Andrei Svetlichny, Jorge Bolet's USA tuner
- Blue Pumpkin
- May 3
- 3 min read
"He knew he had to take the stage, to stride up to that huge instrument and take command. 'Remember,' he'd say, 'it's likely to kick back."
As ever, I am grateful to Mattheus Smits for providing information to this website. He has alerted my attention to this tribute (edited) to Jorge Bolet's tuner in the USA.
A Memorial
Died April 12, 1998 • Born February 19, 1957
Andrei Svetlichny, 41
Tuner of Concert Pianos for the Stars
By HOLCOMB B. NOBLE
Andrei Svetlichny, whose ability to coax gorgeous tones from concert grands made him indispensable as a personal tuner for distinguished pianists, died on April 12 at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 41 and the chief concert technician and manager of technical services for the Baldwin Piano and Organ Company.
The cause was leukemia, his family said.
During summers the Russian-born Mr. Svetlichny also oversaw the tuning and maintenance of some 150 pianos at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Mass. He also worked with the Montreal Symphony, the Boston Symphony and a number of recording artists, including Earl Wild, Abbey Simon, Michael Feinstein and Bruce Hornsby.
He was the personal tuner for Jorge Bolet in the 1980s after the pianist's previous tuner failed him grievously. The tuner had forgotten to anchor the piano legs to the stage prior to a concert and when Mr. Bolet sat down to play, the piano began to roll away from him. It rolled right off the stage and fell into the orchestra pit, breaking in half. [Mexico City, November 1978]
Mr. Wild found that he had to take Mr. Svetlichny with him when he gave recitals all over the world.
''He somehow knew exactly what you needed,'' Mr. Wild recalled. What was needed, he said, was knowing when to clean the keys and when not; when to keep fiddling with the strings until each one sounded a note of precisely the right pitch when struck by its hammer; when to ''voice'' the instrument, by removing the action and filing the hammers, so that each key produces the same volume of sound in response to the same touch, and, of course, always remembering to anchor the legs.
What was needed, too, was the ability to be a friend: ''I always took Andrei to our parties everywhere,'' Mr. Wild said.
Baldwin had recently asked Mr. Svetlichny to assist in the first significant redesign of its SD-10 concert grand since 1966, when it was produced under the guidance of Leonard Bernstein and Max Rudolf. After crawling in, around and under the nine-foot piano and making or proposing various adjustments, he persuaded the company to make some fine changes in its basic design.
Andrei Svetlichny was born in what was then called Leningrad on Feb. 19, 1957, the only child of Nikolai and Lyudmila Baikova, who were opera singers. He studied at Herzen Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad from 1976 to 1978, then left for England and, in 1980, for the United States. He studied at the New England School of Stringed Instrument Technology, now the North Bennett Street School, and became chief piano technician at Boston University, before joining Baldwin.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret Poppino Svetlichny of Bloomfield, N.J.; a daughter, Katherine; two sons, Nicholas and Peter, and by his parents.
''You could tell right off, here was a master,'' said Joe Vitti, one of his early tuning coaches. ''He knew he had to take the stage, to stride up to that huge instrument and take command. 'Remember,' he'd say, 'it's likely to kick back.' ''
