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A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano

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A Romance on Three Legs by Katie Hafner is a masterfully written story about Glenn Gould and his love for a Steinway piano called CD318. He found the love of his life long after he had become one of the most revered concert pianists and interpreters of Bach. Hafner tells about Gould's long search for his "perfect piano" which often involved skirmishes with the Steinway Co. who counted him as one of their most prestigious Steinway Artists.

Hafner relates how, quite by accident, Gould found the instrument of his dreams covered with dust in the back of Eaton's Department Store in Toronto. It was about to be shipped back to Steinway in New York. How this piano became the realization of Gould's ideal instrument involves the story of a blind boy, Verne Edquist, born in rural Sakatchewan. How Verne managed to rise from his poverty and handicap to be a very skilled technician and tuner of concert grands and Gould's personal assistant for many years is a moving story which goes hand in hand with CD318's story.

Hafner has carefully researched the history of the Steinway Co. and its method of producing a concert grand piano She tells in fascinating detail the intricate and labor intensive construction of the Steinway piano. Despite the technicalities of Hafner's description of this process, the reader will be able to understand and fully appreciate the making of the "Instrument of the Immortals."

If someone would have told me that I would be up reading this book at 2:00 am learning how someone voices a Steinway Piano, I would have said that they were nuts. But, it was true. Once I entered this Romance on Three Legs, I needed to hear how massaging of the felt, lacquering the soundboard and needling the hammers made each piano a unique sound and of unique personality.

Katie Hafner has taken this true story and created this wonderful voyage through intertwined stories of love and compassion. The feature story is about this eccentric, gifted pianist [Glenn Gould] and his search for his 88 key, life partner. But via Hafner's weaving of extraordinary detail, I found myself feeling close to this unloved, unappreciated, abandoned World War orphan piano [Steinway unit number CD318] and its quest for a caring home. Eventually the two find each other.

Then another compelling love story emerges. This one is about a once great manufacturer and its courtship of customers. Hafner takes us into the foundation and history of a last century institution called Steinway Piano. Like our `Breakfast of Champions' [Wheaties], we learn how Steinway goes to extraordinary measures to become known as the "Instrument of the Immortals".

For a while you feel that both romances are on safe footing. Then disaster strikes both.

Don't think of this book as a story written for students of music. This is a rich and enjoyable voyage about people, companies and their obsessive quest for perfection.

An engrossing account of concert pianist Glenn Gould's search for the perfect instrument. He had already passed out of his teen prodigy stage when, in l960, he found a battered Steinway grand in the back of an auditorium in Toronto. The CD 318, as it was known, was old and out of tune, but one touch of the keyboard and the artist apparently recognized his inanimate soul-mate. For almost a decade, Gould and a nearly-blind technician would toil over the piano in the pursuit of "perpetual refinement." The pair were searching for, what the author describes as, a "dry, clean, light" tone, something akin to a harpsichord's. And they were still inching toward perfection, when the CD 318 met its tragic demise.

Hafner's keen eye and ear illuminate a world where tones take on the characteristics of colors-- and the qualities of fine wines. There's never a false step, and her style is so hypnotic and personal that even the laymen among us come to love this ugly duckling of grands.

This book has inspired me to leave my first-ever Amazon review. Katie Hafner's masterful storytelling captivated me from page one and didn't lose me even once in 232 pages. She weaves the stories of the tortured Gould, his treasured concert grand and his surpassing tuner into a yarn so rich in carefully researched detail that you feel you're alongside Gould for every fateful turn in his "obsessive quest for the perfect piano." The deeply human drama includes artful explanations of the technology of piano-making and tuning in the early chapters --just enough to usher any non-musician into the rarefied orbit in which the piano known as CD 318 becomes an irresistible love object, not only for Gould but also for the reader. The writing is beautiful and economical, making for a quick read that is also intellectually rewarding. Besides all that, it's a fascinating--alternately hilarious, uplifting and heartbreaking-- exposition on the creative soul.

