My Steinway. At Last!

The phone call came 2 weeks before heading out of town.

"Vivienne, I found your piano. Go see it! It's a gem."

I tried to explain to Alex our (awesome) Tuner, that we weren't ready to buy a piano. And told him that maybe in the fall, we'd begin the search, knowing that it could take months (maybe years) to find the one.

"I'm telling you, this is your piano."

He went on to describe this piano from 1912 which was fully refurbished. A one of a kind. And the kicker? It was a Steinway.

I immediately thought of the string of pianos that have been in my life.

There was the $500 piano from Leonard's Player Pianos in SF that I bartered piano lessons for. It was really made for honky tonk and boogie woogie with it's metalic and perpetual slightly-out-of-tune sound, but it had awesome carvings in the case and did the trick.

That is until my friend later that day called me and said she found a free piano for me. A console piano that belonged to a woman who inherited it from her aunt but was moving to FL and didn't want to keep it in storage. That piano was decent and served as my practice piano. But still, I longed for my dream Steinway grand.

My wish sort of came true when I got a call from my teacher at that time, letting me know about a Bluthner grand piano, looking for a home. It's owner also inherited the piano from his Aunt, but was living overseas for a year and wanted a pianist to use the beautiful instrument with it's stout German legs. What was supposed to be a year, lasted five. And then the call came, asking for the piano.

As luck would have it, I mentioned this to my dear friend and student who just happened to be upgrading from their Kawaii Grand to a Beckstein. And jokingly I said, I could barter piano lessons for the piano - and was in shock when my joke of an offer was taken seriously and accepted! Sooooo, I enjoyed the Kawaii for a few years until I sold it to fund my business with my mom crying on the couch as the movers took her away.

I turned to my Mom and said, don't worry - I'll have a Steinway grand one day. You'll see.

And maybe she cried because of her own piano history.

During the war, they fled their Paris apartment as they ran-and-hid-for-their-lives. They way my uncle tells it, the morning after they fled their apartment and hid in a neighbor's studio, he remembers passing their apartment which was already sealed up with hard wax.

"So, nobody occupied your apartment during the war?"

"No, but the neighbors who remained behind stole everything from us."

"How do you know that?"

“Because years later, when we got home after the war, we had an elevator which was a big deal in those days. It was more like a cage that went up and down, only two people could ride at a time, but you could see through the wire mesh. And as we would pass the floors, a door of an apartment would be open and we’d point and say ‘Look! Our chandelier!’ - another day it would be ‘Our rug!’ But what were we to do?”

My grandfather who before the war, was a successful cabinet maker. During the war, he managed to hide his children, his wife and escape not one, but two labor camps. After the war, beaten down, but not broken, had to find a way to care for his brood of six children and of course his wife. And while they barely had enough to eat, and food still being rationed, he decided to buy used furniture for the apartment, so that he could also afford a used piano for his girls.

My mother and her sisters happily fought each other for their time on the piano bench so they could have a turn to play. And so, the healing began.

I can only imagine the pride my Mom felt when she bought her own piano years later, in her new life as a married woman, living in New York City. A Kanabe Console. I loved that piano. But as my studies grew more serious, I began to outgrow it and dream about a Steinway Grand.

I pestered my parents. My teacher pestered my parents. And one day we got a call about a Steinway grand at a prestigious auction house uptown. I ran on my lunch break to check it out and while it needed some work, it had a glorious treble and a sonorous warm bass. My mom, went to the auction alone and scored this beauty from the 1920's for us.

I remember three things about the day it arrived.

Playing for hours on end.

Sleeping under the piano that night, just to stay close.

And my grandmother, Meme, clasping her hands and beaming with pride and saying over and over in her thick polish and yiddish accent.

"Un Shtein-vey. Un Schtein-vey."

A mixture of pride, awe and triumph.

So, when I wake up each morning and see my glorious "Shtein-vey" in my home, I swell with pride and awe and triumph.

And gratitude.

Here's a glimpse of her beauty!

Do you have a piano story?

I'd love to hear it! (Post in the comments!)

XOXOXOX

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