Piano Technician Franz Mohr

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Like so many other professional positions which are held by “support personnel,” the piano
technician is usually forgotten... unless, of course, something unintended happens during the
performance! Franz Mohr, who was the Chief Concert Technician for Steinway, could (and
does) tell stories about both the spectacular and the mundane.

Starting out as a violinist who was physically injured, Mohr stayed in the music business and
became the most trusted and respected exponent of those who labor behind the scenes,
making sure that each and every note on the piano being played is just right in pitch and
adjustment. Servicing these keyboards both in the studio and onstage, Mohr allows the
performers to focus their entire attention on the art, knowing that their instrument will
respond to each and every nuance and the slightest hint of color.

The biggest names in the piano world asked for Mohr specifically and relied on him
completely — Van Cliburn, Arthur Rubinstein, and perhaps most notably Vladimir
Horowitz. Mohr’s devotion to this giant extended after his death to keep his piano in perfect
playing condition so that others could then play it and even make a few recordings. Steinway
sent The Horowitz Piano around “on tour” in 1992, and as he had done so often with the
performer, Mohr traveled with that instrument. While they were in Chicago I had the chance
to speak with the man who was always happy to be just offstage and out of the spotlight.

We met in the showroom that exclusively offered the Steinway line in Chicago. He was in
very good humor and we laughed and nudged each other many times along the way.

Bruce Duffie: You are the chief technician for Steinway Pianos?

Franz Mohr: That’s correct, and for many years now. But I’m not the only technician
there at Steinway; our responsibility has so grown! When I first started out we were just two
technicians.

BD: Two technicians for how many pianos?

FM: For about fifty or so concert grand pianos in the New York area.

BD: These were the ones that were used in concert, not the ones being sold to individuals
for their homes?

FM: Exactly, exactly; all concert department. When I came from Germany in 1962 — I
had my job before I came — I became the assistant to Bill Hupfer, who was the Chief
Concert Technician at that time. Bill was a real legend. He was around for many, many
years, and has tuned for Paderewski, Myra Hess and all those people. But he traveled all his
life with Rachmaninoff, and later he had Horowitz, and when Bill retired, I simply took over
that responsibility.

BD: When was this?

FM: This was a few years later, about ’65. I simply inherited all those people, like
Rubinstein and Rudy Serkin and Horowitz.

BD: Did it take a little time for them to get used to you?

FM: Absolutely! Yeah.

BD: Did it take time for you to get used to them?

FM: Absolutely! I remember with Horowitz especially. To this very day, I still tune the
piano in the Horowitz home, every month. Nobody plays it, but we keep it up.

BD: Do you keep it up the way he had requested it to be, with his settings and everything?

FM: Exactly, exactly. But at first, Bill would take me there. We went a couple of times
and Horowitz he didn’t even show his face. He was very much in seclusion at that time,
although he did recordings. They were not really silent years; they were silent as far as the
public is concerned because he didn’t play publicly. It took quite a few months, then all of a
sudden, when I was in the home and had tuned the piano, he came down. I guess I was lucky
enough that he liked me, and from that time on he always would come down as soon as he
heard me finishing up my tuning. He would come down and talk or play.

BD: Am I correct that he would use a different piano for

touring and yet another one for recording?

FM: Exactly, exactly. Over the years, I recall, about six

pianos which he has used.

BD: Would all of them have to be kept exactly the same?

FM: No. No, no. At least among the Steinways, there are
not two pianos exactly alike; it’s an impossibility. They might
come close, and of course he changed his taste over the years. For instance, that very, very
super brilliant sound — which at one point he liked very much — gave way to a much more
mellow sound.

BD: But you must regulate to his touch, no matter which piano he is using.

FM: Oh, absolutely! But I could not give the same touch, which this Horowitz piano has,
to every Steinway. That’s an impossibility. A piano is born with certain ways; it feels and it
plays, and you can only do so much!

BD: So Horowitz selected the pianos that would come closest to what he wanted, and then
you would regulate them?

FM: Exactly, exactly! Then there’s still a way to go to build the tone which he likes, but a
piano is born a certain way and you have to work with what is there.

BD: You got to know what Horowitz liked and what Rubinstein liked and what all of these
other pianists liked...

