Steinway & Sons

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Steinway & Sons is a piano maker, since 1853 in New York City. The second Steinway factory was established in 1880, in the city of Hamburg, Germany. Both Steinway factories have undergone great updates and renovations, and are still making Steinway & Sons pianos today.

Founded by the Steinweg family of German piano manufacturers, who arrived in the United States from Germany in 1850, the company grew quickly after its founding in 1853. It was forced to move to new premises within a year, and occupied its own factory by the early 1860s. In 1880 a Steinway Village was founded as its own town in what is now Long Island City, providing a new factory with its own foundries, post office, parks and housing for employees. Its early successes have been credited both to the high quality of its instruments as well as the brilliant marketing, including its showroom and the Steinway Hall. Steinway Street, one of the major streets in the Astoria and Long Island City neighborhoods of Queens, is named after the company.

The company is currently known as one of the world's premier manufacturers of high-quality pianos. After merging with the Selmer Company in 1995, its current affiliates include the Boston and Essex lines of pianos.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Immigration 1.2 Steinway Factory 1.3 Steinway Hall 1.4 New Steinway Factories 1.5 New century 1.6 Second World War 1.7 After The War 1.8 Transformations 1.9 New Millennium 2 Today 2.1 Pianos 2.2 New York & Hamburg 2.3 Art-Case 2.4 The Steinway Concert & Artist Program 2.5 Steinway concert piano banks 2.6 All-Steinway Schools 3 Brands 4 Patents 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Immigration

Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, piano maker of the Steinweg brand, emigrated from Germany to America in 1850 with his family.^[1] One son Christian Friedrich Theodor Steinweg remained in Germany, and continued making the Steinweg brand of pianos. In 1853, Steinweg founded Steinway & Sons. His first workshop was in a small loft at the back of 85 Varick Street in Manhattan, New York City.^[2] The first piano produced by Steinway & Sons was given the number 483 (Steinweg had built 482 pianos before founding Steinway & Sons). It was sold to a New York family for $500, and is now displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.^[3] Only a year later demand was such that the company was forced to move to larger premises at 82-88 Walker Street. It was not until 1864 that the family anglicized their name legally to Steinway.^[4]

[edit] Steinway Factory

By the 1860s Steinway had built a new factory and lumber yard. Now 350 men worked at Steinway & Sons and production increased from 500 to 1800 pianos in a year. Steinway pianos underwent numerous substantial improvements through innovations made both at the Steinway factory and elsewhere in the industry, based on emerging engineering and scientific research, including developments in the science of acoustics.^{[citation needed]} Almost half of the company's 115 patented inventions were developed by the first and second generations of the Steinway family. Soon Steinway's pianos won several important prizes at Exhibitions in New York, Paris, and London.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Steinway Hall

In 1864, the son of Henry E. Steinway, William Steinway, who is credited with establishing Steinway’s remarkable success in marketing, built a set of elegant new showrooms housing over 100 pianos on East 14th Street. Two years later he oversaw the construction of Steinway Hall to the rear of the showrooms. The first Steinway Hall was opened in 1866. It seated over 2,000 and quickly became an important part of New York’s cultural life, housing the New York Philharmonic for the next 25 years, until the Carnegie Hall opened in 1891.^[5] Concertgoers had to pass first through the piano showrooms, which had a remarkable effect on sales, increasing demand for new pianos by four hundred in 1867 alone.^[6] William Steinway also invented the "Concert & Artist" Department, which is still in operation today. The Steinway factory was then located on 4th Avenue (now Park Ave.) and East 55th Street in Manhattan.

[edit] New Steinway Factories

In 1880, William Steinway established a professional community, Steinway Village, in the Astoria section of Queens County, New York. The Steinway Village was built as its own town, which included a new factory (still used today) with its own foundries, post office, parks and housing for employees. Steinway Village later became part of Long Island City. To reach European customers who wanted Steinway brand pianos and to avoid high European taxes, William and Theodore established a new piano factory in the free German city of Hamburg in 1880.^[7] Also in 1880, the "Steinway-Haus" was established in Hamburg. Then, in 1909, another Steinway-Haus opened in Berlin. In the 1900s Steinway had established itself in major cultural centers: New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg.

