Broken strings and missing keys have made an appearance on the art scene as part of the Piano As Art Exhibition. A collaboration of two talented artists, Penny Putnam and Shauna Holiman, the exhibition features art created from bits and pieces of pianos that were too old for use or were in total disrepair. Wall art, freestanding sculptures, and many other pieces make up the collection that is on display in various locations throughout the year.

Putnam and Holiman first worked together as members of the Greenwich Art Society. After visiting the Faust Harrison factory with friend and co-owner Sara Faust, Holiman knew the pianos stored there would be the perfect collaborative project for Putnam and her. Every Monday, Putnam and Holiman would meet together and create outstanding pieces of art from the dismantled pianos. Though skeptical at first, Faust now believes there is a special energy that comes from viewing the Piano As Art Exhibition in a room full of pianos.

The works that were created over the course of three years include mixed media wall art, such as “Ebony meets Ivory.” This piece includes several ivory piano keys with more traditional art supplies. A few pieces are very stirring, such as “Dragon” or “Elegy,” with its 1,640 pieces of ivory. Other pieces are light and almost whimsical, such as “Boogie Woogie,” which was made solely from piano parts. One piece in particular pokes a bit of fun at musicians. Photographs from the dismantling process are on display, as the dismantling became an integral part of the creation process. Several paintings that were inspired by the creation of the Piano As Art Exhibition are included as well.

Displayed amidst working pianos, visitors to the exhibition can almost envision the many people who practiced and performed on these recycled pianos. Each piece created pays tribute to the history of music and the handcraftsmanship necessary to produce such quality instruments. Employees of Faust Harrison Pianos say viewing the exhibition is a unique experience and it has forever changed how they view pianos.

The post-modern artwork featured in the Piano As Art Exhibition shows an exciting way to recycle difficult materials in to objects that can be enjoyed by many people. Holiman stated, “It transforms the way that people see a familiar object. It represents a time in history when everyone had a piano in their home that is fast fading away.”

Both artists see their work with rare materials as giving the ivories a new life. “Their first life was as elephant tusks; their second life was as pianos; and now they live again as art,”

A Collaborative Adventure with Shauna Holiman & Penny Putnam (short film)

The project is also a wonderful tribute to relationships built between artists and the small business world. The partnership between Putnam, Holiman and Faust Harrison Pianos is strong and they are already planning an encore performance.

Piano Street got the opportuinty to ask Shauna and Penny a few questions:

We have read that your work has created an instrumental awareness among people working with building pianos. Which is the impact on people and pianists?

People’s reactions to Piano As Art have been most gratifying to us. We think art should be transformative: that it should alter the way you see things or change your mood. It should give you a lift, or make you think. It seems we achieved this. Some of the art, especially the ones made out of wippens, the mechanical part of the action that allows for fast repetition of the same note, makes piano builders and restorers laugh. It never struck them that wippens, when turned on end, look remarkably like horses. As for pianists, one who saw the work said, “After 50 years of playing the piano, I didn’t think I would find anything about the instrument that I didn’t already know.”

We created the pieces made of ivory stripped from piano keys thinking about the history of the material, the colonial era, the slaughtered elephants and enslaved Africans; the epoch when there was a piano in every parlor and the thousands of fingers that touched these very keys; the music that was made. (One piece has 1,640 ivories some estimated to be nearly 200 years old.) People get this, too, and respond to the incredibly tactile nature of ivory, wanting to touch it, maybe connecting with that history.

Do you have any comments on the new Bösendorfer Klimt model or the concept of special design pianos. How does this kind of art/design relate to your art?

We love the idea of special design pianos! Of course, individually painted lids and soundboards have a noble history dating back to the Renaissance and there is no reason why the tradition should not be continued today. We would like it even more if Bösendorfer collaborated with living artists, (there must be hundreds of first rate artists living in or near Vienna) perhaps asking them to be inspired by Klimt and create art to embellish one-of-a-kind modern art pianos.

