10 years ago by
A Pianist
My most striking experience with this was going to play a recital at the music school in Sombor, Yugoslavia and being faced with an Estonia concert grand whose action was so heavy I felt I needed a sledgehammer to push down a single key. It was unbelievable! I was playing Rachmaninoff's monumental 1st sonata in D minor among other things.
Something very interesting happened: I at once acquired a completely new understanding of the Russian School. That rich tone, that juicy singing melodic line, well it's much easier to get it when you are already habituated to having to PRESS the key down mightily just to get the note to sound. Recall Anton Rubinstein's injunction when asked how to get his marvellous, singing, richly orchestrated sound: "Press the keys until your fingers bleed!"
I adjusted my technique to the demands of the moment and although it was a lot of work, I had a lot of fun playing that concert.
Another example: many of our Academy students shy away from the one concert Steinway we possess (a fine Hamburger from the vintage year 70's that albeit has seen better days), saying the action is too heavy.
This is a complete illusion. That action is not heavy at all. But the instrument itself demands that you manipulate the keys differently if you want the release its golden, singing Steinway tones. I've said this elsewhere, a Steinway will give you more gold than any other instrument, but you have to know how to handle it. You must orchestrate more extremely, and if you don't, it won't really sound that special. You'll get by better on some Yamaha that doesn't possess that kind of orchestrational potential at all.
So they sense that this instrument is requiring something from them that they find difficult to give, and their subjective experience is that the action is heavier.
I literally don't notice now if an action is heavy or light. I am so intent on going for a certain sound, getting a certain extreme orchestration, that my hand is already set up to manipulate the key with a specific kind of strength. What I'm trying to say is that when your hand is skeletally organized, it possesses both the strength to manage a heavier action and the sensitivity to fine tune its control of a lighter action.
One's personal preference depends a lot one one's technique, one's physical style. Artur Rubinstein famously preferred an action that offered quite some resistance, that had some 'beef.' This helped him get that trademark warm tone of his, because he felt he could let go and sink into the keys with all of himself. Horowitz on the other hand had an incredibly light action that allowed him to hyper-orchestrate easily and to micro-control the key with a minimum of physical effort. His hand had great strength but that strength went to his hand in a specific way rather than being invested in the actual moving of the key.
AFF