[edit] New century

By 1900, both Steinway factories produced more than 3,500 pianos a year, finding their place in many concert halls, schools, and private homes across the world. In 1857 Steinway began to produce a line of highly lucrative art case pianos, designed by well-known artists, which became popular among the rich and famous. These pianos today sell for vast sums of money in auctions around the world. In 1903 the 100,000th Steinway grand piano was given as a gift to the White House. This was replaced in 1938 by the 300,000th, which remains in the White House to this day.^[8] Later Steinway diversified into the manufacture of reproducing pianos. Several systems such as the Welte-Mignon, Duo-Art, and Ampico were incorporated. During the 1920s Steinway had been selling up to 6,000 pianos a year. Piano production went down after 1929, and during the Great Depression Steinway produced just over 1,000 pianos a year. In the years between 1935 and WWII, demand rose again.

[edit] Second World War

During WWII the Steinway Factory in New York received orders from the Allied Armies to build wooden gliders to convey troops behind enemy lines. Few normal pianos could be made, but one particularly special model was built, the Victory Vertical. It was a small olive green piano with matching stool, designed to be launched from an airplane with a parachute, in order to bring music to the GIs. The factory in Hamburg, Germany, being American-owned, made very few pianos: no more than a hundred pianos per year left the factory. In the later years of the war the company was ordered to give away all the prepared and dried wood from the lumber yard for war production. In an air raid over Hamburg the factory was hit by several Allied bombs and was nearly destroyed.

[edit] After The War

Steinway completed restoration of the Hamburg factory with some help from the Marshall Plan. Eventually, the post-war cultural revival boosted the demand for entertainment, and Steinway increased piano production at both New York and Hamburg factories from 2,000 in 1947, to 4,000 pianos a year by the 1960s. During the years of the Cold War, Steinway remained one of the very few products of the Free world purchased by the Soviet Union, and Steinways were found at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Conservatory, St. Petersburg Conservatory, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Leningrad, among other schools and symphony orchestras in the USSR.

[edit] Transformations

In 1972, after long-running financial struggle, legal issues with the Grotrian-Steinweg brand, which were eventually finalized, and a lack of interest regarding the business among some of the Steinway family, the firm was sold to CBS. In 1985, CBS sold Steinway, along with Rodgers (classical organs) and Gemeinhardt (flutes and piccolos) to a group of investors, Steinway Musical Properties Inc.^[9]

In 1988 Steinway & Sons made their 500,000th piano, making a milestone in the history of musical instruments. The piano was built by the Steinway factory in New York with some participation from the Hamburg Steinway factory. The 500,000th Steinway was designed by artist Wendell Castle and was named "The grand of the artists".^{[citation needed]} Several hundred Steinway Artists signed the piano with their names, including Vladimir Horowitz and Elton John. It is still on its concert tour around the world.

In 1995 Steinway Musical Properties, parent company of Steinway & Sons, merged with the Selmer Company, and formed Steinway Musical Instruments, which acquired the flute manufacturer Emerson in 1997, then piano keyboard maker Kluge in 1998, and the Steinway Hall in 1999.^{[citation needed]}. The new combined company was renamed Steinway Musical Instruments, and they made more acquisitions in the following years. Since 1996 Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. is traded at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the name LVB (Ludwig van Beethoven).

[edit] New Millennium

By the year 2000, Steinway had made its 550,000th piano. The company updated and expanded production of its two other brands, Boston and Essex pianos, in addition to the flagship Steinway & Sons. More Steinway showrooms, salons and halls opened across the world, mainly in Japan, Korea and China.

Today, Henry Ziegler Steinway, the great-grandson of the founder, now approaching 90, still works for Steinway and puts his signature on custom-made limited edition pianos. In 2003 Steinway celebrated their 150th anniversary at Carnegie Hall, Henry Z. Steinway represented the family.^[10]

In April 2005, the Steinway factory in Hamburg celebrated their 125th anniversary. Steinway employees together with Steinway artists, dealers and friends from around the world celebrated at the Laeiszhalle - Music Hall of Hamburg. There was a big anniversary concert, which culminated in a showcase performance by Steinway artist Lang Lang. As part of the celebration, the 125th anniversary limited edition Steinway Art-Case piano by renowned designer Albrecht Goertz was presented to the public. The 125th anniversary of the Hamburg Steinway factory was marked by a large-scale festival of music, held on April 17, 2005.

