The Blüthner Grand Piano (1884) Part III

The Blüthner Grand Piano (1884) Part III

In December of 1973, we had lived in Michigan for a scant six months. One evening as my wife and I prepared to go out for the evening, I came downstairs to get our heavy coats and all of the other accessories that we were learning were important in order to survive the blustery cold of early winter. As I stepped into the living room which housed our two grand pianos, I was startled by a loud cracking or popping noise. The sound was akin to a hunter’s shotgun as it crackled through a distant stand of forested land during hunting season. Within a moment, I discerned that the sound was coming from our Kawai grand piano which had been bought just three years earlier. I had never heard that sound before, but I knew it was the death knell of any piano—a cracked sound board. Panic shivered through me. As I opened the top of the piano and my eyes scanned the thin sound board, my premonition was correct. There was a split in the board under the bass strings. My stomach felt sick as I contemplated the significance of what my eyes had confirmed. It were as though some horrible tragedy was slowly being revealed.

Needless to say, our evening out was dampened considerably. The next day, after consulting with colleagues in the music department of the local college where we taught, I called Jim Reeder at Michigan Piano Sales and Service. His company serviced the pianos at the college, and he was touted to be one of the best piano rebuilders as well as tuners in the Mid-West. We anxiously awaited his arrival a week later as the Kawai continued to exhibit minor tremors of a doomed sound board.

When Jim arrived, we had already put the Kawai’s top on the long stick and silently awaited his verdict as we introduced ourselves. To our astonishment, instead of inspecting the Kawai, he immediately proceeded across the living room and opened the Blüthner grand and began to play it. We could tell he was mesmerized by its rich tonal quality of the piano. Its sound was very much like the sound of a cello. Jim called it an accompanying piano since its tone quality was not excessively bright but emphasized the more mello overtones of the harmonic series. The piano was particularly made for chamber music.

Mr. Reeder encouraged us to have the piano refurbished. He outlined a plan for restoration that would include new hammers, strings, pin block and new paint for the ebony finish that had been its glory in years past. The piano technician was not sure of the actual age of the piano but would take the serial number and get a approximate date for its construction. In my mind, I was a little overwhelmed with this entire scenario. We had called an expert to get advice on what to do with the Kawai and its slow decline because of the faults that were continuing to multiply as the weeks progressed. Now, we were in the midst of a restoration proposal for an antique piano and there was, yet, no mention of the Kawai and its problems.

After the discussion of possible restoration of the Blüthner, Jim Reeder turned to the Kawai at the opposite end of the room. He examined it as a physician examines a patient with multiple fractures with eyes that were knowledgeable and a mind that was apprising the entire scope of how to salvage a piano that was in its youth that had met a fateful disaster.

After a thorough examination, the skilled technician turns to us and said the solution lay in the complete replacement of the sound board which meant new strings, hammers, and pin block. We mentally gulped at this diagnosis as the dollar signs mentally choked us. Without hesitating, Reeder told us that he figured the piano had to be under warranty. He would check on that immediately. If it were still under warranty, the company would honor the default in the instrument. This meant that all labor and parts would be at no charge to us. We would probably have to pay some shipping charges. He would check on all of this and get back with us as soon as possible.

My wife and I were informed the next week that since Mr. Reeder had recently been franchised to sell and repair Kawai instruments, the Kawai company stood by their warranty and all labor and parts would be at no charge to us. We would be responsible for a one-time $90 shipping fee. Within a month the Kawai was out of our home and on to the factory in Grand Ledge to be restored. Within a year it was returned in restored condition. The Blüthner was next in line for restoration so as the Kawai was brought home the Blüthner, which was built in 1884 as the records confirmed, checked in at the piano hospital for its overhaul. By March of 1975, the Blüthner was restored. Two months before the restoration was completed, my wife fielded a call from the piano factory. The call was from Jim Reeder. He wanted to know if we would like the exterior finish restored to the ebony finish or to the piano’s original finish. My wife said that it made sense to do the ebony, but she questioned what was meant by the original finish. Jim told her that when the ebony finish had been stripped, the discovery was made that the wood underneath the ebony was rosewood. What a surprise this was for everyone! Needless to say, the piano would sport the new, yet, original look of rosewood. Since the music rack that was attached to the piano was probably a later addition and not the original rack, Mr. Reeder found a matching, rosewood, ornate rack that looked like it was made for the instrument.