FM: Yeah, absolutely! For instance, Rubinstein would have never, ever played this
particular piano which is a Horowitz piano. That action would have been much, much too
responsive for him, too light for him, so to speak. It would have run away from him; he
would not have been able to control it. And besides that, he would have looked for a much
different sound.

BD: So he could have played it, but it wouldn’t have been the Rubinstein sound?

FM: No, absolutely not! I’m not saying one was greater than the others; Rubinstein was a
marvelous pianist, but entirely different than Horowitz. Rubinstein needed a piano where he
would feel some resistance in the action, and which had a much warmer or broader sound, or
a deeper, darker sound. A Horowitz piano is much more focused; the sound is much more
brilliant.

BD: Approximately how long does it take to get a piano from one city to another city — to
pack it, send it and then get it set up again?

FM: Oh, a relatively short time. Nothing will happen to the piano unless you drop
it! [Both laugh]

BD: You mean they treat it just like a piece of luggage???

FM: Of course, no, no, no, no! When we traveled with the Horowitz piano, we had a
special box with it, a big traveling box, and I had a special compartment in there which I
could lock up. It had a second set of tools and strings and all these kind of things which I
might have needed. But no, it doesn’t suffer at all, except of course if it would get ice cold
— if they would have kept it on a non-heated truck on a cold winter night. Of course then it
takes quite some time before a piano really warms up again.

BD: I assume that Steinway took care to make sure that didn’t happen.

FM: Yes, but it has happened.

BD: Once you get the piano set up in the new hall, about how long does it take to regulate
it?
FM: Not much at all. It wouldn’t change much, but I would need a few hours to set it
up. With Horowitz, the work was relatively very, very easy in the sense that he was very
consistent in what he was doing. He played only one concert a week, which was on Sunday
afternoon, and he had his rehearsal on Saturday, which was marvelous! It’s very easy. He
never would practice on the day of his performance.

BD: That made it easy for you.

FM: Oh, absolutely! I could go sight seeing all week, you know! [Both laugh] I took my
wife with me and my daughter sometimes.

BD: Were you regulating other pianos, or were you exclusively with this one piano?

FM: I was exclusively for Horowitz. Of course many times I would do some things for
Steinway such as look at a piano, or help an artist out. Or I might have taught a class to piano
technology, like when I was in Japan and they called all the technicians together.

BD: Are there schools of piano technology now?

FM: Sure. There are good ones in Germany, and we have a few good ones here,
too. There’s one in Boston, and there are several schools. Over the years it got better; if you
really want to learn today, you can.

BD: Is it good that the public is generally unaware of your presence, or would you like to
be noticed?

FM: Oh, I like to be in the background, Bruce, very, very much!

BD: [With a gentle nudge] You don’t want your name in the program?

FM: No, no, no, no! No, no, no, I’m so happy to be in the background, believe me! The
only time I ever sat in the hall during a concert was right here in Chicago at Orchestra Hall. I
shouldn’t have done it, but I did it. He had played his concert in Carnegie Hall with
tremendous success after a certain year silence, and he said, “I want to play Chicago. There’s
a good hall, I remember.” He was always very, very conscious about acoustics. The
acoustics had to be right, it had to be his own piano and his own piano tuner. Then he was
comfortable. He talked about Orchestra Hall; he always loved to play here, so he came. But
things were very tense at that time, even in the rehearsals. He had to live up to that
tremendous reputation which he had built. But one day he said to me, “I have a ticket for
you. Everything is fine with the piano. You sit the first tier there.” I’ll never, ever forget
it! I can’t tell you the date, but it must have been ’67 or ’68, around that time. We were
sitting there, and of course it’s hard to enjoy it when you are so tense, you know. But then he
played his first piece, which was a Haydn sonata. It wasn’t even Scarlatti! But I remember
he went backstage after the first piece, and for the longest time he didn’t come onstage to go
on with his program! I had already funny feelings, you know! Sure enough, the door opened
in back of us and they said, “Is the piano tuner here?” So I run, and it took quite some time to
get downstairs and then backstage. Horowitz was furious! He said, “I played so many wrong
notes! Somebody touched my stool! It’s much too high, it’s much too high!”

