Small hand Luke: A piano festival for little fingers
NewsThe third Stretto Piano Festival will tak place from July 15-23 at Baruch Performing Arts Center, New York. The festival features the Stretto piano, which has narrower keys and ‘makes piano playing more equitable, comfortable and easy for all hand sizes’.
Participants include composer David Amram and pianist Christopher O’Riley.
Hannah Reimann (pic) is the festival’s creator.
More here.
Well, you know what they say about little hands.
Intrigued by the claim that it ‘makes piano playing more equitable, comfortable and easy for all hand sizes’. You’d have thought it would make it so for those who have smaller hands and play on it frequently. And that everybody else would be all over the place, no? Great that this instrument exists, and that there’s a festival. But the claim seems – forgive the expression – a bit of a stretch. I’d be glad to be corrected by those who know.
The claim is perfectly reasonable. Firstly, they aren’t telling pianists who don’t wish to play on narrower keyboards that they should be forced to do so. Secondly, all pianists who have had the opportunity of trying a narrower keyboard report that they have adapted very quickly: adapting to a 15/16 keyboard is usually instantaneous, and most pianists get used to a 7/8 keyboard in under an hour. Then they can easily go back and forth between the different sizes.
I’m grateful for the confirmation that pianists find it relatively easy to adapt. But that is not quite the same as the claim that the stretto instrument ‘makes playing […] more easy for all hand sizes’. If that were the case, then surely the standard keyboard would quickly go out of fashion. A generous reading of the statement would be that it’s claim is that the instrument makes playing easier for all hands collectively, by way of making it easier (mainly) for smaller hands, i.e. it offers an option for some who may be less comfortable with the standard keyboard. But it takes a fairly tortured reading of the statement to give it that meaning. One might say, generously, that the claim is reasonable, but misleadingly worded.
You’re right that the wording is misleading, but it doesn’t come from the Stretto Piano Festival. Looking carefully on their website, I cannot find anywhere the phrase “makes piano playing more equitable, comfortable and easy for all hand sizes”. The nearest I can find is “… mission to make piano playing more equitable for players with smaller hands”.
I suspect that Norman confabulated that phrase.
More like playing a keyboard with narrow keys or a strange organ manual. I had small hands and fingers when I was 8, and for my age still have small fingers too. You do wonder what is behind a small-keyed piano other than playing Beethoven and Rachmaninov!
“Narrow Keys, Broad Minds…..Equitable” the festival website says. But you gotta use our pianos so we can promote them.
Josef Hoffman, the celebrated Polish-American pianist and student of Anton Rubinstein, had Steinway make him a piano with narrower keys, but it did not become a trend. Alicia de Larrocha had famously tiny hands but could play anything and masterfully on standard pianos, including big-handed music by Albeniz, Granados, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, etc.
This festival is not promoting a particular brand of piano: “stretto piano” is a term coined by makers and users of narrower keyboards to describe any piano that has narrower keys than the standard ones. The festival is certainly not saying “you gotta use our pianos”. on the contrary, they are challenging the idea that all pianists should be forced to play on the same size keyboard. Should we require that all marathon runners wear the same shoe size?
Alicia de Larrocha hated her small hands and also complained that her arms were too short. She spent an inordinate amount of her practice time stretching her fingers and finding special personal solutions for passages which would have been easy for her on a narrower keyboard. In an interview with the New York Times in 1976, she said she would have liked to have her own personal piano when she was on tour, but “only a billionaire could do that now”. I’ll bet that she would have welcomed the narrower keyboards with open arms.
Perhaps Alicia should have taken up another instrument if that was the case! Pity she blamed her body as she was a fine pianist for us who listened to her. Most get on, singers too, and use what they have to their best ability.
Yes, it’s a pity she blamed her body instead of blaming the supposed “one size fits all” piano keyboard. At the time she was active, nobody made alternative size keyboards. She even asked Steinway if they would be prepared to make one: they declined. Now you can order a stretto piano from Steinway: nice to see that they have changed their tune.
Many pianists simply don’t question the fact that all pianos have the same size keys: it’s accepted as if it were a God-given standard. Why? Nobody seems to have a problem with 3/4 violins or 7/8 cellos, and even pianists accept that they don’t all have to use the same height for the piano stool.
Yes Alicia did wish Steinway would make her a piano with narrower keys. But her hands could reach a 10th – so bigger the vast majority of women who cannot.
Yes, and Paul Hamburger, the Viennese BBC producer and staff accompanist for many years, as well as my coach, had very small hands, and just worked it out!
Alicia De Larrocha did not have tiny hands – she could reach a 10th, so quite a large span for a woman. She did ask Steinway to make her a piano with narrower keys like they did for Hofmann, but they refused. Many don’t realise that Barenboim plays a similar keyboard today.
Interestingly, historically made harpsichords consistently have narrower octaves than the modern piano. They were perhaps not designed so much to suit smaller hands, but to stuff more keys into a narrower case.
Not only harpsichords but pianos generally had narrower keys until the 1880s. Then the demands of bigger sounds in concert halls led to cross stringing which suited wider keys. The key width suited European male virtuosos of the time. Women mostly played at home – suitably ‘feminine’ repertoire.
Hello Hannah from Christopher Donison
Fabulous
Would love to reconnect. I started a music festival too! This will be our 19th season! My original Steinway CD is a part of it. It is called Music by the Sea
My phone is 250-888-7772
Glad we’re connected again, Chris! Bravissimo
We are on our way,
Hannah
Question: I wonder how many concert grand pianos there are with a 7/8 keyboard? Is there an inventory of any sort? The advancement of concerts/festivals that offer that would be useful. The concert Steinway at Music by the Sea on Vancouver Island is Steinway CD #169 and is the piano that already had had the 7/8 keyboard made for it in the 1970’s — and was the piano that David Steinbuhler discovered in my house in Niagara-on-the-Lake , Ontario, Canada in the 1990’s while he was a B&B guest at my place… which resulted in us forming the D.S. Standard (Donison-Steinbuhler) at that time. It would very useful to assemble a data base of all pianos in venues or festivals that have one.