CYPRIOT composer Savvas Savva recently composed a concert for 10 pianos and an orchestra, an ambitious project, which according to the President of the Steinway club has never been done before. But behind the scenes was another ambitious task: bringing 10 grand pianos to Cyprus in time for the performance.
President of the Steinway club Stavros Kyriakides told the Sunday Mail yesterday that all 10 pianos had to be shipped – and in one case, flown – to Cyprus because all had to be up to performance standards and equal in sound.
“It’s important for the pianos to be of the same calibre. Even if there were just two pianos, they would have to possess the same capabilities, which means the same age, same make, same length – otherwise they won’t produce the same sound and the result would be awful. This is especially true with 10 pianos.”
Kyriakides said it was not possible to bring the pianos in from various theatres and other venues in Cyprus because that would have resulted in an onstage mix of new and old pianos, of baby grands and concert grands.
“So effort was given to have the same pianos on stage. And we couldn’t possibly guarantee that would happen unless the pianos were brand new and brought in especially for this purpose. The idea wasn’t to cause a sensation that we had brought 10 pianos from abroad. It was just a matter of safeguarding the results.”
The 10 Gebrüder Perzina pianos cost £10,000 each and were delivered from Holland to Cyprus. Kyriakides said that the piano manufacturer went out of its way to ensure that the pianos would arrive in Cyprus in time for the concert.
“The factories usually work on a first-come, first-serve basis, and reputable manufacturers who are not into mass production don’t have pianos just lying around. So if we had to wait in the queue for our order of 10 grands, we wouldn’t have had the pianos in time. But they made the effort to bring them on time.”
Kyriakides said they had to use a variety of methods to transport the pianos to expedite the process, adding that one of the pianos had even been brought to Cyprus by air.
Although the pianos were not specially constructed for the event, they were “fine-tuned and regulated to meet the professional standards of the pianists.” The grand pianos also possessed a Renner action, which is the mechanism through which the hammers strike the strings.
“The action is the heart of the piano”, Kyriakides said. “And Renner is supposed to be, if not the best, one of the best action manufacturers in the world.”
It was not only pianos that had to come to Cyprus for the event. Seven of the 10 pianists had to fly in to Cyprus for the event – two from the US, three from the UK, one from Germany, and one from Greece. All 10 pianists, one of whom was the composer Savva, were Cypriot.
The Steinway president said that there had been interest shown to have the pieces performed in places as far as the US and China and he expects that by 2006 the composition will be performed internationally. Kyriakides hopes that there will be assistance to finance the project from the Cyprus government since the costs of staging the performance are so high.
“And it’s good because the music of Cyprus will travel and the musicians will travel. It’s an opportunity to show the world that we [Cypriots] don’t follow any more, we can actually lead. We can come up with original ideas and we can export them.”
The Steinway Club is donating seven of the 10 grand pianos to the Ministry of Education and Culture so that they can be placed in seven schools around Cyprus, although the schools have not been determined yet.
“We give a lot of emphasis on young musicians because if we don’t help them when they actually need our help then what’s the point?”
In 2001 the Steinway Club donated a Steinway grand to the Ministry of Culture that was worth £40,000. The Steinway Club conducts a competition for young pianists under the age of 17 over two years.
“We support the artists”, Kyriakides said on the night of the performance, “but we prefer [to support] the children.”