BD: So it wasn’t the piano, it was the stool?

FM: It was the stool, not the piano! So I said, “Maestro, what do you want me to do?” He
said, “Lower it! Lower it!” I said, “But how much?” Well, then he showed me with his
fingers, about a quarter of an inch. So I walked out onstage to lower it, and of course you
know what people thought. The performer always comes on and they clap. I took a few
bows! [Both laugh] So I adjusted the chair, and from that time on, Bruce, I never ever went
into the audience. Always I’ve been backstage. It was much more comfortable if he needed
me for something. And never anything really happened, except in Carnegie Hall once he
broke a string. I was right there and had to go and take it out.

BD: Did you replace it or just leave it?

FM: No, no. He tried, even, to go on with his playing, but he couldn’t because the string
was buzzing; it was laying on the others. And he was so good! I’ll never forget this! I have
a whole series of pictures of that; somebody with a camera took pictures. You know, I’m
writing my book, My Life with the Pianists, and it’s coming out next month. They might be
in there, so you’ll see me walking out onstage. And Horowitz always was so good! He’d
comfort me. I was kneeling down next to him to get my tools out, and he said, “Franz, it’s
very good. Don’t worry; it’s very good.” He said that to take some pressure off, you
know. “We’ll start all over again. Don’t worry.” He was so good! So I simply took the
string out.

BD: Was it over two notes, or was it two strings on one note?

FM: It was in the bass. I’ll never forget; it was the A flat, which has two strings. So I took
that out, and that’s all I did. There’s nothing to it! Anyone can do this.

BD: Did that rob him of any sound, because he was getting less resonance on that one note?

FM: Yeah, but you wouldn’t hear the difference, really. Of course the note itself was
weaker, having only one string.

* * * * *

BD: You say that it’s good that you were kept in the background, but people who own
pianos, especially bigger and better pianos, should know that they should be tuned and
regulated regularly.

FM: Absolutely, absolutely! It always breaks my heart that people who have basically
excellent pianos — let’s say, an excellent Steinway — and are not taking care of their
instrument! They might even be piano teachers!

BD: Okay, for the average piano in the average home, how often should it be tended to?

FM: It depends upon the location of the piano. Pianos should never be in a window or near
a radiator. It is always good to keep it on an inside wall. That is very good.

BD: For a more constant temperature?

FM: Yeah, the temperature should be constant, consistent. And then furthermore, it
shouldn’t be too humid or too dry. That’s very, very important. I always tell the people,
“Get a hygrometer and check your room out before you do anything.”
BD: What should it be?

FM: Between forty-five and sixty-five percent relative

humidity. Then you are comfortable, too! [Both laugh] And
the piano is comfortable. If you have that, if you have
consistency, you won’t believe how it pays off for the
piano. Let me tell you a story. We have our concert hall in
the Metropolitan Museum in New York. I don’t know of any
other place which is so sophisticated when it comes to
climate controlled rooms. Those guys check it all day
long! Here comes a guy, and he checks it, but it results in a piano which stays in tune and
regulation. You won’t believe it! The last concert was three months ago; we come to that
piano and it’s well in tune. You hardly have to do anything. It’s right there. It’s
amazing! But you put a piano in the window...

BD: It’s going to fluctuate all the time?

FM: Oh, you won’t believe how much! But in a normal case, a piano should be tuned at
least twice or three times a year to keep it up. And if you play normally, let’s say you play it
two or three hours a day, then the piano should definitely be regulated every fourth or fifth
year. Somebody, an expert technician, should come and spend a day on it.

BD: But people don’t do this?

FM: No, unfortunately not.

BD: Concert pianists probably do this in their homes, and in the concert grands, and
everything?

FM: Yeah, yeah.

BD: What about pianists who have a wonderful piano at home but don’t travel with their
own piano? Do they find it difficult...
FM: ...Oh yeah, definitely, definitely, to adjust to different instruments, definitely.

BD: Is a tuner such as yourself able to help them along, to make the piano that they
encounter in the hall as similar as possible to the one in their home?