[edit] Today

[edit] Pianos

Steinway New York produces seven models of grand piano and two models of upright piano.^[11]

• grand: S-155, M-170, L-179, O-180, A-188, B-211, D-274
• upright: professional model 1098, professional model K-52

Steinway Hamburg produces seven models of grand piano and two models of upright piano.^[12]

• grand pianos: S-155, M-170, O-180, A-188, B-211, C-227, D-274
• upright pianos: V-125, K-132.

[edit] New York & Hamburg

Many of the great pianists of the past (called 'the Immortals' by Steinway) and many active concert pianist pianists today have expressed a preference for either the New York or the Hamburg piano. Vladimir Horowitz played a New York model D, Arthur Rubinstein preferred the Hamburg model D. Sergei Rachmaninoff owned two New York Steinways in his Beverly Hills home, and one New York D in his New York home, however, he chose a Hamburg D for his new villa Senar in Switzerland. The difference between New York and Hamburg Steinways is less noticeable today, although some objective differences are well known:^[13] the American models have a black satin finish and square or Sheraton corners; Hamburg models have a high gloss polyester finish and rounded corners.^[13]

At present, 2,500 Steinway pianos are built in New York every year, and 1,500 Steinway pianos are built in Hamburg. The market is loosely divided into two sales areas, New York Steinway supply North and South America with their pianos; Hamburg Steinway supply their pianos to the rest of the world. At all main Steinway showrooms across the world pianos can be ordered from both factories. New York and Hamburg factories exchange parts and craftsmanship in order to "make no compromise in quality", in the words of Henry E. Steinway.^[14] Steinway parts for both factories come from the same places: Canadian maple is used for the rim; the soundboards are made from Sitka spruce from Alaska. Both factories use similar crown parameters for their diaphragmatic soundboards. Recently Steinway has acquired some of its suppliers in order to maintain quality: the German manufacturer Kluge in Wuppertal, which supplies all the keyboards was bought in December 1998; in November 1999, it purchased the company which supplies its iron frames, O. S. Kelly Co., Springfield.^[15]

[edit] Art-Case

Designers such as Dakota Jackson, Karl Lagerfeld and Albrecht Graf Goertz have created original designs for limited edition Steinway pianos. Recently Steinway introduced the first of its Legendary Collection, a re-creation of the Art-Case Alma Tadema, the original of which sold at auction in New York in 1997 for $1.2 million, and which is now in the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.^[16][17] Now a second re-creation of the Legendary Collection is about to be born, a exact copy of the No. 100.000, the first "White House" model D. The Steinway Crown Jewel Collection is a series of pianos veneered in woods such as Satinwood, Bubinga and Macassar ebony.^[18]

[edit] The Steinway Concert & Artist Program

In contrast to other makers, who presented their pianos to pianists, William Steinway engaged the great Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein to play an American concert tour in 1872, with 215 concerts in 239 days.^[19] It was a triumph for both Rubinstein and Steinway & Sons. Later Ignacy Jan Paderewski played 107 concerts in the time of 117 days, travelling through America with his own railroad car and Steinway concert piano. The Concert & Artist program was born.

According to Steinway & Sons, 98% of piano soloists chose to play publicly on a Steinway during the 2005–2006 North American concert season.^[20] The majority of the world's concert halls have a D-274, some have both New York and Hamburg D's to satisfy a greater range of performing artists.^{[citation needed]} Today over 1,300 concert artists and ensembles bear the title "Steinway Artist," which means that they have chosen to perform on Steinway pianos. Each owns a Steinway and none is paid to do so.^[21] Well known piano competitions such as the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition^[22] and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition are sponsored by Steinway and use Steinway instruments exclusively.^[23]

