The Grandest Pianos: American Makers
Aah, now we come to the juiciest post for piano fanatics like me: a discussion of the top fine grand pianos available, at any price, to provide that supreme rich and beautiful sound recognizable as a true piano.
The finest grand pianos are being made in America, Europe (paticularly Germany and Austria) and Japan.
Keep in mind as we go through this list, that there is no “best piano.” This is because no two piano brands sound alike. They each have their own unique tonal quality from brand to brand, and even from model to model within the same brand. This happens as a result of each company’s use of different designs and stringing scales, and different woods and felts for sound production. Even the choice of from which particular forest, in which particular region, the spruce originated for each piano’s soundboard, can make a major difference in the character of it’s sound.
And “best sound” is completely subjective. In stores featuring several brands of fine grands, I’ve seen customers pick the piano I thought I had the tinniest, least attractive sound, even when it was sitting right next to a piano of better quality, richer sound and lesser price! Go figure. It’s because it was the best sound to their ears.
So is a Steinway the best piano? Yamaha? Bosendorfer? None of them are. As long as it’s a quality-built instrument, the best piano is the best one to your ears alone.
American Pianos: Once the home to over 300 piano manufacturers, the USA is no longer a major hub for piano building, with less than 5 brands still manufactured here.
Steinway is still the standard bearer of the finest American grand pianos, and their concert grands (Model “D” – 9 feet long) are still the dominant instrument in residence and onstage for most of the concert halls and orchestras in the country. This is as much due to over 100 years of superb marketing and the securing of important virtuoso endorsements as their wonderfully brilliant sound. Some say their quality control is not up to its early-20th century standards (there was definitely a quality dip during the 1970s, when the Steinway company was owned by the CBS corporation,) but recently they have been backed by investors who gave them carte blanche to return to their original parts and labor quality levels, and I personally feel some of Steinway’s new grands approach the magnificence of their "golden age."
There are also Steinway grands built in Hamburg, Germany, but they sound and feel quite different than the New York version, with a German-made Renner action and a darker tone. Many Americans who grew up on recordings by Rubenstein and Van Cliburn, and concerts at the famous American symphony auditoriums like Carnegie Hall, feel that a New York Steinway is “what a piano should sound like.”
Another legendary American brand, Baldwin, has existed under the shadow of bankruptcy for decades. Recently, they were bought out by the Gibson Guitar Co., and their current pianos are of questionable quality, with many of the steps in manufacture being outsourced to countries outside the USA
Prior to World War II there were many fine American piano manufacturers, with well-known names like Knabe, Mason & Hamlin, and Chickering – an original Boston brand that preceded Steinway in New York by two decades. Financial strains caused many of these fine brands to be conglomerated under the Aeolian Piano Corporation in the 1950s, and then fail altogether a few decades later. Mason & Hamlin was a superior piano, on level with early Steinway and Baldwin instruments, and they are currently back in limited production. Knabe is now being made by Samick in Korea, and Chickering became a second line for Baldwin. None of these brands quite equal the quality of their past.
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