By
Stephanie Chase
Guest
Columnist
New
York, NY, USA
In
an era of tweets, “new and improved” consumerism, and brief attention spans, it
is a life-affirming experience to know Rodney Regier, who is one of the world’s
foremost makers of keyboard instruments based on examples from the 17th
through 19th centuries. He combines an engineering background – from
MIT, no less – with a breadth of historical knowledge about the instruments and
the music composed for them plus a variety of artisanal techniques. Among the
myriad materials involved in their making are cow bone, ebony, spruce, oak,
walnut, and various metals for strings, with the occasional nod to a more
contemporary material, such as Delrin and carbon fiber. Each aspect of these
instruments’ design and fabrication is critical for its appearance, sound, response
and stability, and with one assistant, he produces about two per year.
Instruments
by R. J. Regier are found in concert halls, conservatories, universities and
colleges throughout the United States and Europe, and are featured on
recordings by prominent artists.
"Carnaval" Prelude by Robert Schumann
played by Chi-Chen Wu on an R. J. Regier piano
STEPHANIE
CHASE: You made your first instrument back in 1975. How did
you come to this unusual profession?
RODNEY
REGIER: Genetics, inherited aptitude, and breathing music. I
grew up singing, playing the piano, working with my hands, and wanting to know
how things work. People in my family make things: clothes, woven fabric, games,
house knickknacks, their homes … you get the idea. My parents, both from the
Midwest, were also both musical. With his Nebraskan reticence, my father and I
didn’t have intimate conversations. We bonded instead going to small, country
sawmills, where he’d select lumber for the furniture he made in his home shop,
and I’d assist. After service in Europe during WWII, he became a music teacher
in Baltimore, where he was eventually to head the entire public school music
program. He also directed different church and school choirs. He conducted the
choir at the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory, where I took
Saturday morning piano lessons for seven years. I’ve also always enjoyed
design, mechanical intricacies, puzzles, and math – and learned at high school
mixers and dances not to answer the question “what is your favorite subject”
with “calculus.”
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| Rodney Regier |
Woodworking
and music came to their natural marriage during my undergraduate years
[studying engineering and water resources] at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, when I was introduced to the renowned harpsichord maker William
Dowd and hired to work part-time in his shop. Available to students at MIT was
a woodworking shop, where I made my first harpsichord. It’s been downhill from
there!
STEPHANIE
CHASE: You probably know that my husband also apprenticed to
a harpsichord builder named John Challis, who used some nontraditional
materials – like aluminum – in order to improve their stability, although I
would imagine that they are affected tonally as well.
Would
you briefly describe the history of the fortepiano and harpsichord, and how
they differ?
RODNEY
REGIER: A harpsichord has a mechanism that plucks the string.
A piano, old or modern, strikes. With a harpsichord, you hear quicksilver; an
early piano, wood; a modern piano, steel. They are all melodic instruments, but
a harpsichord, because its strings are always plucked with the same force,
requires that dynamics be finessed, implied. The piano permits literal touch
dynamics, although this was introduced with the much earlier, but bedroom-size
clavichord. A harpsichordist simulates piano
and forte by density of texture,
uniform or rolled attack, and duration of sound. A good pianist also does all
of this but can as well play softly or loudly. The harpsichord is an ancient
instrument. The earliest reference to the instrument we know as the piano was
in 1700. The transition between the two instruments took much of the 18th
century.
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| Fortepiano by R. J. Regier |
STEPHANIE
CHASE: What kinds of special effects were possible with the
fortepiano, as opposed to the harpsichord or clavichord, for example?
RODNEY
REGIER: It’s like comparing counterpoint and chordal writing.
Linearity vs. shimmer. An engraver’s burin vs. oil paint. Portraits by Van Dyke
vs. Lucien Freud. To me, part of the magic of the early piano is witnessing how
composers and performers created a new idiom for the new instrument. It’s a
fascinating period that saw a revolution not only in musical style but also in
technology, artistic patronage, manufacturing technique, and society.
