Mauro began by saying he came to this country in February 1981, he recalls that because it was a leap year. He has studied classical music since he was 6 at the conservatory; however, since he was 13 or 14 he knew that the piano with the keys “was enough for me.” After many years of inspiration he began looking at the inside of pianos, and he called that “a little background on his piano ventures.”
A little history on the piano: He characterized it as an extension of keyboards; before it came the organ with its bellows and pipes, and the harpsichord and a few other instruments; but all of them use a plucking mechanism, meaning that when you hit the keys, a little plug will pluck the string and make that sound. So, before the piano, no matter how soft, or loud, or how you strike the keyboard, the volume is always the same.
He said: “I actually have a couple of harpsichords, and you sit there and you play, and the volume is always so little, and sometimes I think, years ago in an orchestra, like 50 members, who will hear the harpsichord? Well, you know what they did, for one thing, the harpsichord was long … we had henneman, to create the volume, to play in the orchestra.” There was an Italian guy by the name of Arturomayo Cristo, that was the maker of things for the deMedici family in Florence, and he is the first person who decides to remove the (?), little leather hammer to strike the strings. That way, you can play loud or soft. We know him as the inventor of the piano. However, back in those days, (the instrument) was clanky and heavy, like a harpsichord ...
Thirty years went by. It was a German, in Austria, a maker, by the name of Gotthead Silverman, who actually created the pianos we know of today. He invented what is called the “quick release.” In the early version of the piano, when you play a note, you have to let go of the key to repeat the note. So it was very hard to play. This guy invented the release, which had 20 different levers and springs. When you hit the note, the hammer comes back right away, you can repeat it, so we can (play at the) speed we do today. That’s the basic invention of the piano as we know it today.
Many centuries went by, (with) the Industrial Revolution; another main, main thing that happened to the steel industry, was cast iron, they started making the steel frames. Before that, in the time that Beethoven was playing, the pins that hold the strings, went into a sound board on top of the piano, went into wood. You couldn’t have the piano like we have today, tempered at 440. It was 430. Why? Because you tried to pull the strings more tense, it would fly away. Beethoven was playing loudly because he was a bit deaf, and he would blow strings. There was a very famous episode in which he was playing in the first chord he does, he blows a string and he changed the whole composition …
So … yes, the history … the steel frame was invented … the families were mostly in Manchester, in England; that’s why a lot of pianos were (made?) in England, that eventually went all over the world. The major, majors, we all know Steinway, in Germany, the Bosendorfer in Austria, the Pleyel which was a French manufacturer, that was the favorite piano of Chopin…
Back those days, if you were a piano company you would hired a piano player, and he would come on down and play your piano … Just to give you a quick reference, at the turn of the century, 1900, 1905 or 1910, in upstate New York, in this country, there were over 550 piano makers, Stokerach, Pappelmann, Stoer, they would make pianos …There’s only three left in the country. There’s Mason and Hamlin, one of the early American-made pianos, which was sold to China and bought (about 10 or 12) years ago, there’s Steinway which is still in Germany, and the other in Queens in New York.
I had the pleasure of visiting the factory. There’s a film, actually, called “Twelve Pianos,” you can find on Apple TV or … It’s a film that is basically showing all these things you can do with pianos, installation here on the coast, and so forth; you can download it. Send me a quick email, and I can send you (information; he’s at www.mauroffortissimo.com, it’s on videotape; I already have (some))
So there’s only three or four left (pianomakers); it’s very unfortunate because pianos were basically built --- there’s a craft to it --- that uses carpenters, many, many trades involved in pianomaking, and unfortunately it’s a craft we are losing. There’s a company here in Berkeley, DC Pianos; they don’t make pianos, they fix pianos, they repair pianos, but there’s so much of that going on … One of the largest piano factories called (?) in China, they sold 150,000 pianos a year, which is kind of – People ask me, where do you get pianos? I am offered pianos every week, they know me; I don’t only play pianos, but I make a sculpture with piano parts. I have many pianos taken apart, I have a shop here on Highway One and Kelly (with) barns in the back. Later, you can come and see some of my sculptures with piano parts; I use only piano parts, down to the screw. There are so many things; I try not to bring any other materials into the making of the sculptures that I do.