FM: Oh, yeah, absolutely! You can help a good deal. I’m always amazed myself, with
available time, what you can do with an instrument if you know what you are doing! It’s
amazing and it’s very important. I teach this all the time to my technicians, that when you
have a piano, you evaluate it, see what it needs and which condition it is. Then you have
available time — whatever it is, three hours or eight hours — to work on it. And then comes
the most important question — what do I accomplish in those eight hours? And if I have
only three hours, I can still accomplish a lot, but I must cut certain things off which are not so
important, which are secondary importance. It’s amazing how many technicians never really
learn that! With available time, you need to accomplish the most. I have traveled with artists
who would use a local piano. For instance, I toured way back with Sviatoslav Richter and
also with Emil Gilels, and they would use the local piano. Many times you come into a local
situation and the piano needs a lot of work. The best Steinway is only as good as the
technician is who services it. This is absolutely true! Sometimes I worked ‘til the last
minute, without dinner. I’m usually looking forward to taking care of my piano, having a
nice dinner and going back to the concert!

BD: Do you stay there the whole concert?

FM: Oh, yeah, sure! I couldn’t enjoy myself leaving my instrument alone.

BD: It is your instrument, isn’t it?

FM: Yeah, right, absolutely! It’s my responsibility, you know. With this piano, [the
Horowitz piano which was on tour] I am the only one who really takes care of the
regulation. I see it every second month or so. I saw it in Boston when I was in Boston; I saw
it in Indianapolis a few weeks ago. Now it is here in Chicago, and last night I spent some
time with it. In Indianapolis I spent a whole day with the piano. But of course, people tune
it, and it’s fine.
BD: Others touch it, then?

FM: Yeah, but not the inside, not the regulation; just the tuning. I want to keep it; that is
my obligation. That is my objective, to keep that piano always exactly the way as Horowitz
liked it.

BD: Why?

FM: It is presented as “The Horowitz Piano,” and it should be kept that way.

BD: So people can touch it and feel what Horowitz felt?

FM: Exactly what Horowitz felt.

BD: Is that important for a budding pianist, or even an experienced pianist, to feel what
Horowitz felt and maybe incorporate that into their own playing?

FM: No, no, no way! It’s no good if people do that. I know some people who try to do
that. It doesn’t work.

BD: Should they listen to his recordings and then imitate that?

FM: No, that doesn’t work. You have to be yourself.

* * * * *

BD: What makes a great piano?

FM: Each piano, as I said, is different. As a technician, I have to feel my way

through. When a new piano comes under my fingers, let’s say a concert grand piano, by
virtue of having worked with instruments all my life I see immediately the potential of an
instrument. I might say, “This will be a big orchestra piano where you can play
Rachmaninoff.”
BD: Rather than a small recital piano?

FM: Right, exactly. You see this immediately. Then you have other pianos which are very
lovely if you keep them on a smaller scale, more chamber music. If you would take a piano
like this, which is not such a big, bombastic orchestra piano and force the tone into a piano
which is not really a big piano, then you get a very ugly horrible sound. A piano can’t give it;
it’s not there and it’s a lot of fun to see this. Most of the time the piano is not immediately
ready for the concert stage. It happens very rarely that a piano comes under my hands which
is brand new, and wow, we say, “Boy, we can use this immediately on the stage!” No, it
doesn’t work like that. It has to develop; it has to be broken in. I might put it in a
corner. I’m very fortunate. In my concert department, artists come in the evening and
practice, I let them use that one I put it in a corner. Then maybe after a couple of months I
take it in and work with it, and I say, “It’s ready,” or “It’s not ready yet,” and put it back in
the corner.

BD: What is it that happens to the piano? It’s not an animate object; it is wood and steel!
FM: I don’t know! It’s wood, but somehow, I don’t know what it is but the components of
the piano blend together. It’s amazing how a piano develops! A few weeks ago I was asked
by some people from Bogota, Colombia if I would choose a concert grand piano for which
somebody had donated some money for a theater in Bogota. The piano would be used for the
first concert, which is in July sometime, so I was quite nervous about it. I had about a dozen
new concert grand pianos at Steinway to choose from, and I found one which I felt was
almost ready. So I worked on it for a couple of days.

BD: Did you take into account the temperature and humidity in Colombia?