Art now looks different on the outside but is still the same on the inside. Pianos now look the same on the outside but are remarkably different on the inside. Artists and businesses working together can easily highlight the ways in which we are all moving forward.

Bösendorfer’s Klimt project relates to ours in that it is a mutually beneficial collaboration between local artists and local business. It’s tied in with the history of the place and the instrument, and all the
people- artists, craftsmen, musicians, piano makers – who came before us. It’s easy, and unfortunate, to forget that things like pianos are now, and have always been, on the cutting edge of technology while firmly rooted in a glorious past.

Which are your plans for the near future and how will you develop the concept?

As for the future, we have every intention of continuing our collaboration in some way or another. Faust Harrison, in addition to taking on other artists making art out of pianos, will house the collection in their showrooms after the run of the show. For our next project, Penny and I have thought about taking on another instrument or some other kind of “machinery.” So far, we have rejected that idea as it feels more a like a “me too” than something fresh and inspired. We are both painters, so the current notion is to try to find a way to paint together and to do it in such a way that a business would be interested in collaborating with us. We have a number of ideas and will just keep going until we grow into one of them.

The exhibition debuted at Faust Harrison Pianos in White Plains, New York. Via the Flynn Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut it is currently on its final stop is at Faust Harrison Pianos located at 207 West 58 Street, New York, New York where it will be displayed from May until October 2012.

Project Website : http://pianoasart.com

“Fascinating for anyone interested in the piano, music or art, the sculptures of Penny Putnam and Shauna Holiman are both intricate and beguiling, taking what looks on the surface like a familiar form and transporting it into the realm of Surrealism.” -John Rockwell, Former Arts Critic for the New York Times

“Piano as Art, a creative collaboration between Penny Putnam and Shauna Holiman, is full of surprises. Sculptures made of the innards of pianos take on a life of their own, while suggesting the rhythms and tones that they once produced. Collages refer more broadly to the world of music, and photographs reveal the beauty of the forms and materials that were once combined in the finished piano. From sensuous ivories that served as piano keys to the battered wood of old piano legs, the elements of these works evoke the melodies of the past even as the works themselves have a life of their own, freed from the pianos that originally encased them.” -Sheila Canby, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• András Schiff on Bach and Bartók
• Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard on Coughs, Ringtones and Wrappers
• Making music together is an empathy booster
• Pianist and Conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy and The Diane Rehm Show
• Listen to a Schubert recital from Wigmore Hall with Paul Lewis
• Interview with pianist George Li
• Get a free track from Jeremy Denk’s new album – Ligeti’s Étude, “Désordre”
• The visual generation, piano and fashion
• Remembering The Titanic’s Intrepid Bandleader
• Behind the scenes of Yuja Wang’s music clip shooting for Fantasia
• Warsaw museum acquires previously unknown Chopin letters
• The $300,000 ‘Rolls-Royce’ Piano

Ingenia: The engineering of concert grand pianos

In this PDF-article from Ingenia, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s quarterly magazine, Mr. Dain shares his ideas on engineering concert grand pianos. Here we can read about the pianists’ three variables when it comes to changing the piano sound, the responsibilities of the piano technician, the contributions of the piano designer and useful discussions on the interior of a grand piano including case and rim, strings, frames and the action. He also discusses the future of action design. In the article we find a number of audio-graphic comparisons between Steinway and Bösendorfer which efficiently clarify the issues.

http://www.ingenia.org.uk/ingenia/issues/issue12/dain.pdf

Inventor and piano technician Richard Dain is a well known personality in the field of engineering grand pianos. In 2006 he presented the PHOENIX bridge agraffe system with adjustable hitch pins, which creates a brighter harmonic spectrum, increased sustain, volume and clarity. In short the system means:

- Increased tuning stability
- The carbon fiber soundboard does not react to humidity change as do spruce soundboards, and therefore provides a much more stable soundboard for better tuning and stability.
- Increased piano durability
- The Phoenix bridge agraffes eliminate most of the approximate 1000 pounds of downward pressure on soundboards that is constant in pianos. This helps maintain a stable soundboard for longevity of the piano. The carbon fiber is also almost impervious to cracking, unlike traditional spruce soundboards.
- Greater volume and clarity
- A more “singing” piano
- Increased sustain & a brighter harmonic spectrum
- A much wider dynamic range – pppp to ffff

The PHOENIX system has been in production on Steingraeber & Söhne grand piano models since 2008 and was premiered in recording by pianist Eric Himy playing Schumann on the PHOENIX-Steingräber Grand Piano (on the Centaur label) in 2007.