The piano was delivered back to our home on March 18, 1975 in the afternoon. That evening a professor of voice from the college where we taught paraded several of her voice students into our home for a salon recital in honor of the birth of our first child, Matthew. The recital was billed as a child’s recital since the students performed “children’s” songs of various classical composers as well as a number of the original Winnie the Pooh songs of A. A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh tales (1926).

Hagler Rice and his family would have been very proud of this restored instrument that now had a new lease on its musical life. They never knew that the piano would even look different after its restoration with the “new” rosewood finish. Thirty-one years later our grandson (14 months old) has had most of his first piano lessons at the Blüthner. He, even at such a young age, has learned to play in five flats and he promises to be another link in the legacy of The Blüthner Grand Piano (1884).

The Blüthner Grand Piano (1884) Part II

The Blüthner Grand Piano (1884) Part II

Hagler and Inge Rice came to the United States and settled in New Orleans, Louisiana. I don’t know the exact dates, but it was sometime in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. In the early 1950’s a daughter was born to this couple. She was born, appropriately, in the month of December, within a week after Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthday which is December 16. Very early on it was recognized that Heide had precocious musical gifts, and her father began to give her piano lessons. The Blüthner piano that had been purchased in Berlin was her first piano. Later, a second piano, a Steinway grand was purchased.

Not too many years later, when Hagler had moved his family to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, they lived next door to my future wife on Reed Street, a street adjacent to the University of Alabama. When my wife and I married in 1970, we decided to live in the apartment that she was already renting. The Rice family was already acquainted with my wife as neighbors would have been in those days. I was welcomed into the “family” after our marriage and the wonderful relationship continued. Hagler, as a previous entry explained, was the best man at our wedding for all the reasons stated in that previous post. At the time of our marriage, Hagler’s wife and daughter were living in Philadelphia as Heide pursued musical training at the Curtis Institute of Music. Their daughter was too young to live by herself in Philadelphia since Curtis Institute is not a residential college. The students have to rent their own apartments as they attend the Institute. Thus, Hagler who was 72 years old at the time lived alone in his inherited home on Reed Street. My wife and I had ample opportunity to visit Hagler as we spent time in the evenings with him in his home enjoying a shared musical interest as well as the company of an extraordinary man who was almost three times our age.

During one of those evenings, Hagler shared a story regarding the Blüthner and the time that Wilhelm Kempff came and played the instrument in their home in New Orleans. It has been well over 35 years since he related the story so my memory is not clear on the age of their daughter Heide at the time of the event. I recollect that Heide was 12 years old. She may have been older but I am now able to verify her exact age. (This past weekend we were able to reconnect with Heide after over 30 years of trying to track her down after her mother died. She was sent the link to this blog by Curtis Institute Alumni Association when the Association had done a Google Search and had come up with a link that referenced her. This is an amazing story of being reconnected to a long lost friend, but that is not the subject of this entry. I can now verify my accuracy in memory, if need arises, via a telephone call.) Mr. Rice related that the famous concert pianist who was also a Beethoven authority came to New Orleans to audition Heide for a special teaching program that he provided in the summer time for gifted pianists. In 1957 Kempff began to give an annual Beethoven interpretation course in his villa in Positano, Italy. He wanted Heide to consider coming to Italy sometime in the future to study at the symposium. The audition was arranged and Kempff came to the Rice home on the appointed day. Heide had prepared the Beethoven 4^th piano concerto as her audition piece. She began playing the Steinway, and not too long into the audition, Wilhelm Kempff being so impressed with Heide’s playing and interpretation, moved to the Blüthner which was beside the Steinway and began to play from memory the orchestral reduction accompaniment to the concerto. It must have been a moment of intense “magic” as youthful prodigy and elder master musician merged into one glorious ensemble of music making. Heide was selected to attend Kempff’s summer session which took place when she was 19 years old.

