STRETTO PIANOS

RACHMANINOFF’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3, “RACH 3,” as it is known, is notoriously difficult and feared by many pianists, particularly those with smaller handspans. Details about this are offered in Olivia Hampton’s NPR piece, “Pianist Hannah Reimann Advocates for Narrower Pianos to Help Those with Small Hands” Here are tidbits gleaned from this article.

An Octave’s Magic Eight. Pianists measure handspans relative to an octave. Olivia Hampton writes about Hannah Reimann who says, “I’m 5’ 1” and I can stretch a ninth,” meaning a full step beyond an octave. “That smaller handspan,” Hampton says, “would normally put out of her reach pieces like the notoriously difficult Third Piano Concerto by Rachmaninoff. The Russian composer was himself a giant of a man who stood 6’ 6” and could cleanly strike a 13th.” 

Reimann’s “Stretto” Keyboard. Hampton recounts that Reimann “had a keyboard custom-designed so that it can just slide in and out of her own 1900 Steinway piano…. Reimann insists there’s no impact on the quality of the sound: ‘The piano sounds the same in a concert hall, in a small room, in a medium-size room.’ ”

Hannah Reimann’s 30-year efforts have made “stretto” keyboards more widely available. Image from Steven Burton/Hannah Reimann via NPR.

“That initial effort,” Hampton continues, “set Reimann on a decades-long journey to make narrower keyboards more widely available, petitioning piano companies, schools and impresarios around the world, now through her organization Stretto Piano Events.”

 Closet “Stretto.” Hampton writes, “Despite the challenges, ‘it appears that the time has come,’ she said, with some companies offering smaller pianos, though it’s still not widespread. At the upper echelons of performance, leading conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim has had instruments fitted with narrower keys for recitals, a practice long kept quiet in a classical music industry that can be slow to embrace change.” 

In the linked item from The New York Times, Barenboim is described as “Barrel-chested, quick-witted, a headstrong live wire and easy raconteur with a big ego and a small, stocky pair of hands.” Later, it’s cited his Berlin digs have “a pair of immense Steinways, one fitted with the narrower keys that he likes to use in recitals these days.”

Historical Precedent. Hampton notes, “And a smaller keyboard is not an entirely new thing either. Long before Hofmann—the Polish-American pianist and inventor who befriended Rachmaninoff—the harpsichords and clavichord centuries before had smaller and narrower keyboards. Even the modern piano’s close ancestor the fortepiano had narrower and shorter keys in its early iterations.”

She talks with Norman Kreiger, who chairs the piano department at Indiana University Bloomington’s Jacobs School of Music. Krieger recounts, “The modern piano really hasn’t changed that much in the last 120 years, except that it’s a little bit brighter and it’s built to really project in a large concert hall. The irony of this whole historic journey in my mind is that when you’re playing music by Mozart or Haydn or Bach or Clementi or Scarlatti, those sounds were really not composed for Carnegie Hall or the Concertgebouw or the Musikverein. They were composed for a room, a little room or a salon.”

Innovative Pianos. Hampton observes, “An ergonomically curved piano made its New York debut last year, the same maker (Chris Maene) created a straight-strung instrument for Barenboim, while a Hungarian carbon fiber design gives the “Batpiano” its futuristic looks, so might a stretto piano be next?

Above, Hannah Reimann’s Steinway Model C is fitted with its narrower “stretto” keyboard. Image by Hannah Reimann via NPR. Below, the Maene-Viñoly Concert Grand. Chris Maene is a master piano maker; Rafael Viñoly is a renowned architect. Image from chrismaene.be. 

Hampton quotes Reimann, “It’s like a miracle. It brings so much joy and so much beautiful music making. Really, the music speaks for itself.” ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024