A little bit more about my adventures with pianos: I used to run a yoga studio near Kelly Avenue, called Enso. One day a student came over and said, I bought a house, and (in it) there’s a piano we don’t play, would you like to have it? I said yes, I’ll take it; I put it in my truck and took it down to Enso, and I was starting to take it apart. Well, that corner there; as you know if you live in town, there is a state park to the right, and the left area belongs to the City of Half Moon Bay, but there is also a horse trail, a bike path, a walking lane. So I happened to be there (playing) on a Friday night, Saturday there were 10 people, Sunday there were 100; after a couple of weeks it became really large. There were the L.A. Times, the Chronicle, TV cameras for some 10 days, and I had my 15 minutes of fame. There was a lady there who worked in San Francisco (this was in 2013); she couldn’t get close to the piano but she knew a person here in Half Moon Bay and wound up connecting him to the yoga studio. To make a long story short, he ended up with an offer to help in the Tenderloin area and to move pianos; they gave him $35,000 to play for a couple of years; he played mostly for the homeless.
But for a while, he was lent space in a condemned building at Market and Sixth, that had storage space big enough for grand pianos. They also had platforms with big wheels, large enough to move pianos, and lamps in every corner; so that what he did “fit right in.” After a while he went to the U.N. Plaza, which had the U.N charter founded in 1948.
He played there for a couple of years, and then found Half Moon Bay; and a place beautiful enough to play by the ocean and to play in a boat for whales. He recalled some colorful characters and one homeless fan, Neil, who lived in a tent and came in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank, and who turned out to be “an amazing player.” He came every Friday and played many different things there before his death.
He said that one day they wanted to do something in a more natural environment, so they approached people who were connected to Golden Gate Park. Its 75th anniversary was coming up; they wanted to do something, and did, and “everybody had such a great time.” They had 12 pianos for 12 days, and anyone could play. They decided to have friends join them; the decided to do it annually. No, this is the tenth year. It takes place Sept. 10-22 in s “beautiful environment” full of flowers and birds. He recalled playing once and looking down to a little gopher looking up at him and eating clover. Sometimes you are playing there and sometimes joined by orchestras in the “Great Meadow” including the Golden Gate Symphony conducted by Boris Steiner, and the Oslo Orchestra. Pieces have also been commissioned to be written and performed there. There were also stories about what can happen when you are playing outdoors in nature.
He spoke of young musicians playing out in nature: “they’re a bit shy and they don’t want to play. But you take the piano out of the living room and you put them in nature; you can be playing and a bird would go by or a tree branch would make some sounds, and it’s been more relaxing and kids love to play
He said they have a chair which a dozen people love to use, so anybody can just come over. The event is free; you may pay depending on the time of the year. They welcome donations, it being San Francisco here there is a little more money. He said that friends may come from San Jose where they have to drive a little to get there and there can be parking fees. He also recommended getting many tickets to give some away.
He spoke a little about himself: he is a painter and a poet, hosting a poetry gathering in North Beach near City Lights, at the Adler Museum, where there is an amazing collection of posters. He does that once a month on a Wednesday night, poets’ night. He spoke of having met a San Francisco poet laureate there, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. “To me, it as a dream,” he said.
He said he has always loved Beat stuff, starting when he came to California and loved poetry and the Beat movement. He recalled a New Year’s Italian lunch at Union Square, when he sat with Jack, wife Aggie and daughter and himself, and they took turns reading. So he got up to read a poem by Italian poet and filmmaker Paolo Pasolini, first in Italian and then English; he admitted he did not fluently speak Spanish or Italian though his parents are from Italy (“I mix a lot of Castilian (a dialect of Spanish) into it,”) and a gentleman came up to him afterward and said, “Your poem was really good. Wh-what dialect as that?”
