Byline: Paula J. Owen

ASHBURNHAM - Today, concert pianists Cullan Bryant and Dr. Dmitry Rachmanov will perform at the Ashburnham Community Church for this year's fall concert series held by the Piano Study Center.

The concert is the second of five in the series.

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Today's concert will be one of the few times more than one piano from the center is used in a concert, Mrs. Frederick said. Two pianos will be used to represent Beethoven and two of his teachers. One of Beethoven's last pieces, "Grosse Fugue," originally written for a string quartet and later written for piano by the composer, will be played. It will be played on the Caspar Katholnig piano made in Vienna around 1805 to 1810 and was the last type of piano Beethoven was able to hear well enough before he went too deaf, Mr. Frederick said.

"Towards the end, he couldn't hear what he or others were doing," he said.

When Beethoven played softly before he went totally deaf, he couldn't hear the music, so as his deafness worsened, he couldn't tell the difference when he was not hitting the strings on the piano at all, Mr. Frederick said.

"Beethoven could have had a Casio keyboard and it would not have made a difference at the end," he said. "The sound that counts is the sound he was hearing in his head and we don't have direct access to that, but we do to the pianos he could hear before he went deaf."

The two performers will play pieces by Beethoven and two of his teachers.

Pianist Mr. Bryant is among the most active chamber and collaborative pianists in New York City, maintaining a schedule of more than 70 recitals a year. He has performed with many world-class artists. He started playing when he was 2 and gave his first public recital at 6.

Mr. Rachmanov has performed all over the world and is a sought-after educator and master class clinician, teaching at the Manhattan School of Music and Roosevelt University and currently as chair of the keyboard instruments department at California State University at Northridge.

Before and after today's concert, titled "Master and Pupil, Music for piano, four hands by Beethoven and his teachers," the pair will make the only known recording of the music on a period piano, Mrs. Frederick said.

Worcester's soprano Maria Ferrante will also perform, and there will be a brief and rare vocal performance by Mrs. Frederick.

The pianos at the Study Center were acquired by the Fredericks in basically good condition, with most of their original materials intact, including the soundboards, and were restored for playing, Mr. Frederick said.

The Fredericks emphasize the center is not a museum and the pianos in the collection are meant to be seen and played.

The goal of the Study Center, Mrs. Frederick said, is to match each instrument to a specific composer, or generation of composers, known to have used or preferred that make and vintage of piano to let pianists hear what the composers writing the music would have heard at the time.

"These pianos will do things for the music that the modern pianos simply cannot achieve," Mr. Frederick said.

The pianos represent music from Haydn and Beethoven through the French Impressionists, he said.

Mr. Frederick analogized it to a craftsman choosing the right tool for the job.

"Different tools, like different types of chisels, for instance, work better for certain tasks," he explained. "When you are first starting out, you may not have all the tools you need and use what you have to get the job done. Here, we have the possibility of using the right one."

Schuman's pieces, for example, have a lot of interesting left hand parts that are swallowed up in the thicker sounds of the modern piano, he said, and the pianist has to compromise to bring out those effects written into the original piece.

"This liberates people from standardization," he said. "We expect pianos to be one-size-fits-all for the latest thing written yesterday."

When people visit the center, the Fredericks start with the modern and work their way backwards, they said, to avoid culture shock. Visitors often mistake the modern sounds of the piano as progress because its sound is familiar, they said. They said many modern-day pianists also operate under the misconception that older things go slowly, but in fact, it is the modern pianists that play much more slowly and more heavily than their predecessors, Mr. Frederick said.

"Pianos sound the way they do because people want them to," he said.

What makes the difference in sound is size and weight, Mr. Frederick said. The size and weight of the hammers, the length of the strings, and the larger size of the sounding board. The construction of the modern piano is made to project in a large hall versus the palaces or large homes in which they would have been played during the composers' times.

Matching a piano at the center with a piece written during the piano's heyday keeps the sound produced truer to what was intended by the composer at the time.

"The pianist can emphasize the effects the composer was looking for and they learn what to pursue and what is not appropriate," he said.

Mrs. Frederick played softly a piece of Chopin's music on an 1800's Erard, a larger sounding piano than the composer would have used to write the piece at the time.

"It's still like a big lion," Mr. Frederick said. "But, she is playing it softly so it's like a big lion purring. It's not the family cat."

The Fredericks' piano collection of nearly two dozen historical pianos was originally housed in their home until it was relocated in the fall of 2000 to Ashburnham's former Stevens Library building, next to Town Hall, where the instruments can be seen and heard to better advantage, Mrs. Frederick said.

The 1890 building was renovated by Historical Piano Concerts Inc., thanks to the financial and in-kind generosity of many supporters, she added. The center leases the building from the town and has had visitors from all over the world.

The Study Center is open year-round to the public for tours on Thursdays from 10 am. to 4 p.m., on Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m. and at other times by appointment. The Fredericks request that visitors contact the center in advance, even when planning a tour on a day when it is open, to avoid having too many people drop in at one time. During cold winter weather, the Study Center is heated only to 50 degrees, to help keep the humidity at an optimum level for the instruments. Guests should dress warmly, Mrs. Frederick said.

All concerts in the series start at 4 p.m. in Ashburnham Community Church. Admission is $10, and students and children are free. Concerts are scheduled for Sept. 14 and 21, and Oct. 12 and 19, and each features the works of a different composer.

For more information, call (978) 827-6232 or visit www.frederickcollection.org.

Piano Study Center Fall Concert Series

When: 4 p.m. Sept. 14 and 21, and Oct. 12 and 19.

Where:

Ashburnham Community Church,12 Chapel St.,Ashburnham.

How much: Admission $10, students and children are free.

ART: PHOTOS

CUTLINE: (1) Ashburnham residents Edmund M. Frederick, left, and Patricia Frederick stand in the midst of their collection of historic pianos at the Ashburnham Piano Study Center. (2) A Caspar Katholnig piano, made in Vienna, is on display at the Piano Study Center. Pianists from all over come to play on the rare pianos.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff Photos/TOM RETTIG