If you happened upon The New York Times book review of Romance, forget it. Read the Newsweek one instead (http://www.newsweek.com/id/142401), which is right on target. This is a marvelous story about the brilliant, eccentric Gould, the business-savvy Steinway Company, the unsung heroes also known as piano tuners, and most of all, about the sweet mysteries of the instrument itself. Every piano is unique, with its own personality, touch, tone and power (or lack of it). Hafner, a first-rate journalist who's done meticulous research, never forgets this focus, and everything in the book--the details about how a piano is made, regulating, voicing, tuning, the intensive care and feeding required by these fussy, high maintenance creatures--helps you understand what Gould was looking for and why. It's also a fun read. I savored it on the beaches of Virgin Gorda, so even though I was already in heaven, this book made my vacation all the more memorable.

I loved this book for a few reasons. The first being that I am a pianist - no where near Glenn Gould's level, but I have played classical music for the bulk of my life and even attended college pursuing a piano performance degree. Unlike Glenn Gould, however, I was more a fan of the romantics and really didn't "get" Bach. Until I heard him play it.

If you have never listened to Glenn Gould play Bach I encourage you to go and find a recording right now . It's nothing like you will have heard before. There is a mention in this book on how Gould says that he would not record a piece if he did not have something new to add to it. He set the standard for performances of Bach and I have yet to hear anything as unique and perfect as listening to him play it.

However, this is not a biography of Glenn Gould. It's more of a memoir of the piano, Steinway CD318. That's the second thing I loved about this book. I grew up in a home where many pianos went in and out of my life. I played on everything from Steinways and Bosendorfers to Yamahas and Wurlitzers. One of my favorite piano's was a little grand in a music store. It was a Petrof, a piano made in Czechoslovakia. I connected with that instrument in a way that I've never connected with one since. The tone seemed to make the music for me and the action made me feel as if I was at home. I've often wondered where that piano ended up and I hope it was as well cared for as I would have cared for it.

The only other instrument that came even close to having that kind of connection was when I had an opportunity to play on Artur Rubensteins piano as a teenager. My dad jokes to this day that it took that piano to teach me how to play a piece of music I'd been struggling on for months to master.

And lastly, this is a story about Verne, Gould's piano tuner and one of the main figures in CD318's life. This was a man who had only 10% of his vision, heard notes as colors and spent years perfecting his craft. He put up with so much of Gould's idiosyncrasies that just reading about it had me shaking my head and wondering at his patience.

My father tuned for years while I was growing up. He would rebuild, repair, restring and move pianos in and out of my life on a regular basis. I would often bemoan the fact that I'd just get to play the pianos in their beat up condition and that as soon as they reached a wonderful level they were sold off and replaced with another project. Later on in my lifetime I was thankful for that, as it provided me with the opportunity to adjust quickly to different pianos I performed on.

Glenn Gould refused to do that. He went through piano after piano and only his old Chickering and CD318 would do for him. The book is aptly titled.. for indeed this was a romantic story.

Like several of the other reviewers, I was skeptical that there was a need for another book about Glenn Gould. Before reading 'A Romance on Three Legs', my impression was that Gould is already well-represented on the printed page. After all, his own prolific words are still in print. As well, there is Kevin Bazzana's articulate, insightful and (seemingly) all-inclusive biography 'The Life and Art of Glenn Gould'(I HIGHLY recommend it). So, I was pleasantly surprised that 'A Romance...' not only presents well-known 'lore' in a pleasing fashion; but goes far beyond. It added nuance to my understanding of Gould's life and revealed much about the artistry (and consumerism) of the piano and recording industries. The book is studded with amusing, concise and penetrating biographies of craftsmen, technicians & scions of industry. If you have only a cursory interest in Glenn Gould, or, if you already have encyclopedic knowledge about him, either way, you will find much to enjoy in this very readable book.

You might think of esteemed pianist Glenn Gould as brilliant but eccentric, but wait until you read about his piano. _A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano_ (Bloomsbury) by Katie Hafner is about the three-legged instrument of Gould's passion, but it also is about a working triad: Gould, his piano, and the tuner who enabled the other two to get along. If you are a Gould fan, this volume can take an esteemed place among the biographies you have already read; it covers Gould's life, but mostly in regard to the instruments he used. The beauty of the book, though, is in those other two parts of the triad. It is quite amazing to read about how pianos get made and how their own personalities affect those who perform on them. It is also great fun to read about an artist in his own right, Verne Edquist, the tuner who was more than just a technician but functioned as an ambassador between the pianist and the piano. Hafner's beautifully balanced and richly detailed book will be good reading even if you don't know much about Gould; it's a pretty sure bet you don't know much about the fascinating world of tuners and pianos she covers here.