Later, he said, he found out that Ferlinghetti and Jack Hirschman were the two first American writers who translated Pasolini’s work from the Italian into English, which is a nice treat.
Pieces have also been commissioned to be written and performed there. There were also stories about what can happen when you are playing outdoors in nature.
He recalled playing once and looking down to a little gopher looking up at him and eating clover. Sometimes you are playing there and sometimes joined by orchestras in the “Great Meadow” including the Golden Gate Symphony conducted by Boris Steiner, and the Oslo Orchestra. Pieces have also been commissioned to be written and performed there. There were also stories about what can happen when you are playing outdoors in nature.
He played there for a couple of years, and then found Half Moon Bay; and a place beautiful enough to play by the ocean and to play in a boat for whales. He recalled some colorful characters and one homeless fan, Neil, who lived in a tent and came in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank, and who turned out to be “an amazing player.” He came every Friday and played many different things there before his death.
He said that one day they wanted to do something in a more natural environment, so they approached people who were connected to Golden Gate Park. Its 75th anniversary was coming up; they wanted to do something, and did, and “everybody had such a great time.” They had 12 pianos for 12 days, and anyone could play. They decided to have friends join them; the decided to do it annually. No, this is the tenth year. It takes place Sept. 10-22 in s “beautiful environment” full of flowers and birds. He recalled playing once and looking down to a little gopher looking up at him and eating clover. Sometimes you are playing there and sometimes joined by orchestras in the “Great Meadow” including the Golden Gate Symphony conducted by Boris Steiner, and the Oslo Orchestra. Pieces have also been commissioned to be written and performed there. There were also stories about what can happen when you are playing outdoors in nature.
He spoke of young musicians playing out in nature: “they’re a bit shy and they don’t want to play. But you take the piano out of the living room and you put them in nature; you can be playing and a bird would go by or a tree branch would make some sounds, and it’s been more relaxing and kids love to play
He said they have a chair which a dozen people love to use, so anybody can just come over. The event is free; you may pay depending on the time of the year. They welcome donations, it being San Francisco here there is a little more money. He said that friends may come from San Jose where they have to drive a little to get there and there can be parking fees. He also recommended getting many tickets to give some away.
He spoke a little about himself: he is a painter and a poet, hosting a poetry gathering in North Beach near City Lights, at the Adler Museum, where there is an amazing collection of posters. He does that once a month on a Wednesday night, poets’ night. He spoke of having met a San Francisco poet laureate there, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. “To me, it as a dream,” he said.
He said he has always loved Beat stuff, starting when he came to California and loved poetry and the Beat movement. He recalled a New Year’s Italian lunch at Union Square, when he sat with Jack, wife Aggie and daughter and himself, and they took turns reading. So he got up to read a poem by Italian poet and filmmaker Paolo Pasolini, first in Italian and then English; he admitted he did not fluently speak Spanish or Italian though his parents are from Italy (“I mix a lot of Castilian (a dialect of Spanish) into it,”) and a gentleman came up to him afterward and said, “Your poem was really good. Wh-what dialect as that?”
Later, he said, he found out that Ferlinghetti and Jack Hirschman were the two first American writers who translated Pasolini’s work from the Italian into English, which is a nice treat.
So now we’re preparing for “Flower Piano Pen,” having an orchestra for the first time, a piece without piano. It’s going to be tricky to present. I might have somebody play a tune before and then do that later …
Let’s see, what was I going to tell you about myself -- ? I do paint a lot, I do have a show at the gallery now, of my latest watercolors, a lot of the work I do is drawings. I don’t know if you remember Lars Howlett, he used to be a photographer at the Half Moon Bay Review.