The Steinway Artist Program has not been without opponents and controversy. Steinway artists are expected to perform exclusively on Steinway instruments wherever a Steinway is standing or can be carried to. In 1972, Steinway responded to Garrick Ohlsson's statement that Bösendorfer was "the Rolls-Royce of pianos" by trucking away the Steinway concert grand Ohlsson was about to play in a recital at Alice Tully Hall in New York City.^[24] Ohlsson ended up performing on a Bösendorfer borrowed at the eleventh hour, and Steinway barred him from using its instruments for some time. Angela Hewitt was dropped from Steinway’s roster in 2002 after performing a concert on a Fazioli piano.^[24] The Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has complained that Steinway is trying to establish a monopoly on the concert world by becoming “the Microsoft of pianos.” ^[24].

[edit] Steinway concert piano banks

A collection of select Steinway pianos with special sound and superior performance qualities is known as a concert piano bank.^[25] Steinway was the first piano company in the world to establish a concert piano bank in New York since 1866, and eventually reproduced the successful idea at major cultural centers.^[26] The idea was to provide a consistent pool of pianos of superior quality for top touring artists performing in major cultural centers. Steinway takes care of preparing, tuning and delivering the piano of the artist's choice to the designated hall or recording studio. Piano banks are now established at several Steinway Halls and Steinway rooms in such cultural centers around the world as London, Los Angeles, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Lausanne, and Vienna, as well as in Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul and Beijing, China.

The pianos for a concert piano bank are selected by experts at Steinway, and are kept in special rooms under meticulously controlled humidity and temperature conditions. Performing artists can make their choice of piano by playing each piano within its own room. Maintenance and tuning of these pianos is performed exclusively by qualified Steinway technicians. Steinway pianos from piano banks are available for concert performances as well as studio recordings and private practice. The piano bank at London's Steinway Hall consists mostly of Hamburg Steinways, and also has a few New York Steinways D-274, in order to satisfy a greater range of performing artists. The piano bank at the Home of Steinway in Los Angeles provides both New York and Hamburg Steinway pianos to a wide range of performing artists, from Hollywood stars and touring guest performers, to film composers, songwriters and ensembles, as well as to film and music schools in California. The Steinway & Sons maintains a "piano bank" of concert quality pianos for use in live performances as well as for studio recordings and other venues related to Hollywood and the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Most recently Steinway established new concert piano banks in Westport, Connecticut, and in Arizona.^[27]

[edit] All-Steinway Schools

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, holds the longest partnership with Steinway & Sons.^[28] They have used Steinway pianos exclusively since 1877, just 24 years after Steinway & Sons was established. In 2007, they obtained their 200th Steinway piano. Other notable all-Steinway schools are The Juilliard School in New York and the Yale School of Music. Recently, the Crane School of Music, located at the State University of New York at Potsdam, was added to the All-Steinway school roster, receiving 141 pianos in one $3.8 million order, the largest Steinway has ever processed. There are more than 80 schools across the world in which students perform and are taught only on Steinway pianos.^[29]

[edit] Brands

Other than the "Steinway & Sons," brand Steinway markets two other budget brands. These pianos are made using lower-cost components and labor.

• Boston: Made for the general piano market at lower prices than Steinway's name brand. Boston pianos are manufactured at the Kawai factory in Hamamatsu, Japan. Approximately 5,000 Boston pianos are built every year. There are five Boston grands and four Boston uprights available in a variety of finishes. Boston grands feature a wider tail design (a feature of the Steinway models A, B, C & D) resulting in a larger soundboard area than conventionally shaped pianos of comparable sizes.
• Essex: Cheaper than Steinway or Boston pianos, Grand Pianos are made in Korea at the Young Chang factory, with the exception of one model(EGP-155) currently made at the Pearl River factory in China.