The Piano Puzzler Turns 10

The first “Piano Puzzler” was broadcast exactly 10 years ago, on April 24 2002, but the idea was hatched one week before that, on April 17: Bruce Adolphe had come into the radio studio for an entirely different interview, but ended up improvising a “Keyboard Conundrum” based on some sheet music he happened to carry in his shoulder bag at the time.
During those 10 years, Bruce Adolphe has composed no less than 400 Piano Puzzlers, or “about13 hours’ worth of insightful, delightfully clever, cunningly educational, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny musical wizardry”, as Fred Child describes it. The Piano Puzzlers have also taken on a life outside the radio broadcasts, since Bruce is regularly invited to music festivals to do Puzzlers on stage.

Piano Street would like to join in the celebration of Piano Puzzler. Listening to Bruce Adolphe’s witty compositions is an interesting and fun way of learning about the characteristics and distinct voices of the great composers of classical music. And because of the fact that the Puzzlers often focus on keyboard style and the core piano repertoire, all piano music fans should be able to find a lot to amuse and interest them in the program’s archives.

In the audio player above you find some examples where you can test your knowledge of some of the great themes and tunes from the piano repertoire and below, links to archived Piano Puzzles.

Piano Puzzles birthday selection: 26 of their best puzzles
Archives 2007-2012
Older episodes of the Piano Puzzler

Piano Puzzlers – Sheet Music

For years, people had been begging for the sheet music and in 2006 Wannacracker Music published a collection of piano puzzler scores. Play them in student recitals, in the classroom, at parties, as encores, or just to drive your neighbors crazy!

Piano Puzzlers: Thirty Familiar Tunes Disguised in the Styles of Famous Composers
This collection presents 30 of Bruce’s “recompositions,” printed exactly as he plays them on the radio.

Bösendorfer has chosen 2012 to introduce their new “Artist Series” pianos, and have dedicated it’s first edition to Gustav Klimt (1862 – 1918) in order to honor the 150th Anniversary of his birth.
The grand pianos are being made with the cooperation of the Belvedere Museum in Vienna who has the most extensive collection of Klimt paintings in the world. There will be just 25 of the beautifully hand-crafted Klimt models made.

Bösendorfer took Belvedere’s high-resolution image of The Kiss and used advanced reprographic techniques to render the painting on the inside of the Model 200 grand piano lid.
Further Klimt-like design elements have also been added to the piano. Inspired by Klimt’s use of asymmetrical organic lines, Bösendorfer have created lines, inlaid with real gold leaf, on the music desk and on the legs of the instrument.

Brian Kemble introduces the new limited edition Klimt model at the Musikmesse 2012 in Frankfurt, Germany:

Dinu Lipatti had a brief, incandescent career cut short by disease. Lipatti’s playing was hailed as having reached the highest degree of integrity and pianistic technique, which he employed in the quest for musical perfection. Lipatti is particularly noted for his interpretations of Chopin, Mozart and Bach, but he also made recordings of Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso, Liszt, Enescu, the Schumann Piano Concerto, and the Grieg Piano Concerto. His recording of Chopin’s Waltzes has remained in print since its release and has long been a favorite of many classical music-lovers. He brought to Chopin a searching intellect allied with an infallible sense of rhythm and a technique utterly at the service of his musical ideals. One could continue to throw adjectives at Lipatti’s playing without ever capturing the feeling of “rightness” that permeates it. His audiences were moved by something they felt as spiritual.

