The autographs of 38 world-renowned classical music artists have been discovered on a 59-year-old grand piano used at a civic hall in Fukuoka’s Chuo Ward and the Fukuoka Sunpalace concert hall in the city’s Hakata Ward.
It is extremely rare for a piano to have autographs of so many famous musicians.
A committee for a project to preserve the piano, headed by Nishinippon Shimbun President Kenya Shibata, announced a plan on July 29 to restore the musical instrument as a cultural legacy.
The piano will undergo repair work for a year and will be played at a concert scheduled to be held around mid-October next year at the civic hall.
After a Fukuoka resident sent the information on the piano to the Nishinippon Shimbun in 2020, it took about a year to find out who the autographs belonged to, according to the conservation committee.
The committee said it has identified 32 of the 38 autographs. They were written by famous pianists including Wilhelm Kempff of Germany, Emil Gilels of Russia and Arthur Rubinstein of Poland, as well as baritone singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau from Germany.
The Fukuoka Municipal Government purchased the 1963 Hamburg Steinway piano and installed it in the civic hall when it opened that year.
The piano was moved to Fukuoka Sunpalace in 1981 and appears to have been in use until around 2007. After that, it was displayed in the lobby and wasn’t used for performances.
After the piano's restoration, the committee plans to place it in the Fukuoka Art Museum in the city’s Chuo Ward.
A workshop in Saitama Prefecture will be entrusted with the repair work at a cost of some ¥18 million ($133,400). The committee hopes to raise some ¥10 million through crowdfunding, including by soliciting donations from local residents.
“We hope residents’ power will breathe life into and revive (the piano), leading to an increase in the attractiveness of Fukuoka,” Shibata said at a news conference in July.
Hiroko Kokubu, a renowned Japanese jazz pianist, said in a message, “I support this project wholeheartedly.”
Among those who left autographs on the piano are prestigious pianists, singers and a flutist who are said to be among the best performers in the 20th century, meaning it is a valuable musical instrument that conveys Fukuoka’s embrace of classical music in the postwar period.
Besides Rubinstein (1887-1982), regarded at the time as the best performer of works by Frederic Chopin, the piano has been signed by Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007), a world-renowned cello player and conductor from the Soviet Union.
Pianist Kiyoko Tanaka (1932-1996), who in 1955 became the first Japanese person to finish as a finalist in the International Chopin Competition, also signed the piano.
“If you compare it with pop music, it’s like Michael Jackson and the Beatles signing an autograph on the same piano,” a committee secretariat official said. “We believe there is no other such case in the world.”
Performers often leave autographs or stickers on the walls of concert halls, but it is rare for musicians to sign their autograph on a piano, since some artists prefer not to play a musical instrument signed by their rivals.
Music experts and performers are pinning their hopes on the value and conservation of the piano.
“I’m surprised that there are so many autographs,” said music critic Hazuki Kosaka. “It is like collaboration among great artists going across time.”
Akane Yoshida, a pianist based in Fukuoka, said, “They are all artists whose performances I have listened to on CD since childhood.”
After it is restored, “it is important that it can be used casually in a public space,” Yoshida said.
“Musical instruments are given life only when they are played,” pianist Ikuyo Nakamichi said at the news conference held by the committee.
“Through restoration, our hopes will be handed down, and the fact that we have fostered this much (hope) will become a driving force” for the next generation of performers, Nakamichi said.
This section features topics and issues from the Kyushu region covered by the Nishinippon Shimbun, the largest daily newspaper in Kyushu. The original article was published July 30.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.