FM: Oh, absolutely! Yeah, absolutely. I sent a questionnaire asking what it is like. It is
kind of on the cool side, amazingly, but it is humid, too. So I consider all that and I choose
the piano. I worked on it, and then we had a concert at Steinway Hall for all the dignitaries
— the ambassadors and all those people who came with some first-rate artists. We gave a
little concert on that piano, and now it is on its way to Bogota, Colombia.

BD: Will you ever see it again?

FM: Yeah, I’m going. That is part of the deal — I had to promise that I will come down
and take care of the piano for the first concert. So I will be a week down there.

BD: Will you then try to train someone — or several people — down there?

FM: Yes. They asked me if I wouldn’t mind if some of their top technicians would watch
me and teach them at the same time. I love to do this! I never made a mystery out of what I
do. I’m happy to share what I have learned and my experience.

BD: But so much of that is your knowledge and your ear and your taste.

FM: Exactly, yeah.

BD: You can’t train that!

FM: No, and it takes time to develop. I taught all my people. We are seven technicians
now at Steinway in New York, and it’s amazing the amount of concerts that are going on
now! As I said, thirty years ago we were just two people; now we are seven! And let me tell
you, Bruce, in the concert season, from Friday to Sunday night sometimes we have thirty-five
or more concert services in the New York area!

BD: To divide among seven people?

FM: Yeah. They are working day and night, running from one hall to the other!

BD: So you’re Figaro here, Figaro there, Figaro up, Figaro down!

FM: Exactly. But I’m not doing that anymore. I’m not running like crazy around any
more.

BD: You have the other people run like crazy?

FM: Yeah, they run around. I did it years ago.

BD: What advice do you have for someone who wants to be a

piano technician?

FM: I do it all the time. I would check out how he hears

because that is the most important thing. I would know in a
few minutes if you have the kind of hearing to become a piano
tuner. And you must be good with your hands. We have some
excellent schools now, and I teach all the time. We have courses in the factory, too, and
technicians come. Besides this, we have a concert seminar where people who already do
concert work come and spend a week with me or one of my people.

BD: About how long does it take from the time someone decides they want to be a
technician until they actually start working on pianos?

FM: It takes quite a while. Some develop faster, and I’m not saying that the one who
develops slowly is not good! You might be better than the one who develops very fast.
BD: Are we talking a few months or a few years?

FM: A few years before you would be a concert tuner. That takes time.

BD: How long before you could work on, say, just a piano in a practice room in a school?

FM: To do a decent job? Oh, a few months, if you have good hearing. Then at least you
would be able to tune.

BD: Are there enough technicians around?

FM: [Laughs] There are not enough good technicians around! That is a problem. I
shouldn’t be too candid about it, but it breaks my heart sometimes. I was in a city a couple of
years ago, and technician (not from Steinway) took care of the concert pianos. They wanted
me to evaluate their concert pianos, and this is one of our most musically important cities in
the United States. So I went there and checked the pianos out; they had some Hamburg
Steinways and also a couple of American Steinways, and after a few minutes I said,
“Whoever you have, keep him. He is a good man.” That was two years ago. I returned a
couple of weeks ago to the same place — important orchestra, important city in the United
States — and I couldn’t believe it! The regulation no good. I asked, “What has
happened?” “Oh,” he said, “We lost him.” See, the piano is only as good as the
technician! It breaks your heart! They are potentially excellent instruments, and yet not in
good shape — even the tuning. They can be wildly out of tune, even a single note. I also
asked, “When was it tuned?” He said, “It just was tuned. We had a concert last night.” You
know, it never should go out of tune that quickly! As a concert tuner, we have to tune in such
a way that the piano can take a beating, and after the concert it will still be in tune was well as
it was before the concert.

BD: Sure. The coda has to sound as nice as the prelude!

FM: Yeah, absolutely! Then you are a concert tuner. I have seen this many times in my
travel, too. Just a few months ago I was in São Paolo, Brazil, and I see there in a concert with
Lazar Berman, the Russian pianist. We are good friends; I tuned for him many times. He
couldn’t believe it that I was there, but the poor fellow! He started out to play his program
and the piano was decently enough in tune, but it went out of tune! When the intermission
came, oh, I couldn’t stand it anymore! Whoever did it was not a solid concert tuner. The
piano should stay during the performance. I saw him afterwards and he said, “Franz, I don’t
know what happened to the piano. It was nicely in tune when I started out, but when I
finished, it was totally out of tune.”