I do burn a piano once a year, and people say, why do you burn a piano? A couple of reasons. It’s not just a ceremony -- I do it at the old Bell Hotel, now the San Gregorio Store; when it winter, very safe --- But a couple of reasons why I do that. One of them is, the piano otherwise would go to the dump. I remember once, in the New York Times, a big picture, seven grand pianos … Anyhow, I burn one, and with the remaining parts, all blackened, I make sculptures. I have (one) in my studio, and it’s all black. I do a tribute to Louise Nevelson, an American sculptor from New York; she passed away in the 90s; she actually worked with charred wood; she would do these amazing works and then burn them. Anyway, I did a homage to her work, my burned piano.
The other reason that I do it, believe it or not, was the British Air Force. This happened before the Second World War. There was a general who was training cadets, and he wanted them to be rounded, besides military training, he wanted them to learn piano. They hated the guy! Within three or four years he retired, and passed away and the students took a piano to the yard and burned it, and ever since, it’s a thing. They burn a piano once a year.
A brief history of the piano … When you think about the early concerts, music, that was for the nobility, the clergy. All the composers, they have a prince or a king, sponsoring them. (Music) wasn’t for you and I; it took a couple of centuries for that. but pianos, they were just for the one person. And pianos were very heavy; they weigh a hundred pounds. But the making of pianos required skilled labor, so there were people trained. But the moving of these instruments … imagine putting them in a carriage, taking them to port, putting them in a boat, bringing to America or to whatever country on the continent, that as done mostly by slaves. When it comes to this country … for the making of pianos, you have to go to Nebraska or somewhere, that was done by slaves mostly. Unfortunately.
So my little aim when I burn pianos, my protesting the colonial aspects of piano music and piano making, they have changed a lot. Imagine a piano going all the way to Peru, and there is a Peruvian native playing the flute, so (residents of that country) plays native instruments, and of course, not for everybody; it goes to the wealthy families.
There was a piano manufacturer, actually, a long time ago, that – this is funny story, about 1880 or so,1890 -- he had children in California and decided to go there and he spoke some Peruvian He meets a chocolate maker by the name of Ghiradelli, and (he finds) that in San Francisco, they love chocolate. So that is the story of the Ghiradelli family moving to San Francisco.
Let’s see, said Mauro: I was going to tell you about my piano adventures, so he mentioned some spontaneous musical events at 440 (like the musical pitch) Jackson (street); tonight, the archbishop of the Jungle Train Church, in the Haight (district) in San Francisco, which is only about making music, and he spoke of the energy in those music events. His “highest angel” is Johann Sebastian Bach, who was from a family of six generation of musicians and who, Mauro said, said he was only writing music for God but was ahead of his time with writing for the well-tempered clavier before piano was “yet developed.” “He was hearing things we have in the future,” Mauro said.
Someone asked about the Piano Palace: what is it and where, and what goes on there? Mauro said he calls it the “Piano Palace; he has a big studio in Half Moon Bay, across from Pasta Moon, where wood furniture was once made at 514 Kelly Ave., behind the bike shop. Coming up during the pandemic with the idea that musicians are essential workers and music has healing qualities, he does not advertise; but put down carpets and opened the big gate, and has concerts there. “It’s for the community,” he said; and they have concerts, and people can come listen. He does maybe a show a month; mostly chamber music, violin, viola, pianos. Once a year they have a Latin band from San Francisco; salsa with a vocalist, and he told of one listener, a lady of about 96, who got up and moved to the music. “So that’s the Piano Palace. How do you find out about events like that? Us!” he said.