Gould was particular about his pianos, needing far more than a standard fine piano. He had a Chickering to practice upon at home, a small grand piano made in 1895. Its keyboard action, its touch, was perfect for him, but he could never perform a concert on it because it was too small and it had a banjo-like twang. It is Steinway CD 318 to which this book is devoted. CD 318 improbably came to birth during the years of World War II, when the Steinway firm's main products had been preempted by the war effort. Verne Edquist was a tuner working for a department store that housed CD318. He was born in 1931, one year before Gould, and had congenital cataracts which rendered him nearly blind, and he went into tuning as one of the traditional trades for blind people. Gould was impressed with the characteristics of CD 318 when he found it, pretty much abandoned at the department store, and he was delighted that Edquist was just as impressed with it. There were other tuners who worked on the piano if Gould was on the road, but the partnership with Edquist was just what Gould needed to continue his astonishing star turn, even after he had soured on public performances and begun concentrating only on recordings. His beloved piano (it was he who called it "a romance on three legs") had everything he needed, just the right touch and just the right sound, as long as Edquist could maintain it. CD 318 is so much a character of this book that it is sad, nay, tragic, that while it was being moved in 1971 it was dropped, giving it wounds from which it could never recover. Gould could not turn his back on his piano, though, and he and Edquist worked on making it playable, although it could no longer meet his standards. It is touching that upon trying the refurbished piano for the first time, he moaned, "This is not my piano. What has happened to my piano? I cannot play it; I cannot use it." He persevered to try to use his wounded instrument, and made recordings on it, but it could not perform the way it had. He had not encountered it when he made his first epochal recording of the _Goldberg Variations_, and when he went back for a second celebrated recording in 1981, CD 318 wasn't an option.

There are plenty of strange stories here about one of the most peculiar and accomplished musicians who ever lived, and some of them have turned up since Kevin Bazzana's terrific biography of Gould, _Wondrous Strange_. The lovely emphasis here, however, is on the triad of pianist, piano, and tuner, making this book a unique three-way biography. When Gould had to go on to other pianos made by Yamaha, he didn't need Edquist as much, and the two drifted apart without any schism; it is a tribute to Edquist's professionalism that he could work for the eccentric genius as long as he did. Gould died in 1982, only fifty. Edquist was called in to help install CD 318 in its permanent home at the National Library, and Gould's estate had stipulated that it can be tuned but cannot otherwise be modified; it is available to visiting performers. A fitting end to this story is that Gould's performance of Bach's _Prelude and Fugue in C_, recorded on CD 318 tuned by Edquist, is part of the recording sent on Voyager 1 in 1997 to the outer reaches of space. "When I heard that," said Edquist, "it was like a dream. There's Bach writing the music, Glenn is playing the music, and it's my tuning that's giving it voice. And it's going somewhere in outer space." Maybe millions of years from now, alien listeners will be amazed at the music; listeners on Earth will enjoy the music all the more after gaining the insights within this delightful book.

This book was my first introduction to Glenn Gould, other than a vague familiarity with the name. Hafner's book made me interested in hearing his recordings, now that I have some insight into the musician as well as the character. I enjoyed it as a story, and as a chance to learn far more about the piano as an instrument. Since my wife is a pianist with a couple of 90+ year-old Steinways, I'm finally getting what's involved in rebuilding one of these.

You don't have to be a Gould aficionado to enjoy this read.

"A Romance on Three Legs" falls into the category of "Who knew?" books. As in, "Who knew that a story about pianos and piano tuning, of all things, could be so engrossing?" But Katie Hafner has done what writers like John McPhee do -- taken what might at first glance seem to be a mundane subject and given it great vibrancy and life. Of course, "A Romance on Three Legs" turns out to be not really about pianos and piano tuning, but about people -- about Glenn Gould and his strange obsessiveness, and about Gould's longtime technician, Verne Edquist, and his dogged efforts to satisfy his boss. Along the way you do learn a lot about pianos and what makes them tick, thanks to Hafner's clear and engaging writing. But it's the stories of Gould, Edquist and others that elevate this book far above the ordinary -- stories that Hafner has told exceedingly well.