That Terrible Piano At The Wigmore Hall

I have described the first part of the concert by the Silisean Quartet in another post.

There was an interval, when the Wigmore's piano was wheeled out, for Juliusz Zarebski's Piano Quintet in G Minor.

The band trooped out, took their seats, and prepared to play.

The pianist, Wojciech Switala, looked like a man familiar with the ideas of finesse and light touch, touched the keys, and all hell broke loose. However much he might have tried to do justice to the light, skipping phrases on the sheet music in front of him, what came out were blurred phrases, indistinct runs, and chords that could have had any notes jammed together, so hard was it to hear any harmony in the sheer noise. The musical effect was of standing on a seaside promenade during a bad storm: great crashing waves of sound drenching the poor band in front of the piano, and a dense sonic spray soaking the audience.

I had first heard this ghastly racket in a lunchtime concert given by some music students. I imagined that the young pianist was, however skilful, simply over-excited and hence heavy-handed. Switala is undoubtedly skilful, and looked every inch the consummate, experienced professional. And he could not hold back the crashing waves of deafening sound that over-sized horror produces.

It is so loud that when played quietly it provides a useful accompaniment to the unemployed busker at Piccadilly Circus underground, and renders inaudible the announcements at Euston mainline station. At a brisk forte, commercial airline pilots on approach to landing at Heathrow have been known to wonder if their engines have failed, as the piano effortlessly drowns out the engines' sound.

That monstrosity clocks up over 90 dbA at full thump. I measured it. 90 dbA is as loud as the big bass drum of the Royal Household Guards. It's as loud as the Rolling Stones playing a ballad in concert. There are quieter lawnmowers and pneumatic drills. 90 dbA is in more-than-thirty-minutes-is-hazardous territory. By the end of the piece, my ears felt slightly numb, a feeling I have previously only associated with huge stacks of loudspeakers and amplifiers. I heard less sheer noise from the organ in the Royal Festival Hall recently.

And the Siliseans may as well have been playing Mozart or Bartok for all they could be heard.

That piano is just TOO DARN BIG. It's at least half the width of the stage.

It's TOO LOUD.

It makes the best pianists sound like ham-fisted key-thumpers with no sense of interpretation or subtly of touch.

For the sake of the reputation of any pianist who plays there, get a smaller piano.

For the sake of the audiences' ears, GET A SMALLER PIANO.