On Wednesday, December 4, four skilled piano movers wheeled a nine-foot Model 275, 92-key Bösendorfer grand piano into the recording studio at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. The rare instrument had already drawn a crowd, including faculty, staff and the dean. With them was Tina Sinatra. She and her sister Nancy were in the process of gifting the piano to the school of music.
On this morning (the week before Frank Sinatra’s birthday), all eyes were on the Bösendorfer, resting on its side on padded dollies and shrouded in moving blankets. It carried with it a sense of mystery. The piano had been in storage for more than a quarter of a century. No one was really sure how it would look, let alone sound.
Like most fine instruments, this Bösendorfer’s journey was as remarkable as its craftsmanship. Purchased by Jimmy Van Heusen, one of the great American popular composers, the majestic nine-foot grand wended its way through Southern California in the latter half of the 20th century.
Along the way, it picked up a few stories.
“The piano was a gift from Jimmy Van Heusen to my sister’s children,” recalled Tina Sinatra. Her sister Nancy had just had a baby, and her father visited. “My dad brought Jimmy with him. I remember Jimmy looking around Nancy’s house and there was a bay window area with nothing in it. And he said, ‘Ah, I have something to fill that space. It’s as big as a boat and it’s beautiful.’”
It was a momentous gift from Van Heusen, who knew the Sinatra family well. Van Heusen had met Frank Sinatra in New York in 1935, when Sinatra was a singer with the Tommy Dorsey band and Van Heusen was a songwriter looking for a full-time gig. A few years later, Van Heusen wrote “Imagination” for Sinatra, and in 1940 the song shot to number one. He scored another big hit for Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Band that year with “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.”
It was the beginning of a great collaboration. Over the next several decades, Van Heusen penned 80 songs for Sinatra and dozens of hits, including “Love is the Tender Trap,” “Swinging on a Star,” “Love and Marriage,” and “Come Fly with Me.” It was a golden age for Hollywood and popular entertainment, and an age where every party featured a piano.
“Nobody was shy of singing at dinner parties,” said Tina Sinatra.
She recalled birthdays where Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and her father would delight the crowd, and dinner parties (as well as dinners out) where Yul Brynner or Judy Garland would step up to a piano to sing. “You always had a pianist at a dinner party. We provided all the entertainment, or our guests did. It was never canned music.”
Van Heusen gifted the Bösendorfer to Nancy with her children (and Frank Sinatra’s grandchildren) in mind. But circumstances intervened when Nancy moved, and the piano ended up in the living room of Frank Sinatra’s Palm Springs compound. In the mid-1980s, it moved to his Beverly Hills home, where it would stay for the rest of his life.
In 1995, a televised celebration of Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles featured artists like Bono of U2, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tony Bennett and a host of other Hollywood A-listers.
“Anyone who was anybody ended up back at my dad’s house,” Tina said. “And anyone who played a piano sat down to play.”
Frank Sinatra passed away three years later, and the Bösendorfer went into storage. There it remained until Nancy and Tina Sinatra began the process of donating the piano to The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
“We are thrilled that this historic instrument with such a rich legacy will be here for our students,” said Eileen Strempel, inaugural dean. “Great instruments are invocatory and carry resonances from the past, of great artists and their music. I couldn’t be happier than knowing our students will have the opportunity to play such a superb instrument and find inspiration in its history.”
In the recording studio in the Mo and Evelyn Ostin Music Building on the morning of December 4, Dean Strempel and Tina stood on either end of the keyboard of the newly reassembled Bösendorfer and gently pulled back the moving blankets. It revealed a sleek black piano, with a gleaming finish worthy of a showroom.
David Kaplan, Shapiro professor of piano performance, sat down at the keyboard to see how the piano’s sound had fared. Its rich, vibrant tone matched its elegant appearance, almost as if it had been tuned this morning.
“It’s an extraordinary piano,” Kaplan remarked. “The Bösendorfer 275 has four extra keys that give the piano more resonance. It has a real majestic, orchestral tone.”
The Bösendorfer donation is not the first time that Frank Sinatra’s philanthropy has touched UCLA. For years he sponsored Sinatra Performance Award for UCLA students. Among the past recipients is Gloria Cheng, now an adjunct professor in contemporary music performance. Winning the prize meant a small cash award and a performance at Royce Hall. At the time, it was the largest audience that Cheng had ever played for. She performed the notoriously difficult “Au bord d’une source” by Franz Liszt.
Cheng performed it well, nerves and all, and Frank Sinatra complimented her on stage. “He made a joke about us both being from New Jersey,” Cheng recalled.
The Bösendorfer donation will carry this legacy forward.
“Pop always said if you enjoy what you’re doing, work at it very hard,” Tina said. “And I hope this piano will be something special for UCLA students that they thrill to sit at and practice and perform on it. He was also deeply invested in having the next generation learn the American songbook. This Bösendorfer touches the past. And it has a chance to be a bridge to the future.”