The story of the procurement of the Blüthner from post-war Germany, the knowledge that the daughter of our best man had practiced on the Blüthner in her formative years of piano study, and the fact that Wilhelm Kempff had actually played the very instrument that Hagler was now going to sell were too many reasons for allowing the piano to be passed on to a stranger’s hands. I called Hagler the morning after having dinner with him and his wife. I told him my feelings regarding the piano and asked him how much he was asking for the piano. Without the slightest hesitation, he declared a price that was only a fraction of a token as to its real value. I thought he was kidding, but he was not. I protested that he was giving the piano away. He said that was the whole point of it. He would “give” the piano away only to a family member. He knew that we would care for the piano and eventually have the piano restored to its potential. Indeed, he had done most of the maintenance work on the piano over the years; it did need restoration to some degree. It was a vintage piano and it needed an overhaul. We paid his asking “price,” and the piano was moved to our Forest Lake home and placed in the second studio we maintained. After Hagler and Inge moved back to New Orleans in the summer of 1972, my wife and I moved to Michigan in 1973. Within a year and a half of our move to Michigan, the process of restoration began. (To be continued with the next entry.)

The Blüthner Grand Piano (1884) Part I

The Blüthner Grand Piano (1884), Part I

The story of the Walnut Wardrobe was only one side of the tale about our friend Clarence Hagler Rice and his wife and daughter (see previous Aug. 25 blog entry). When Hagler and Inge Rice were moving back to New Orleans, they were not going to have room in their new home for both grand pianos. They would be selling the Blüthner which was 6’ 1” in length. Hagler made the announcement one night when they were having dinner with us. I was totally shocked that he would be selling this wonderful instrument that had an interesting tale of its own as did the Walnut Wardrobe. I responded to Hagler in disbelief that he could ever part with this instrument. He said that there was just no room in the New Orleans home. The piano had served its purpose over the years and it was time to sell it. He asked if we would be interested in the instrument. We were interested since we needed a second piano (a good one) for our second studio in our home, but I knew there was no way we could afford such an instrument at that time. The conversation ended and we continued with our meal and time of sharing.

After the Rices left our house that night, I began to ponder the sale of the Blüthner. It had an interesting story of how it got to the United States as well as a rich history in the many hours of practice that a young child prodigy had spent playing the instrument. In addition, there was the story of the visit by the famous Beethoven authority and concert pianist by the name of Wilhelm Kempff.

Even more importantly for us, the piano belonged to Hagler Rice who was the best man in our wedding. He symbolized so much to us of our own Southern heritage and roots as well as his friendship toward us and his kindness of “looking after us” as we spent many evenings in his home talking about life, music, and days past. His family was so dear to us. How could we allow the Blüthner be sold? The new owners would not cherish its history and the symbolism it held of our friendship and love of the Rice family.

I decided that night to call Hagler the next morning to ask how much he would be asking for the piano. I knew I would not be able to afford another instrument since we were still paying on the loan that we had taken out to buy our Kawai grand which we purchased right after our marriage two years earlier.

It was a restless night as my mind went back to the time Hagler told us how he had purchased the piano.

Mr. Rice was stationed in Germany as part of the occupation forces in divided Germany. He was a commander in the Navy and was probably stationed in Bremerhaven if my memory serves me well. He was frequently in Berlin which was also parceled out among the Allied Forces and the Soviet Union. Berlin, of course, was surrounded by East Germany which was the portion that the Soviets had gleaned for itself right after the war had ended. In June of 1948, the Soviets blockaded access to West Berlin with the intention of gaining complete control of Berlin. The Allied Forces devised an airlift of supplies to the people of West Berlin. This lasted until September of 1949 even though the blockade was lifted in May of 1949. (See this link regarding the Berlin Blockade.)

It was during this blockade, when Hagler Rice and two others each purchased a Blüthner grand piano (follow this link for more info on Blüthner pianos). The purchase was made in West Berlin and the question was how to transport the pianos into the West Germany where they could be safely shipped to the United States. Because of the blockade and the intensity of the airlift of supplies, there was no air transportation available. A plan was devised to get permission from the Soviets to have a disabled army truck towed across the autobahn. The three grand pianos would be stowed away on the disabled truck. There was a great risk that the Soviets would inspect the truck, and the pianos would be confiscated. Permission was granted to have the truck towed across the Soviet zone. There was no inspection, and the pianos eventually arrived safely in the perspective cities of each owner. A new life had begun for the remarkable and beautiful piano (to be continued with next blog entry).