Ralph Ely said he recently helped clear a house where there was an upright piano; some people were going to take it, save it for the grandkids and they wanted $1,600 to move it a couple of blocks, but they didn’t take it. He found out there is no market for an upright piano. Why? Mauro said that what killed the piano is that in those days, everyone had a player piano. He showed in detail how the bellows inside a classical piano produces air, and those are different from player pianos, which in those days, everybody had. He mentioned the interaction with composers, the radio, player pianos and different makers; piano keys and the coming of the radio. In the 20s and 30s, there were so many pianos, in every house; so there was a market. Now, you buy what comes; you buy a Yamaha keyboard, or buy something at auction. He spoke of the piano as an acoustic instrument; you strike the keys, a hammer hits the strings and there is a physical response. With a keyboard, you hear the sound …
But I studied for five years and could never afford a piano. (Then he mentions getting his first piano.) When he first came to this country, he had a warehouse on Folsom with 40 pianos in San Francisco.) And he noted that when a piano requires a lot of money when it needs to be fixed, owners sometimes can’t afford it and discard the piano. I always tell people, hey, take it apart … He gave another funny story: A piano is based on a 12-tone scale, with five black notes or keys, and semitones. In other countries (he mentioned China or Beijing), their ears are more developed than ours. We’re a younger culture, and we’ve developed a 12-tone scale. That is why a lot of Chinese players are extremely good and hear so well. They also have quarter tones, or tones in between the notes of the conventional scale.
One day he had to teach something in Pescadero or San Gregorio, perhaps for children of farmworkers; he had some pianos to take apart to make sculptures. The principal called him to the office, saying they had a problem; some young student went home and started taking apart the piano (I think that was what he said; my recording is a little iffy, but it drew a lot of laughs.) He added, “Don’t do this at home.” He took a grand piano, and called it “Piano Liberado” or “liberated piano.” (From what? The 12-tone scale?) He was in Beijing and had a show of his 50-60 drawings; they politely asked him not to call it “liberated.” He spoke of a piano with hundreds of parts; “a lot of felt and wood but not a drop of oil.” The worst thing that can happen to a piano is moisture in the air; the shows he does in San Francisco now happen in July instead of September. Once he did a show when it rained for the first time in years; and they had tents to cover the pianos but forgot that they had bands with upright bass players; “it was an event,” he said.He spoke of the Kawai piano corporation; and he spoke of a show at Grace Cathedral with friends from the Stanford symphony and they did a piece for 12 pianos. They had the church for a week
CLUB MEETING, February 6, 2025
Pledge of Allegiance and Inspirational Thought - Ed Daniels offered something “a little different” for the usual thought for the day, noting that many were distressed about current events; he found a book by H.G. Wells that he liked: “When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the human race…spoken as a cyclist.” Laughter and lots of nods greeted this.
Guests - Guests were introduced: Sue Pritchard, retired teacher, artist and musician; who had done the mosaic on Main Street, and the one in front of the carts at New Leaf, and was a windsurfer; JP Sothee (not sure of the name); Irwin’s “supplier of biologicals” and guest Justin Bond;
Mike Osborne said that 27 years ago when the district wanted to do something for the homeless since he was a physician. They decided they wanted to do a free medical clinic. RotaCare Bay Area had several RotaCare clinics. Theirs was the tenth clinic, but the only one north of the Golden Gate Bridge. They had a very successful time; he was the longtime chair of the Advisory Council; he pointed out how much the staff does for patients who can’t afford medical care. He introduced JP. Her role with RotaCare is building relationships, she said, making sure that they have the sources to provide care to those individuals who really need it. She passed out flyers that are being updated, that tell “what we do and who we are:”RotaCare Bay Area is a group of 10 free medical clinics that are volunteer-run so they run very lean; the administrative office covers herself, directors of administration and operation, and a QA nurse. She believes each clinic needsthe ability to be unique, like each of the communities that they serve. She had a tough time transitioning into her role because a lot of bridges had been broken; she described herself as a “bridge-builder.” Each of the clinics is unique; each has one paid staff member; the one on the Coastside is run completely by volunteers under the director of operations. How did they transition through Covid? (Theystill have nine clinics.) She said that Covid was hard for them because they serve individuals who do not have insurance; if you walk into any of the clinics