Unseen art gives voice to concert halls' best

Glenn Easley's skill comes from 10 years of apprenticeship and a sensitive ear. Photo / William Dart

The piano technician is one of the unsung heroes of music and Glenn Easley looks to the world of motor racing to explain his job.

"If we were talking Formula 1, I wouldn't be the one welding the chassis," he says. "I'd be doing the fine tweaking in the pit."

A sunny day north of Albany finds the affable Yorkshireman working al fresco at a disembowelled keyboard. In front of that instrument is a spread of instruments resembling something between a carpenter's toolkit and a surgeon's cabinet.

Around the table are two of Easley's Global Piano Services colleagues. The voluble Peter Salisbury handles all the pianos at London's Royal Festival Hall, while Toronto-based George Kolasis is introduced as "the most respected Bosendorfer man in the world".

The conversation teems with reminiscences of the greats; Kolasis worked alongside Oscar Peterson for 20 years while Salisbury recounts experiences with Daniel Barenboim and Alfred Brendel, famously pernickety about his instruments.

Easley approves of his stance. "You listen to Brendel's recordings and the sound is liquid," he says. "His touch is so absolutely perfect that even if anything sounds uneven the problem is with the instrument."

Easley has his own stories, many about the Auckland Museum's much-missed Fazioli International Piano Recital Series that he set up in 2007.

The Russian Alexander Melnikov has been a friend for 20 years, both men pilot their own aeroplanes and "New Zealand gave us our first chance to fly together".

Nikolai Demidenko is "one of the biggest characters in my life", Easley says. The Russian may deal out Brahms and Rachmaninov on stage, but off-stage he listens to Art Tatum and Led Zeppelin. Once, he even reeled off Tiger Rag for the astonished Easley. "There's not many on the classical side who can turn a hand to absolutely anything."

It's the recommendation of these men, with others such as Stephen Hough and Peter Jablonski, that has secured Global Piano Services international contracts in Australia and Singapore.

Voicing a piano is a complex art, a skill that comes from 10 years of apprenticeship and a rigorously sensitive ear. Using a range of needles, from the delicate no 9 to a no 3 that could knit a sturdy scarf, the piano technician modifies the density of the instrument's hammer felt to find the right sound for the right composer.

"You need to listen to a lot of different recordings and pianos," Easley explains. "If you could look at the sound that's needed for a Brahms Concerto, it would be shaped like the top of a mosque, with all this breadth and depth but not a lot of top.

"On the other hand, if a pianist has to play the Grieg Concerto in the Aotea Centre, you need a certain brilliance with an edge to it that will cut through the orchestra. It's something you need to think about when a hall has a number of pianos - one has got to be able to do Grieg."

Easley explains how it can take up to 40 hours to voice a piano from scratch and how instruments can have their own inherent personality.

"Sometimes you recognise early on what the piano wants to be. And if that's a mellow chamber music instrument, you'll be fighting to make it into a Prokofiev instrument. It's always going to want to revert."

Easley may have trained in Hamburg's Steinway factory, but he's an ardent admirer of Fazioli pianos.

Paolo Fazioli balanced a scientific approach with the idea of making a piano that would create a sound that was already in his head. "Every Fazioli I've heard has been better than the last one."