Posts from — March 2009

Europe in general, and Germany in particular, are the current hub of fine piano manufacturing. More superb pianos come out of Germany and Europe than anywere else, with fine brands like Bechstein, Bluthner, Steingraeber, Bosendorfer, Pleyel, Grotrian, Forster, Schimmel and Fazioli, and the previously mentioned Hamburg Steinway. Some of these brands, like Schimmel and Bosendorfer, are now widely franchised in America and readily available here (particularly in the larger cities,) whereas you can only procure the others at smaller boutique dealers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, or by purchasing them direct from Europe and having them shipped to the USA (very pricey!)

Steinway of New York, in particular, has gone to great lengths to insure that there will be no franchises or dealers in the USA for the German Steinway, which they see as a source of serious competition. Although many players and technicians feel the Hamburg Steinway is superior to the New York version in quality and touch (myself included,) they really needn’t worry. The tone color and feel of the two are so different that any serious pianist will simply pick the one they like the sound and touch of best, not the one that comes from this or that country.

Pianos from Bechstein, Grotrian, Forster and Bluthner (all German) and Pleyel (French) are all excellent, and readily available all over Europe (the piano you here on The Beatles “Let It Be” is a Bluthner grand at Abbey Road Studios in London), but hard to audition and purchase in the USA, so aside from saying, if you can find them, they are well worthy of your consideration, we won’t expound much on them here. Deeper information on each of these brands is available through Larry Fine’s superb “The Piano Book”, a book any serious piano lover should own.

Bosendorfer, from Austria, makes incredible, and incredibly expensive, grand pianos. Like Steinways and Schimmels, they are made almost entirely by hand, and they are a sight to behold. They play like butter and many sound wonderful, but you’ll need at least $50K for their smaller, starter model, and they go up to over $150,000. Not for those who live by a weekly paycheck. Yamaha recently acquired Bosendorfer Piano in a prestige move (for Yamaha) and a financial solvency move (for Bosendorfer.)

Schimmel makes gorgeous grands with a sound and liquid action comparable to Bosendorfer, but at much more reasonable prices ($25K – $75K.) I love them as much or more than Bosendorfers, and as a technician who works on them regularly, I was proud to discuss this with Nikolaus Schimmel himself a few years back. He was grateful and very humble.

Fazioli Pianos of Italy have only been around since 1978, but their dedication to sheer piano perfection has quickly caught the attention of some of the best players in the world. If you can play one of their six grand models in the USA (big cities only) and have the cash (they are as expensive as Bosendorfer) you may never be able to settle for anything less in a piano again. They even make the world’s largest grand piano, at 10’2”, over a foot longer than other concert grands.
 

Their is also a rise of recent entries from Eastern Europe like Petrof and Estonia, which started out as poor-quality imitators of their Western European counterparts, but which many techs claim are rising in quality, with a very acceptable European sound and good prices.
 

One of the reasons the American pianos experienced such a downfall was due to the invasion and steady rise of cheaper-made & priced Japanese instruments. Leading the charge were two brands, Yamaha, and to a lesser extent, Kawai, both made in the industrial city of Hamamatsu.

Both of these instruments were “production line” pianos, taking advantage of ever-improving Japanese technology and machinery, and being built to repeatable tolerances by machine, rather than by hand. This made them cheaper to manufacture, and inexpensive for the vast drove of “average” piano players who couldn’t tell too much difference between these machine-made pianos and handmade instruments. Whereas Steinway and other handmade brands could barely produce 100 grand pianos each year, Yamaha could roll out that many pianos in a couple months.

The result was that they infiltrated homes, schools and other institutions and soon became the largest selling pianos in America, and eventually, the world.

Not satisfied simply to produce the best selling piano, Yamaha dreamed of producing pianos equal to the finest instruments, ones that would be welcomed on major concert hall stages. As a result, they worked hard to constantly improve their instruments, and it shows. Currently, Yamaha makes a great grand and upright piano, endorsed by many celebrities like Elton John, Paul McCarteny and David Foster (all “pop” artists…you won’t see many top classical pianists endorsing Yamaha over Steinway or Bosendorfer.) Their U1, U3 and U5 uprights are among the best you can find, and all their grands over 6’ (models C3 – C7 and SF concert grand) are fine sounding, easy playing pianos.

