Tools of the trade

RICHARD GINELL’S premise for his article on Horowitz’s piano is ridiculous [“As Barry Bonds, So Mr. Horowitz,” June 18]. A piano mechanism isn’t a fixed universal truth, like mathematics, to which players have to adhere, and to suggest that tinkering with it is a sort of “cheating” is absurd. To have a piano adjusted to a player’s own fingers’ preferences, to have the hammers voiced to provide the sound desired -- these are simply what any expert musician would try to do to make the tools at his disposal work for his own performance of music. That Horowitz made the effort to adjust his piano to his own sensibility, and had the money to travel with his own instrument, shows nothing but dedication. And if he was happiest with a looser action, it is to his credit that he experimented with the tool of his trade and found that it worked better for him.

Horowitz didn’t just accept whatever he was handed; he questioned what he had and looked for improvements from the point of view of his artistic goals. This is an example we should all emulate in all aspects of our lives.

MICHAEL ZARKY

Moorpark