Today I went to a Steinway Piano Sale event. I didn’t really expect to buy a Steinway, it’s just hard for me to resist the opportunity to play a Steinway. So I arrived and entered the showroom, trying to get as much time on a piano as I could before the salesman started talking about money.
As I entered the showroom, I noticed an elderly man tuning one of the Steinways, I didn’t really think about it too much. I just wanted to get my hands on the nearest Steinway. So I started playing and just enjoying the tones coming out of the Steinway. While I’m playing, I hear the elderly man start to talk in his thick German accent. He’s telling stories about his career. I hear him mentioning names like Rubinstein, Harowitz, and Carnegie Hall.
It turns out this man is Franz Mohr. Now this name probably doesn’t mean anything to you (I know it didn’t mean anything to me). But it also turns out that Franz Mohr was the piano technician and friend to some of the world’s greatest pianists, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, and Glenn Gould to name a few.
He has traveled with these men to places like the White House, Carnegie Hall, and the Grand Kremlin in Moscow. He also said he has met the 5 past Presidents of the United States traveling with these pianists.
He told me many amazing stories, I’ll share one with you about Horowitz and Gorbachev.
Vladimir Horowitz and Franz were getting ready for a performance for Gorbachev. Franz said that Horowitz was especially nervous this night. He was afraid the audience was going to be very cold. He knew that Franz was a Christian man so he asked him to pray for him. So Franz prayed for his friend.
The performance started with Horowitz playing some Schubert, the audience was how he expected them - cold. They gave a quiet disciplined applause for each piece. According to Franz, after Horowitz finished the Schubert piece there was a long pause. Franz said he was praying very intensely for his friend, not knowing what to expect next.
Suddenly Horowitz started to play a Russian folk song, he started singing the words as well. The audience is surprised at first, then starts to join in. By the end of the song even Gorbachev is standing, singing along. At the end of the song the audience is all to their feet screaming and yelling.
Franz said he’ll never forget that night…
I didn’t end up buying a Steinway today, although Franz assured me I would never regret it. But I did meet an amazing man. The kind of man that makes you proud just to shake his hand.