The truth is that most musicians I know have pretty rough pianos at home (not to mention the hi-fi systems on which they listen to music \u2013 and balance their coffee cups). It’s not just a question of the cost of a fine concert grand, although I found it difficult to discover the current price of a nine-foot Steinway on the internet: “if you have to ask, you can’t afford” perhaps? It’s also that I find it hard to work well on a gleaming young beast and I prefer to be hidden away somewhere with a gnarled, weather-beaten old joanna. I also don’t want to own an instrument that makes every concert hall experience a disappointment. In my New York apartment \u2026\u00a0 for a day here and there \u2026 I have to confess \u2026\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0is the piano I work on.<\/p>\n For the rest of his blog entry, click here<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I was actually thinking about this when Stephen Hough was playing his encore the other night after Liszt’s 2nd Concerto. I know that most other instrumentalists buy the best instruments they can (or sometimes cannot) afford. Why not? You carry your instrument with you wherever you go, and you never know the quality of the hall, orchestra, or pianist that you will find yourself playing with. So a great instrument is a blessing.<\/p>\n But what if you are a concert pianist?<\/p>\n Wouldn’t having an incredible instrument at home be a curse? What would happen if you found yourself playing incredibly intricate music that calls for infinite variations of shading and color and dynamics, and you found this awaiting you:<\/p>\n That would not be a pretty picture for our indefatigable piano soloist! So it makes sense that one would have some sort of serviceable upright somewhere outside of one’s main home (I’m presuming that Mr. Hough spends most of his time in the UK, not in New York). Then, you’d find some good examples of grand pianos to do some real quality practicing on, or have a grand piano at one’s home base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stephen Hough, in a recent blog entry, answered an oft-asked question directed towards him: what kind of piano do you play on at home? Here’s what he said: The truth is that most musicians I know have pretty rough pianos at home (not to mention the hi-fi systems on which they listen to music \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1027],"tags":[3287,3288,3285,53,1166,3286],"class_list":["post-12512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-piano-music","tag-grand","tag-junk","tag-own-piano","tag-piano","tag-stephen-hough","tag-upright"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3fO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1497,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/07\/stephen-hough-as-teacher\/","url_meta":{"origin":12512,"position":0},"title":"stephen hough as teacher","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We all know the pianist Stephen Hough as one of the most briliant pianists on the concert stage today, but he's also very much in demand as a teacher.\u00c2\u00a0 Here's an excerpt of a master class DVD on which he teaches the Liszt Spanish Rhapsody and the Hungarian Rhapsody No.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "education"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5587,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/11\/20\/stephen-hough-loves-chocolate-in-portland\/","url_meta":{"origin":12512,"position":1},"title":"stephen hough loves chocolate in portland","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Stephen Hough, our piano soloist this weekend (in the Liszt First Piano Concerto), arrived in Portland yesterday, and he quickly discovered the amazing chocolate shop (Cacao) which is conveniently located between the lobby of the Heathman Hotel (where most of our soloists stay) and the stage door of the hall.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "piano"","block_context":{"text":"piano","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/instruments\/piano-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Stephen-Hough-High-Res-3-credit-Grant-Hiroshima-267x400.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":299,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/29\/post-concert-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":12512,"position":2},"title":"post-concert thoughts","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight we did our first of two concerts of this classical subscription set. The works were Stravinsky's Concerto in D for string orchestra, Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra, and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 with pianist Stephen Hough. As you might guess, the theme of the concert is that all of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Igor Stravinsky","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/436px-igor_stravinsky_loc_32392u.thumbnail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12486,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/21\/angry-symphony-guy-strikes-again-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12512,"position":3},"title":"angry symphony guy strikes again!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"From Angry Symphony Guy (aka Classical Beaver, Brian Horay, Huffington Post guest blogger) posting at the Portland Mercury arts listing pages: STEPHEN HOUGH, OREGON SYMPHONY (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) Chief cultural blogger for the Telegraph of London.\u00a0Prodigious recorder of more than 50 albums.\u00a0MacArthur genius.\u00a0Theologian. Poet. Queer activist.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1506,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/09\/hough-blows-down-the-house\/","url_meta":{"origin":12512,"position":4},"title":"hough blows down the house","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo: Oregon Symphony While it was great to hear the entire second act of The Nutcracker with the orchestra front and center (and sans dancers), and to hear the seldom-heard Coronation March, the main focus of our just concluded classical series devoted to Tchaikovsky was his mammoth Second Piano Concerto\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/stephen-hough1-400x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12525,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/03\/05\/criticizing-the-critic\/","url_meta":{"origin":12512,"position":5},"title":"criticizing the critic","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In today's New York Times Anthony Tommasini reviewed pianist Stephen Hough's recital at Carnegie Hall. A major component of Hough's recital was a piece of his own invention, his Piano Sonata No. 2 \"Notturno Luminoso\". My problem with this review is that there seems to be no critic alive (with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Stephen-Hough.jpg?fit=300%2C276&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/files\/2013\/02\/Avant-Grand.jpg?w=580\")
<\/p>\n![\"piano\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/piano-photoshoot.jpg?resize=580%2C401\")
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