Last night was a farewell, a bitter-sweet farewell in some ways. The 1913 concert grand Steinway which had been a part of Stratford's cultural scene since 1954, was played for the final time in our fair city. A benefactor of Ms Kati Gleiser, currently completing a Doctorate in Piano Performance at Indiana University, recently purchased the piano for her from St. John's United Church. Kati had agreed to perform a concert for Stratford, before the piano set off to its new home.
Many of us here grew up under the spell of the Steinway, the piano played by such international musical greats as Glenn Gould, Ronald Turini, Rudolph Serkin, Claudio Arrau, Oscar Peterson and Duke Ellington. It's history was tied in to the first twenty years of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival when a Music Festival ran alongside the dramatic playbill. I remember attending concerts many Sunday afternoons with full house attendance as people traveled from all over to hear not only pianists, but orchestras, chamber music and some of the great vocalists of the day. It was a privilege growing up in that era, when Stratford was so incredibly culturally rich and there was an enthusiasm and joy in hearing wonderful classical music performed by the masters.
Ms Gleiser's concert was beautiful. Although the Steinway needs a great deal of technical work to come back to her former glory, she still displayed hints of the rich timbre for which she was so famous. Kati handled her impeccably and with a very sensitive musical spirit.
So yes, it was bitter sweet...a sorrow to see the end of an era, but a joy in knowing that the Steinway, at 97 years of age, will be loved, cared for and used long into the future.
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