and don’t have insurance, “we will take care of you.” They were able to transition to telehealth visits because they had that capability during Covid.Their patients are the ones who aren’t able to use public transportation to get to the clinic; so they make sure they do outreach to them, and have resources in the mode they would like. So all of the clinics are on an electronic health record; they can do telehealth visits through Zoom Health; but there have been changes for the Coastside clinic. They did lose a volunteer who was originally a patient following the shooting, after which the clinic made sure they had safeguards in place. They had to hire a security guard so to be able to continue services. So now, BayArea works with their volunteer medical director to make sure the security guard is in place. It is open on Wednesday evenings; the medical director is Dr. Angelus, and they do in-person and rotating telehealth visits. Patient numbers have increased in the past year. They don’t know what will happen in the next few months, but have trained staff members and expanded services. “I believe in building bridges,” she said, adding that in Santa Clara County she had worked on a Mexican project with the San Jose Rotary Club, which had funded a new mobile clinic, so we have the new Rotary Mobile Medical Unit in Santa ClaraCounty, which will launch its first clinic visits at the Mexican council in two weeks. So they will be around as long as they have even one patient. She said she didn’t have “much of an ask for you;” she just wanted to come here to let us know the local RotaCare clinic is still there and to make connections. She reiterated that she was not part of what happened eight, nine years ago and doesn’t understand what and why it happened, but “we are still here and you are the local community members … the ones I rely on for support.”
Ginger had a couple of questions:Who does the San Mateo Clinic not see? Do they cover California, or can anyonego there? Answer: They have to refer patients to our clinic. They won’t seejust anybody. The number of patients seen in a week varies; with one provderthey may see up to 15 patients; the numbers have increased, and that varieswith telehealth and in-person. Ginger asked if the doctor mentioned is local?She said that Dr. Chris (spelling??) Angelus is retired; they have a couple ofother doctors who are local to the area but she is from the area. The questionwas asked if they interface with Dignity Health that recently opened; she saidthey have a different patient base, and our patients are mostly individuals whodon’t want to be in a system. Right now, there is a lot of fear; and we get alot of patients through word-of-mouth.One more thing about the clinic: we did see a lot of farmworkers, and at thisclinic they did have a physical therapist come out.
Mike Osborne added that for his former Rotary Club the RotaCare Clinic had been one of their best projects. They also had their Interact Club involved helping out; and they had been invited to the annual celebratory volunteer dinner. That was their main project. He said, it’s a winnable thing; RotaCare needs a Rotary clinic; that’s part of the RotaCare – to support them.
Dianne said, since some of our club members are new; and we may not have been involved with the RotaCare clinic since they joined, she gave a quick update that our support of RotaCare was similar to what Mike described; it was our main fundraiser for our foundation and for RotaCare every single year, We had a lot of volunteers who regularly worked in the clinic and were club members, and so until these issues came up, bringing changes in the organization, it was our main project for our club and we were very much part of supporting it. We had a local doctor in our club who was head of the clinic. Barb Nielsen said she had been a RotaCare volunteer for five or six years; and she called it “one of the most amazing” clinics she had ever worked with; she even took a friend there who had no insurance and who had lost his voice; it turned out that he had throat cancer; they hooked him up with a special program and he survived, so there are a lot of miracles that happen in this program.
Announcements and News - Irwin announced that Eric DeBodehad sent him a note announcing the annual 5K walk/run on March 15; if we getseven or more members registered, that will be noted in promotional materials.And his only other announcement is that we have been invited in groups of nineor ten for a walk-through of the new facility at Seton, and he can set that up.
John Evans gave an update onLouise, (“hard to forget her”), an exchange student from France who had stayedwith some of our members) and he and Larkin had been shopping in Palo Alto andwent to a French café for soup and “some foamy coffee.” He had sent photos of the café to studentswho live in France, and Louise answered right away, sending a photo of herselfand Ev (?), a student in Pacifica hosted by our current District Governor. Johnasked Louise how her job (with Louis Vuitton) was going, and she replied thatshe loves her job, gets along well with her boss, loves her missions and thecompany, loves being in Paris, and thather office is “right next to the Louvre.”