Beethoven’s life spanned the development of the wood-framed piano, from a
5-octave compass to 6 ½-octaves, a period the instrument not only grew in size,
but its tone became rounder, less astringent. To make a stringed instrument
more powerful requires larger strings stretched more tightly, which requires
correspondingly heavier, more robust actions parts and a stronger frame. String
tension on a little Italian harpsichord can be as little as 500 lbs., on 18th
century Viennese grand piano over 3,000 lbs., on a modern piano 40,000 lbs. I
think a violin has about 60?
STEPHANIE
CHASE: According to my husband’s research, it’s probably
slightly more, but that’s close.
RODNEY
REGIER: Liszt’s life spanned the development of the modern
piano, from an instrument made entirely of wood, to one reinforced with
separate iron braces, to one built around an integral cast iron frame.
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| An R. J. Regier frame under construction |
STEPHANIE
CHASE: Wasn’t he rather notorious for ruining pianos through
his heavy-handed, virtuosic playing? I would imagine that this may have been a
factor in making them stouter instruments. And were some of these developments
associated with musical trends?
RODNEY
REGIER: By the Liszt died in 1886, in fact by the late
1860’s, pianos were being made that are little different from those today.
There
were ample false starts during this transitional period, such as the
introduction – and abandonment – of mutation stops: multiple exotic effects
including the ring of Janissary [a musical style associated with the Turkish
military] bells, boom of a padded drum stick hitting the soundboard, or snarl
from brass strips or buzz of rolls of parchment dropped on the strings when
playing. These stops are the source of debate. They require planning by the
builder, are very expensive to make, and common in more lavish early 19th
century pianos. Yet, composers refer to them rarely, only implying their use in
such popular works of the time as Kočwara’s Battle
of Prague. I’ve always conjectured they were nothing more than crutches for
players who needed gadgets to mask not-very-good fingers.
"Papillons" by Robert Schumann
played by David Kim on an R. J. Regier piano
STEPHANIE
CHASE: I often play for a chamber music series in Houston
where we have historic keyboard instruments at our disposal, including a
Michael Rosenberger fortepiano from 1810. Among its special effects are a bell
and drum, operated by foot pedals, which means that the pianist has to pay
attention and not hit them by accident, which could be quite ruinous to the
music! Incidentally, we’ve never played anything that required these special
effects.
RODNEY
REGIER: Because of that peril, I’m almost always asked to
disconnect the Janissary pedal before a concert!
A
new device that did become integral to piano performance was the damper pedal.
Mechanisms to sustain sound by lifting all dampers appear in early pianos, but
in the form of hand stops, knee levers, or pedals at the corners of the
instrument, incarnations that are awkward for the player to use.
STEPHANIE
CHASE: My understanding is that, depending on the mechanism,
the player might have to stop playing in order to engage or disengage these.
And there’s recent controversy over what Mozart had available in his piano,
which has some strong musicological implications.
RODNEY
REGIER: Surviving early pianos document the movement of
pedals to where today we expect them, comfortably centered in front of the
player, where they can be incorporated in performance.
STEPHANIE
CHASE: Although pianist today often rely heavily on the
sustaining pedal, I find it interesting that Czerny noted that Beethoven was
able to produce a legato sound through his hand alone.
RODNEY
REGIER: Agreed. Too much pedaling by a pianist, or vibrato by
a violinist, becomes a crutch instead of a color and eliminates an entire
palette of expression.
STEPHANIE
CHASE: Even Mozart and his father, who was a noted
violinist, complained about excessive vibrato, which proves that it was used
during their era.
You
make a variety of historically-informed pianos and other keyboard instruments –
are these rigorous reproductions of original models or do you make some changes
in design, building techniques or materials?
RODNEY
REGIER: I work closely from surviving period pianos after
playing them, measuring them, and playing them again, repeatedly, attempting to
become familiar not only with specific instruments, but to gain a sense of a
broader historic and regional style. I’m as interested in the bouquet as the
individual flower.
North
American and European wood species are related, but as cousins, not siblings,
and they differ in mechanical and acoustical properties. The prototype
instrument in a new design is invariably closer dimensionally but farther
musically from its antecedents than later instruments I make from the same
plans, modified so their priorities are sound and touch rather than dimension.
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| Rodney Regier working on a keyboard |
STEPHANIE
CHASE: Ultimately, it’s the sound and response that matter.