Kawai of Japan has produced a very similar line of instruments, and followed Yamaha in both their approach and their infiltration of America. They still lag way behind Yamaha in sales, stage and recording studio installations, and celebrity endorsements, but some of their larger grands are very nice to hear and play. As a technician, I find Kawai’s to be a little more shrill sounding in the upper half of their high-tension scale, with significantly more “false beats” (errant vibrations) than Yamaha, whose overall sound is much purer.

To the accomplished concert pianist, the finest European and American handmade pianos are still preferable to production pianos; they have that extra finesse to the touch and clear bell-like purity to the tone that production pianos simply cannot match. But it’s safe to say that of all the production line instruments, Yamaha pianos are the best.

Korean Pianos:
If you ‘ve watched a Samsung flat-screen TV or seen Hyundai cars on the road, you know that Korea has been making huge inroads into heavy-industry products sold in the West, and pianos are no exception. Currently, Young Chang & Samick make pianos bearing their own names and dozens of “stencil” names, for the US market. A stencil piano is a now-defunct famous brand name, like Knabe or Chickering, that was licensed by someone rich for it’s well-known reputation, then affixed to the front of the cheap-labor insruments out of Korea or China, to capitalize on the name and make lots of money. Once you own the name, you can do what you want with it, and many oriental piano factories are only too happy to build you a knock-off of the original brand’s design, cheaply enough to fetch a nice profit from unwary buyers stateside. But keep in mind, these “famous name” pianos are by no means up the quality or sound level of their earlier incarnations. Many are really poor. One exception is the Wm. Knabe grand pianos currently being made by Samick, a vast improvement over Samick’s former poor quality instruments, and worthy of consideration.
 

As mentioned in the previous post, one of the main reasons Steinway became such a pre-eminent instryment on over 95% of the concert stages in America, was due to its unique and aggressive artost-endorsement program, started by William Steinway in the late 1800s.

Naturally, every great and small piano maker would love to have several famous pianists endorse their instruments for both stage play and home use. In the mid 19th century, many of the fine piano makers tried to secure these endorsements by literally giving a large grand piano, free of charge, to one or more renowned artists of the day. Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, and many other superb composers and players received such largess.

Instead, William Steinway entreated upon the great Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein to play Steinway pianos during his American concert tour of 1872, and later convinced one of the greatest pianists ever, Paderewski, to tour America in a railroad car, playing over 100 concerts in under 4 months, all on a Steinway-furnished concert grand.

The result was sheer perfection for the marketing of the Steinway piano. When every piano player from the most beginning student to the world’s most accomplished artists saw these greats playing Steinway and nothing but Steinway, they all declared "I must own a Steinway piano!"

This was the beginnings of the lauded Steinway Artist Program, which provides a fine Steinway grand, delivered and tuned free of charge, to any Steinway Artist currently on their roster, in any major city where Steinways are available.

And to make sure there are many, many Steinways to choose from for major concerts in metropolitan areas, Steinway maintains at least 3 "piano banks" in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. These are acoustically accurate storerooms housing as many as 30 Steinway "D" and "B" models (their two larger concert grands) from which the Steinway artist can audition and choose their favorite for their impending concert, knowing it will be onstage and properly serviced prior to the show’s start. A brilliant concept.

The one downside is that if Steinway catches you performing on a competitors instrument in any American or European city where you could have procured a Steinway for the show, they can drop you from their Steinway Artists roster, a policy which has met with significant controversy over the years.

If you really want to learn an immense amount about the slow, exacting and methodical process of building a fine piano, or just enjoy a fascinating field trip for any pianist, you should plan a trip to the Astoria district of Queens in New York City to tour the Steinway factory. They do have an online virtual tour, and there are documentaries available on DVD that show many parts of the process and factory, but trust me, there’s nothing like watching it done in  person.

You’ll see several strong men bend the outer rim of a new grand piano case around a huge press, the making of soundboards, the precise chiseling of bridges, and so much more. I’ve spent quite a bit of time at the Steinway factory, and believe me, it’s a trip to be treasured.