* * * * *

BD: You work exclusively with Steinway. Could you also tune a Baldwin or a Bösendorfer
or a Bechstein?

FM: Oh, absolutely! I have, sure. They’re just the same procedure, you know. I’m
personally in love with the Steinway.

BD: What about the Steinway grabs you?

FM: Oh, there’s no piano like the

Steinway! To me, the Steinway is the
greatest piano ever conceived in the
human mind! At Ibach, the old, decent,
wonderful company in Germany where I
learned piano technology, I learned all the
phases of piano building and worked my
way up to became a travel technician. I
thought I can’t learn anything
anymore! Then I applied for a job as a
concert tuner for a concert management, and they took me. That’s way back, forty years
ago. But they took me as a concert tuner, and like everywhere else, the concert piano is a
Steinway. So I first started to work with Steinways, and immediately as a technician and as a
concert tuner I fell in love with the Steinways that were out there.

BD: But what was it that impressed you — the sound, the feel?
FM: The sound, the feel, the power it has. There is no other piano, really!

BD: Did you start out as a pianist yourself?

FM: I started out as a musician, like many in my field. Some good pianists are piano
technicians, but I started as a violinist. I studied music, of course.

BD: Do you need to be a pretty good pianist to be a good technician?

FM: It helps a good deal if you play a little bit, and you come from the music field. It
helped me a good deal to have a music education. I studied music; I studied violin. Usually
you have very good hearing as a violinist, because you have to adjust your own
intonation. You must be good at intonation, so tuning just fell into my lap.

BD: Does it bother you when you see a technician, or someone trying to tune a piano, who
is using a little electronic strobe?

FM: [Becoming a bit agitated] Oh, absolutely! Absolutely! I go quite mad, although
many, many use it. There’s nothing wrong with the machine itself. The machine is perfect,
but to translate what the machine tells you into the practical tuning is an entirely different
story. Unless you learn to use your hearing — which comes in combination with your touch,
with your feeling in your fingers, the touch of the tuning hammer — unless it comes through
hearing into the tuning hammer to set the tuning pin, you will never, ever get this kind of
tuning into a piano.

BD: Why?

FM: Because the machine may tell you exactly if the pitch is right. It’s right on, so you
take your tuning hammer off from that tuning pin and you go to the next tuning pin. But it’s
already out because you have never really set it. Looking at that machine might improve
your eyesight, but certainly not your hearing because you rely on your eyes and not on your
hearing. When I check somebody out to see if he has hearing for tuning, what I usually do is
let him tune unison to see if he hears octaves and if he can put a unison in where one string is
out. You immediately can see that.
BD: But you’ve got to be listening in equal temperament. You can’t be listening in perfect
intervals.

FM: You cannot tune any interval pure, not a fifth or fourth. You cannot do it. You have
to temper. That’s why we call it temperament! It has to fit in through the whole scale,
through the whole circle of fifths. We know about historic temperaments and all
this. They’re all very nice to know about, but they do not work for our modern piano.

BD: Would you tune differently if the concert was just the Goldberg Variations, as opposed
to an all-modern program of Schoenberg and Webern?

FM: No I wouldn’t, nor have I ever been requested to tune any different
temperament! Never, ever!

BD: Would tuning for a recording be any different?

FM: No, but you are there, and sometimes in my own hearing, sitting there, I think that
these seem to get out a little bit; the voicing is a little bit too loud in comparison.

BD: So you’ll go between takes and touch it up?

FM: Oh yeah, between takes I will touch up, yeah. I’m always listening, you know. Or
sometimes even the artist might say, “Franz, is that all right?”

BD: Would you listen in the hall, or would you listen in the control room?

FM: In the control room, because that is what goes on the recording.

BD: So it doesn’t really matter what it sounds like in the hall, if it sounds good in the
control room over the speakers.

