I will endeavor to keep up with this as much as time permits.
And…I will strive to make it chronological.
However: I have a really great story I MUST share NOW!
This is a story you may not need to hear, but it’s one I need to tell!
My profession is that of being a piano technician, however, I have been told that I am not a piano technician; that I am more like a mentor.
Dr. Vincet Craig whom I saw through his master’s degree and ultimately his Doctorate at Peabody, and as a result, with my guidance and encouragement every step of the way, became the head of the piano department at Wells College of Music at West Chester State University. Vincent called me to tell me two things: “I have a broken string, and by the way, you have never given me bad advice.” to which I responded, “Vincent, that’s because I don’t have any bad advice!”, we laughed.
Some 30 years ago, I was called to do an “emergency” service call in a house in Springfield, PA. “We have a genius living with us for the summer and he is a pianist.” I was in my piano shop at the time and there was significant begging involved. I, being who I am, just can’t refuse.
I arrived to a see a console piano with Liszt Transcendental Etudes on the music desk. OK I thought…so tune the piano I did.
In walks this tall, slender young man from the Pittsburgh area. At the time he was a student at Penn State in the engineering department, a sophomore I believe. I asked if the music on the piano was his to which he replied in the positive. I asked how long he had been playing, to which he replied, “Two years”. I said, “This is not your music.” He begged to differ. “Sit.”, I said, and play. He had every note right where it belonged, but there was no music. He was typing. However, I heard something there but wasn’t sure what that was. He was, at the time playing Chopin and Liszt etudes like the Revolutionary and Winter Wind and Gnomenreigen at full tilt within a year or so…rather amazing!
OK, for those not familiar with the process of becoming an artist at the piano, what Albert did in two years, most take ten. And, most start when they are five or six, Albert much later. But there it is and there he was, the proverbial diamond in the rough!
I asked him to be quiet while I made a phone call to Professor Harvey Wedeen of Temple University, probably the best living pedagogue on the planet. Harvey and I were good friends, and at the time I was teaching piano technology and the accompanying acoustical physics involved while taking care of all of the pianos at Presser Hall. I told Mr. Wedeen what I had experienced. He asked what the boy was playing. I told him. He said that was great then asked how long he had been playing. I went silent, then finally found the wherewithal to say” two years”. Harvey said, “Ralph, seriously?” I proceeded, “Harvey, you know me, I wouldn’t waste your time, please hear him”. Harvey agreed.
So, this young man found his way to North Philadelphia to the studio of Professor Harvey Wedeen and played. Harvey called me later that day to say that he would agree to give him lessons for the summer. I told Harvey that that boy young man no money to which Harvey responded, “I didn’t say I would charge him, did I?”
So, all that summer, Albert studied with Professor Wedeen. Every once in a while, Albert would visit me at the shop telling me how it was going.
At the end of the summer, I gave Albert money to purchase Harvey a bottle of vodka and a box of chocolates, both of which were his favorites. I didn’t think to realize that Albert was too young to buy vodka.
At the summer’s end, Albert once again visited me. He thanked me for my help and then said, with a tear in his eye, “Well, it’s all over”. I didn’t understand. As it turns out, his family was the neighbor of the folks where he stayed that summer before they moved to Pittsburgh. He was “hiding” there that summer to play the piano as he was forbidden to do so at home.
I asked if I could help by having a conversation with his father, and with terror on his face he said “No”. Then I said,” If it is all over, why won’t you let me help?” We talked further and he relented and gave me his father’s phone number, and I called.
I said to his father, “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but I am a concert level piano technician.”, and there he stopped me abruptly. “He isn’t playing the piano, is he?” I asked the father what he did for a living, he said he was in banking. I said, “Banking, and that’s what you wanted to do since you were 5 years old?” He replied, “Well no, but my fa…,” and stopped talking. I said, “So, you want to do to Albert what your father did to you?!” Needless to say, the phone call did not go well.
Albert returned to his studies at Penn State and cleverly switched his major to a degree in music. Albert quietly became so proficient that he received a full Fullbright Scholarship to Vienna, the City of Music, and was mentored by none other than Paul Badura-Skoda, a famous Austrian Pianist.
Albert went on to win competition after competition and his career was set in stone. He is now a Bosendorfer artist and widely acclaimed for his performances, and the rest I will call, “What goes around comes around”.
Just a few weeks ago, an old friend who moved to Arizona working for the largest Bosendorfer outlet in the US called to ask me to take care of a 7’ “Bosey”, the Klimpt, Tree of Life model…quite beautiful and quite pricey being shipped to Berwyn, PA. I, of course, agreed. I show up to this lavish home in Berwyn, PA. The owner said, “You come highly recommended.” I said,
‘Yes, I know Sonja Lynne very well.“ The owner said, “NO…it was Albert Franz from Vienna!” I nearly fell over. Albert was her teacher via Zoom. She asked if I would return to tune again in a week as now Maestro Albert Franz would be there and asked if he could be present to reunite with you. I was aghast.
So just yesterday, after a one-hour tuning, in walks none other than Albert Franz and we had a four-hour visit. Tears were involved. We chatted and laughed and reminisced. We exchanged phone numbers and emails and took pictures.
Then I said to Albert, “You know, there was another young man, in whose career I had a hand at Temple,” and wondered if they had met. Then he showed me a photo on his Apple I Pad of he and Marc-Andre Hamlin at a table in a pub. They were the closest of friends, no surprise, and advised that Marc remember me fondly…more tears. These are two of the top pianists in the world, sitting and chatting at a spot in Vienna, are you kidding me?!
Albert said I had changed his life, and I said, “No, I opened the door, but you chose to walk through, and YOU did!”
So, of the many young people I have helped, most go on to careers never to be heard from again, but yesterday, the Universe decided to give me a gift.
Indulge me here please. Everyone tells me that I should write down the many anecdotes of my career in Piano Technology. “You should write a book!” they say. Quite frankly, I don’t think I’m smart enough for a book, but I will re-ignite my abandoned blog; “The Other Side of the Keyboard”. I hope you will search for it and enjoy it.
I am not very religious or political, and I’m not sure “everything happens for a reason”, or even fate, I am a Humanist. But I do believe in Karma!
I adore my musical family. On May 14, I will turn 76, and riddled with the gift the Marine Corps gave me, systemic arthritis, I will go on. I hobble to work, and I hobble home. There may still be young folks I may be able to help, and I won’t hesitate.
In closing I will say that this is only my part in Albert’s story. The rest is for him to tell. And, I did not change his life, he changed mine!
Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuqfdI9gBC8
Ralph