MORGANTOWN – Hearing a few snippets of Bach’s “Prelude in C” on a 1927 Mason & Hamlin baby grand piano was as sublime as could be, for a Friday afternoon in the choir room at Morgantown High School.
“Aw, man, this is bringing back memories,” said Peter Wilson, the man who was making the music happen.
“Bach is always my go-to on piano,” he said. “I can still see this sitting in our living room.”
The very piano he was playing, he means. More on that.
Wilson, who graduated from MHS in 1986, was a principal violinist for 30 years in “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Corps Band.
During his hitch, the gunnery sergeant and string section leader played for presidents, the Pope and a passel of others the world over in the assemblage.
The repertoire ranged from classical to klezmer and all sonic points in between.
“You played everything,” he said, “because you had to.”
Wilson grew up music-obsessed in Morgantown. He didn’t have a choice.
His dad is C.B. Wilson, the West Virginia University provost and music chair who directed the famed Fourth of July concerts by the city’s municipal band for decades.
Mary Wilson, his mother, taught Suzuki violin, helping generations of little ones on pint-sized instruments scratch out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” the traditional first tune in the method.
“I was one of her students,” her son, smiling at the memory.
She gave him his first piano lessons, too.
(NOT) THE SAME OLD SONG
In case you’re wondering, the key that sits directly under the first “A” in the Mason & Hamlin brand name at the console is Middle C.
The launch pad.
“That’s how she knew I’d always find it,” he said.
With C.B. and Mary transitioning out of their house, their son found an idea.
Instead of storing this particular piano, or trying to sell it, why not donate it to his high school alma mater?
You can’t beat the continuity, he said. After all, the piano was constructed the same year as MHS.
Speaking of continuity, Wilson these days has picked up the baton just like his dad.
He’s conducted the American Festival Pops Orchestra, the National Symphony and National Gallery of Art Orchestras and other collections of musicians.
“Collection,” for sure, he said.
When you’re in the Marine Corps band, as he said, there’s musical continuity and challenge.
You get to back up Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder – and Joni Mitchell and Rosemary Clooney.
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin, also – a pairing that never fails to make the musician smile.
“I gotta tell ya: There is nothing like playing rock and roll on the violin.”
There’s also nothing like getting to bestow your old school with something you know is uniquely special and uniquely you, he said.
“This is right where this piano needs to be,” Wilson said. “This is the musical legacy of my mom and dad.”
After a couple of tweaks, Shane Lowther, a registered piano technician who drove up from Charleston to oversee the transportation to the school, pronounced it, well, fit as a fiddle.
“This is still a nice instrument,” he said.
With a lot more music – just waiting to be coaxed out.