Do you have a favorite kind or make of keyboard instrument, and why?
RODNEY
REGIER: My preference is to avoid listening to a ukulele.
Within my home are a harpsichord, differing numbers of fortepianos depending on
what’s in the shop, and a Steinway M studio grand. I cherish playing them all.
STEPHANIE
CHASE: How closely are these instruments and the music
composed for them intertwined?
RODNEY
REGIER: That’s a better question for a player than an
instrument maker, but on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say 8. Good players are good
players, regardless of their performance circumstances, and demand instruments
that are reliable, supple, and responsive. Yet, the instrument can make a
difference, particularly in works for smaller ensemble and voice. The
wood-framed piano’s lighter tone, sharper attack, and quicker decay create a
balance with its counterpart instruments that can be informative, even
revelatory. It is simply impossible, say, for a performance of the “Trout”
quintet [by Franz Schubert] to turn into a piano concerto accompanied by strings,
or for a pianist to overwhelm a singer in a Schubert cycle.
"Fantaisie, Op. 17 (first movement)" by Robert Schumann
played by Chi-Chen Wu on an R. J. Regier piano
STEPHANIE
CHASE: I played the “Trout” last season on original
instruments and find that in playing works with fortepiano that are of the era,
there is a naturalness that is really gratifying; articulations, tempos and
balances are generally not a problem. I’m also convinced that the introduction
of a more sustained sound – which coincided with the development of a style of
bow that also improves sostenuto –
helped bridge the transition from the Classical to Romantic style.
RODNEY
REGIER: Yes, and for the same reasons – and limitations - of
early piano voice, performances of works with full orchestra require great
care. Mozart concerti, for instance, with early instruments almost become chamber
music, skillfully written to feature a soloist. I find today’s conception of
balance is often unrealistic, driven by recordings of modern instruments in
which the soloist is exaggerated to heroism, and the listener hears every
noodle instead of a texture.
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| Rodney Regier adding the final touch |
STEPHANIE
CHASE: A basic of music performance is dynamics such as forte and piano – rather than just “loud” and “soft,” I think these markings
should also be interpreted as characters, such as “noble” and “confident” or
“uncertain” and “delicate.”
What
are the advantages of a reproduction instrument over an original?
RODNEY
REGIER: The owner of a well-preserved original is steward of
an invaluable musical touchstone for any player, listener, or maker. It would
be unwise, even immoral for certain instruments such as a fortepiano with
original action materials, particularly leathers and cloths, to be subjected to
the wear and perils of regular concert life: hot stage lights, dry wintertime
halls, careless handling, and the tendency for musicians to put their
instrument cases on any available flat surface, such as a piano lid. I occasionally
lease my own wood-framed pianos. They have been dropped; not unloaded by air
freight handlers, landing an instrument destined for St. Louis in Los Angeles
instead; and dented, the worst time ever by a hard cello case – containing a
priceless Goffriller! There would be tears first, but unlike an original, one
of my instruments could be replaced.
STEPHANIE
CHASE: As a violinist who frequently uses an 18th
century instrument, I am very mindful of the need to protect it.
What
are you working on now?
RODNEY
REGIER: I’m about to return a 5-octave fortepiano I made over
thirty years ago. It’s always gratifying to see that an instrument has been
played a lot, is maintained in good condition – and that my glue joints have
remained tight. On my helper’s workbench and mine now are two more 6 ½-octave
instruments, fortepianos of the style used by Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann,
and Beethoven in his later years.
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| Rodney Regier with an R. J. Regier Fortepiano |
STEPHANIE
CHASE: Finally, since the late 1970’s you have lived in a
lovely farmhouse in Maine, surrounded by fields and woods, with the barn as the
workshop where you build your instruments. It is about as far removed from
being a “factory” as can be imagined – do you take inspiration from your
surroundings?
RODNEY
REGIER: Certainly. A household joke has long been that
forestland is cheaper than a therapist. Space, calm, and introspective response
are luxuries today, but so very necessary for creative focus. I greet each
day’s sunrise thinking how fortunate I am to be at my old farm.
STEPHANIE
CHASE: It’s a wonderful place to visit, too! Thank you so
much for so generously sharing your time and expertise with us.
Links:
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