The Walnut Wardrobe

In the fall of 1971, my wife and I moved from a large apartment on Reed Street which was part of a three-apartment division of a once lovely Dutch colonial home. Hagler Rice and his family (from Aug. 24 entry) lived next door. The Reed Street apartment was rapidly becoming a “student” neighborhood since the University of Alabama campus was just a few blocks away. It had become a very noisy neighborhood with incessant traffic flow to and from the university. Plus, partying students kept us awake especially on weekends of home football games. These were the days of Bear Bryant and the National Championship Teams.

We moved to a Cape Cod style home that was situated on the short dirt road that ran down beside Forest Lake. This was an old established neighborhood and our particular street was the original Forest Lake Drive. Our house number was #5 Forest Lake Drive. There was also a paved section of Forest Lake Drive that ran along the eastern shore of Forest Lake. The lake was man made and the neighborhood, at one time, was about three miles from downtown Tuscaloosa. Over the years the city built eastward and this little enclave by the time we moved in was totally encircled by the encroaching subdivisions. Nonetheless, there was still more than an ambience of solitude and seclusion to the neighborhood.

One evening when we were having dinner at our home with the Rices, Hagler mentioned that he and Inge were planning to move back to New Orleans within the next year. Their daughter Heide was about to launch her piano concert career and New Orleans would be a more ideal place for her to be. He said that they would have to sell some of their furniture since they would be moving to a smaller home. One of the items was an antique walnut wardrobe. Another item was their five foot nine Blüthner grand piano. He wanted to know if we would be interested in the two items. The wardrobe and its origin will be described below in Hagler’s own words. The unique feature of this floor to ceiling and very wide wardrobe was that is was built without any nails. It could be disassembled in minutes and moved relatively easily. (The grand piano will have to be another entry, perhaps, tomorrow.) Hagler sold us the wardrobe. We have used it for years now as a music cabinet. Without touching the construction inside the wardrobe, we were able to put a metal shelving unit within the wardrobe so that we could store our piano music collection. To this day it houses most of our music collection. Now, for the story of the construction and early use of The Walnut Wardrobe as transcribed from a typed copy that Hagler gave to us shortly after we acquired possession of this remarkable piece of furniture.

The Walnut Wardrobe

This Walnut Wardrobe was built by a traveling English Jointer (Cabinet Maker) at my grandfather’s saw mill on Binions Creek during 1902. Exact date unknown.

The walnut tree from which the lumber was taken grew in Grandpa’s front yard for its lifetime. A severe wind storm blew it down during the fall and winter of 1901. It lay on the ground during the summer of 1902. This was the spot where all the young people would sit and sing songs during the long summer twilight evenings. Such songs I remember were “She Was Born in Old Kentucky,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” and many others which were wee-known and loved at the time but have been forgotten by the public today, for the most part. Whenever I hear one of the songs above and many others, whose names I don’t remember presently, I get a most satisfying feeling, something of nostalgia and something of sadness for a period long gone into the past. It was a great period for us.

The English cabinet maker was a traveling man and I do not remember much about him. The walnut log was a hug one, about 4 feet in diameter. The walnut lumber was sawed and then sent to Northport where it was kiln dried. After returning to the mill on Binions Creek, the Englishman drew sketches of the wardrobe for approval; then, he started construction of the piece which required over three months [to construct]. The lumber was hand-planed and sanded smooth. The wardrobe was a copy of others the man had built in England and its lines were typically English as were some of the hardware which the cabinet maker insisted on obtaining from sources he had in England.

The wardrobe originally had a hand-rubbed “gun Stock Finish” (hot raw linseed oil rubbed on for at least 10 coats. This gave a satiny finish and was the delight of my grandfather, who was an avid gun crank.) The finish has been polished up into a shiny coating but is essentially the original finish, which is in the pores of the wood.

The bottom unit, doors and cornice are really English in feeling and design and the wood was selected by the maker from a good pile which he had available at the saw mill [which] was most suitable for the use it was to be put.

The Wardrobe was popular during this period as most houses, especially country houses, had little or no closet space, so all the fine dresses and my grandfather’s Sunday suits were stored in the wardrobe. Also, each door had its [own] key which dept it locked securely.

I remember my grandfather’s suits were in the left hand space and Grandmother used the right side, which had numerous shelves, to keep her dresses. My grandfather had two other wardrobes but they were smaller and did not have the graceful lines of the solid walnut wardrobe. It is a relic of a period of graceful and comfortable living which was typically Southern.

June 1972 Clarence Hagler Rice