[edit] Patents

There are 115 registered Steinway patents, including^[30]

• "Pianoforte-Action" with repetition. Inventor Henry Steinway, Jr. (May, 1857)
• "Pianoforte-Action" with improved repetition. Inventor Henry Steinway, Jr. (June, 1858)
• The construction of grand pianos with overstringing. Inventor Henry Steinway, Jr. (December, 1859)
• "Pianoforte-Action" with escape for improved repetition. Inventor Henry Steinway, Jr. (May, 1861)
• "Improvement in Piano-Forte Action" for better "touch" to the action. Inventor Henry Steinway, Jr. (April, 1862)
• The metallic frame for action in upright pianos. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (August, 1868)
• The metallic frame for action in grand pianos. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. ( August, 1869)
• "Improvement in Sound-Boards for Piano-Fortes" bridge dowels. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (April, 1869)
• Grand piano action with spring to lessen the force needed to press the key. C.F. Theodor Steinway. (June, 1871)
• The duplex agraffe scale for grand piano. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (May, 1872)
• Reinforced soundboard ribs. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (February, 1873).
• The soustenuto pedal mechanism for all kinds of piano-fortes. Inventor Albert Steinway. (October, 1874)
• The capo tasto agraffe for grand piano. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (November, 1875).
• The mechanism for disengaging the action to produce a silent keyboard. Inventor Albert Steinway. (May, 1877)
• The grand piano case design (the current design). Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (July, 1878)
• The wood bending machines for the rim. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (June, 1880)
• Hammer with tight ligature and hardened felt portion. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (August, 1880)
• Layered soundboard bridge. Inventor C.F. Theodor Steinway. (October, 1880)
• Treble bell frame for grand piano. Inventor C.F> Theodor Steinway. (March, 1885)
• Upright piano case with swinging panel. Inventor Frederik Steinway. (May, 1907)
• String-Frame for upright pianos. Inventor Henry Ziegler. (February, 1908)
• Sliding keylid for upright pianos. Inventor Theodore E. Steinway. (July, 1911)
• Design for the Steinway grand piano No. 500,000. By Wendell K. Castle. (July, 1991).
• Piano key leveling. Inventor William S. Youse. (August, 1997)

[edit] See also

• Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Susan Goldenberg: Steinway: from glory to controversy; the family, the business, the piano. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1996. ISBN 0-88962-607-3.
• Ronald V. Ratcliffe: Steinway. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1989. ISBN 0-87701-592-9. upd. edition, 2002. ISBN 0-8118-3389-5
• Richard K. Lieberman: Steinway & Sons. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1995. ISBN 0-300-06364-4
• Miles Chapin: 88 keys: the making of a Steinway piano. New York: Potter, 1997. ISBN 0-517-70356-4
• Theodore E. Steinway: People and Pianos, A Century of Service to Music, Steinway & Sons, New York, 1853-1953. 1st edition. New York: Steinway, 1953. OCLC 685863
• Theodore E. Steinway: People and Pianos: A Pictorial History of Steinway & Sons, 3rd edition. [S.l.]: Classical Music Today; Pompton Plains, N.J. : Amadeus Press, 2005. ISBN 1-57467-112-X , or ISBN 978-1-57467-112-4
• James Barron, Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand. New York: Holt, 2006; reprint: Times Books, 2007. ISBN 0805078789 , or ISBN 978-0805078787
• Arthur Loesser: Men, women, and pianos: a social history. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1990. Replication of the work published by Simon and Schuster, New York, 1954. ISBN 0-4862-6543-9
• Cyril Ehrlich, The Piano: A History, revised edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990. ISBN 0-19-816171-9
• Max Matthias, Steinway Service Manual - Guide to the care of a Steinway, 3rd edition. Bergkirchen: PPV-Medien/Bochinsky, 2006. ISBN 978-3-923639-15-1 (in English and German)
• Larry Fine, The Piano Book: Buying & Owning a New or Used Piano. Jamaica Plain, Mass.: Brookside Press, 2001.
• Larry Fine, 2007-2008 Annual Supplement to The Piano Book. Jamaica Plain, Mass.: Brookside Press, 2007. ISBN 1-929145-21-7 (see pages 13-14, 96-100, 184-187)

[edit] External links

• Steinway Musical Instruments
• Steinway & Sons New York
• Steinway & Sons Hamburg
• Steinway Artists from A-Z
• Steinway Concert Grand poster photo
• Atlantic Monthly article by Michael Lenehan on the making of a Steinway concert grand, 1982
• Nine-Part Series in the New York Times following the construction of a Steinway concert grand at their New York factory
• Steinway & Sons Collection at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives in New York

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