Chopin Valse no. 5 in A flat major
Chopin Valse no. 10 in B minor
Chopin Valse no. 13 in D flat minor
Chopin Valse no. 2 op 34-1 B94
Chopin valse no. 14 in E minor

Chopin Waltzes – Sheet music to download and print:

During the MIDEM international music industry trade fair 2010 two prizes were given to two albums of Chopin’s recordings. The statuettes were attributed to the late Romanian artist Dinu Lipatti and to the Russian pianist Nikolai Demidenko. Special Chopin Awards is a new category of prizes established to honour the ongoing Chopin Year. The Special Chopin Award – Best Ever for the best recording of Chopin’s works in the history of music industry was attributed posthumously to Dinu Lipatti’s album with 14 waltzes, Barcarolle, Nocturne in D flat Major and Mazurka in C sharp minor.

The album at Amazon.com:
Chopin: Waltzes 1- 14, Original Recording Remastered

• Jan Lisecki talks about his DG debut
• Pianist Shai Wosner about the dark Schubert
• The Spirit of Schubert, Scrapbook
• Benjamin Grosvenor’s debut on Decca
• Improve your sight reading using the Wessar App
• 159 facts about Steinway
• Interview with pianist Jeremy Denk
• Menahem Pressler gets Yehudi Menuhin Prize

Christopher Taylor demonstrates the unique features of a special instrument that combines the harpsichord’s ability to double its keyboard with the sound of a modern Steinway piano:

The lower keyboard of 88 keys resembles that of a typical piano. The upper keyboard of 76 keys is one octave shorter in the treble but sounds one octave higher than the corresponding key on the lower keyboard. Each keyboard can be played independently but both can be coupled together by depressing a pedal located between the una corda (far left) and sostenuto (second-from-right) pedals. A catch mechanism allows the pedal to be retained in its depressed position. When the keyboards are coupled, each note played on the lower keyboard sounds both its own pitch and that of the key directly behind it on the upper keyboard, one octave higher. As a result, polyphonic textures available to the player are greatly expanded, volume levels may be increased, and chords which extend over two octaves may be played with one hand.

The piece is entitled “Allegro molto” by “Del Signore Giovane Wolfgango Mozart” (Italian for “Mr. Wolfgang Mozart Jr.”.) Music expert Hildegard Herrmann-Schneider said only Leopold Mozart used this name when writing down his son’s name.

The four minute, 84-bar passage piece was performed at Mozart’s childhood home in Salzburg, Austria on his original piano by pianist Florian Birsak.

“It’s not just anyone’s piece, there is already a touch of the great Mozart he later became,” said Birsak to BBC. The newly found piece has “a series of components that are found repeatedly in other Mozart piano works,” said the Mozarteum Salzburg Foundation, who hosted the event, in a statement. “Judging by the current level of knowledge, it thus has to be a genuine sonata phrase from Mozart.” This isn’t the first Mozart piece to be discovered recently. In 2009 two pieces were found that are said to have been written by Mozart when he was seven or eight.

Piano score to download and print

Does it work?
Many people are sceptical, but it is easy to test. Simply play a note alternately muting and then leaving the fourth string to vibrate.
It is surprising how loud the Aliquot string is even though it has not been struck by the hammer. Currently, the Patented Aliquot System employs an additional fourth string in the treble section attached directly to the bridge that is not struck by the hammers.
The fourth string is stimulated to vibrate through sympathetic resonance when the other three strings are struck, which results in an acoustical system enriching the overtone spectrum. It produces a very dynamic sound, which is audible over a wide range. This unique effect conveys the resonant treble of the Blüthner piano. As an example, it is possible to experience this special effect in many piano compositions giving an added dimension in tone colour and dynamics. Another factor that is that all Blüthner strings are individually hitched. For optimum effect, precise tuning is essential. In today’s instruments the ‘aliquot strings’ are tuned in unison with the trichords.

Read more at Blüthner World