A royal grand piano

A grand piano manufactured by the legendary firm, the favorite brand of the King of Piano, winner of 25 Grammies Vladimir Horowitz, will be heard in Kyiv. The wonderful Steinway & Sons piano which has a unique sounding has been bought by the Kyiv-based Gliere Institute of Music. Young pianists and teachers will now have an opportunity to play on the dream instrument.

“Horowitz had several pianos, but he liked to play namely on the instruments of the world-renowned brand Steinway and even took them with him on tours,” reminded Yurii ZILBERMAN, director-general of the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz, pro-rector of the Gliere Kyiv Institute of Music. “In 1933, when Horowitz was getting married, Steinway presented him with his first grand piano, later he bought the instruments produced by this firm, because he considered them as royal instruments for pianists. Incidentally, on the company’s centennial, it gave a Steinway & Sons piano as a present to the famous musician again. This is a well-known piano firm in the US, which has been founded in 1853.

“We wanted to buy namely the instrument by this firm, but we knew it was too expensive. The piano costs 4.5 million hryvnias. We literally asked the Kyiv City Administration for 3.2 million (head of the KCSA Department of Culture Diana Popova allotted this sum for us). We started negotiations with Ukrainian-British company Komora, which deals with sound equipment and instruments. We agreed that they would sell a new Steinway piano to us at a lower prize, for 3.2 billion hryvnias, but they agreed to do this only because we are holding the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz. And this is a memory of the outstanding musician, as well as a promotion.

“Steinway & Sons is amazing in term of quality. I think today it’s the best grand piano in Ukraine. Incidentally, composer Igor Krutoy has recently presented a Steinway instrument to a Kirovohrad Music School. But it’s worse than ours.

“Today we can rejoice that we’ve bought the instrument at a lower price, although we had to pass several difficult circles connected with the bid, which was announced back in the end of October and we had faced the imperfection of our legislation. The thing is that any person who has a new grand piano can file a complaint – why they need Steinway, if I can offer a grand piano produced by the Red October factory, for example. Any complaint halts the bid for a two weeks’ period. And we have faced several attacks like this. According to the law, we cannot write that we want only Steinway, because in the application we should mention its analogue. We even don’t know who filed the complaints against us to the Anti-Monopoly Committee.

“Incidentally, the money is allotted not in January or February, it arrives six-nine months later. The time was passing by, we could not buy the instrument. But now we have passed all the obstacles and can breathe freely. The grand piano has been delivered to the Institute of Music. According to the procedure, the commission accepted the instrument, signed the act, and only then the money was transferred. You know, when they brought Steinway, all students and teachers of the instrument gathered to see it. They started to play, and no musician could let it go – the sound is simply divine.

“Incidentally, we have two wonderful instruments in our institute: Yamaha (a handmade instrument – granted by the government of Japan) and Steinway.

“There is more good news. The Kyiv City Council has allotted 12.4 million hryvnias for us, and next week we are going to receive nine new grand pianos. Finally we will cover many problems that have been present for many years. Our students are playing not instruments, but some firewood – the pianos bought 50-60 years ago. I want to thank the administration of the City Council. By helping us buy music instruments, they take care of the future.”