FM: Exactly. Oh, boy, we had such a fight in Milano, when Horowitz did his Mozart with
the Scala Orchestra and Guilini conducting. There was always that G-sharp. He was fighting
with Tom Frost, the producer, and he said, “Franz, that is not loud enough! Bring it
up! Bring it up!” And Tom would say okay and I would go down there, sometimes even
with the orchestra sitting there, and do something which brought it up a little bit louder. But
it was not loud enough. So then Tom Frost would say to me, “To my ears, that sticks
out! Franz, it is impossible! You have to take it down!” So I’d go to take down again. Then
Horowitz always said it was not enough! They went on for days. I said, “Tom, you tell
him! You are the producer. I can’t be in between all the time!” [Both laugh]

* * * * *

BD: You’re about to be sixty-five...

FM: Yeah,
sixty-

five! Officially I will retire as of October 1st, but I already promised Steinway that I will do
a lot of P.R. work and still some important concerts, and take care of recording sessions and
teach.

BD: I take it you’ve had a blast your whole life?

FM: Oh, I enjoyed it very much! I tell you! I wanted so much to be a violinist, and I
studied at two different places.

BD: To be a soloist or orchestral player?

FM: Oh, a soloist. But I had tremendous problems with my left wrist. I was taking breaks
and treatments and finally I had to come to the conclusion — after being already twenty-three
or twenty-four years old and having sat in a string quartet — I had to give it up! I saw an ad
in the paper; some people at the Ibach factory were looking for apprentices and I thought that
has still something to do with music! So I went into it and I just loved it. I was working with
my hands and worked my way up. As I said, I’m so happy.

BD: Thank you for being a support to all of these fine musicians for so many years.

FM: Let me tell you one more Horowitz story. We were in Rochester — not even an
important place — and just before the concert, before he went out onstage he was nervous,
and I always had to hold his hands. He was always very cold and he said, “I admire you with
your warm hands. Hold my hands!” But just before he walked out onstage to that lonely
piano, he turns to me and he said, “Franz, it’s the most lonely place in the world,” and I said,
“Oh, thank you, Lord, I’m just the piano tuner! I don’t have to work out there!”

To many of the greatest pianists of our time, one man was

critically important: Franz Mohr, former Chief Concert
Technician of Steinway & Sons for more than a quarter
of a century.

As the close colleague of

legendary musicians such as
Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur
Rubinstein, Glenn Gould,
Rudolf Serkin and many
others, Franz Mohr attended
to their Steinway
instruments, making delicate adjustments that affect tone,
balance, and other characteristics of sound. It was Mohr
who enabled these virtuosos to fully realize their own,
individual interpretative styles, and to fully realize their
concept of tonal color. Franz Mohr directed the
preparation and maintenance of all Steinway pianos
provided for concert and artists' service throughout the
world and was the technical advisor to technicians at 100
dealer locations where hundreds of Steinway pianos stand
ready for concert use.

A master piano technician, Franz Mohr joined Steinway &

Sons in New York City in 1962 as assistant to William
Hupfer, then chief concert technician, whom he succeeded
in 1968. Mr. Mohr learned piano building in Europe
beginning in 1950 in Cologne, Germany. In 1956 he
became a concert technician for a Steinway dealer in
Dusseldorf, Germany, which maintains a large concert
service. Six years later he and his family moved to New
York.

Born in Duren, Germany, on September 27, 1927, he

studied music at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and the
Academy of Music in Detmold, Germany. He and his wife,
Elizabeth, live in Lynbrook, New York. They have three
children: a daughter, Ellen, and two sons, one of whom
continues the family tradition by working at the Steinway
factory in Long Island City as manager of Customer
Service.

Mr. Mohr retired as chief concert technician of Steinway &

Sons in 1992. Presently he is an active advisor and
 consultant to Steinway & Sons. He is also a well-known
book author ("My Life with the Great Pianists" and
"Backstage with Great Pianists" - German) and a brilliant
speaker.

© 1992 Bruce Duffie

This interview was recorded in Chicago in May, 1992. Portions (along with recordings) were
used on WNIB in 1993, 1997 and 1998. This transcription was made in 2009 and posted on
this website early in 2010.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this
website, click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from
1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have
also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his
broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected
transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your
attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the
automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments,
questions and suggestions.