I was taking care of all the acoustic keyboards at Temple University, Presser Hall, teaching a course in Piano Technology and acoustical physics, and generally pulling my hair out, a story for another entry.
Professor Harvey Wedeen, chair of the piano department, and I were close. I would like to think we were friends; dinners out, baseball games when Helen Kwalwasser, Chair of the string department and his wife was out of town, and I got to use her season ticket seat, etc.
Harvey confided in me one day, that he was teaching a promising young student in Canada, none other than Marc-André Hamelin. I thought that was a challenge right there. Harvey explained that he mailed, there was no email then, Marc a lesson, then Marc would mail back a cassette tape, with all its physical and acoustic flaws, to Harvey. Harvey heard the talent through all the wows and flutters cassettes provided. That went on for a while until Harvey said, “We have to get Marc down here”. And he meant to the USA, Philadelphia, and Temple.
Quite honestly, I don’t know all the ins and outs to the logistics of getting Marc moved here, and if I did, I would have forgotten them, but down he came.
Marc-André was someone you would have quickly recognized as a big, no, a huge talent.
One afternoon, I went to Marc’s apartment to tune his piano. To my astonishment, it was a Baldwin Hamilton, better known as a “PSO”; Piano Shaped Object. Clearly this thing was well below Marc’s talent. When I went there, I was greeted by Jodi, Marc’s significant other, at the time, and I remember Marc’s outrageous sense of humor. So, the tuning started off with a joke or a story and maybe, just maybe, a bit off color.
I went back to Harvey and complained that Marc was practicing on this “thing”. Harvey said, “No, he isn’t”. I was just there. It was the only piano in the apartment. Harvey said, “Marc practices in his mind!”
There was a short period where I was convinced to try selling pianos by the Aeolian Company that made Mason & Hamlin, and very badly at that. They flew me to Rochester, NY to try and figure out how to get that 9’ CC to ring out. It didn’t take me long to figure out that my task was insurmountable. The egos did not allow for change, but they tried, and so did I. So, for a bit, a very little bit, I tried to sell the Mason & Hamlin line after some drastic manufacturing changes.
All this leads back to Marc. Harvey came to me and said Marc needed a real piano. I had a 7’ BB that I had worked on, and reworked until it was a suitable instrument. Harvey said Temple had $10,000.00and asked if there was anything I could come up with. The BB was selling for about $26,000.00. I told Harvey that Temple and I would go in ‘halfies’. Harvey asked if I could afford that. I couldn’t, but I told him I couldn’t afford not to. Marc was that important, and so was his gift to the musical world. I needed help! The devil, as they say, is in the details, and the only way I could do this for Marc was to remain anonymous for reasons I could not divulge at the time, and which are unimportant now. Temple and I agreed, and the piano was moved under Marc’s hands.
Marc continued to flourish, and as I remember, the classics and the romantics were not his favorites. Marc loved the new stuff. The stuff no one else could read let alone play. When the comp students wrote in atonal or 12 tone ala Schoenberg, and no one could play it, Howard Levitsky said they would say, “Give it to Marc”. He would sit and rip it off as if he wrote it.
Time went on and Marc-André Hamelin went on to become listed in the top one hundred pianists that ever lived. I’m talking Glenn Gould, Franz Liszt, Wilhelm Kempff, Martha Argerich, Arthur Rubenstein, Emil Gilels, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Horowitz, Morizio Pollini, Rudlolf Serkin, for whom I also worked, Yuja Wang, and the list goes on and on. Yes, Marc-André Hamelin is on that list. He continues to flourish and is still with us today. Thank you, Marc, for letting me be a part of your success, albeit a minor one.
I watchen an interview with Marc where he said to the interviewer, “A performance is not an exhibition, it is an offereing”. The words of a true artist!
He lives now in Europe, and we have lost touch, except recently through Maestro Albert Franz.
Gretchen and I are trying to get our resources together to visit Albert in Vienna for a concert on November 23 of this year. I am hoping against hope, Marc will be there. Seeing him again would be a reunion I would cherish.
June 1st, 2024 at 7:59 am Love this! Still laughing at “PSO”!
June 2nd, 2024 at 11:16 am Amazing! You have been so “instrumental” in helping many people in the music world. I hope you can catch up with both of them