Doug, I do agree that if the majority of one's experience is with other makes, only occasionally encountering the 1098 will be like an encounter with an alien from outer space. Having spent a significant amount of time with 1098s in a university setting during my earlier years I now find in retrospect that experience to have been exceptionally beneficial for me. I have recently encountered a particularly ornery example of a 1098 from Mars, and it being in a church sanctuary with extreme reverberation really exacerbated the difficulty of the tuning process. But overall, I'd say my experience with the beasts is similar to yours. Once you learn to work with them, they are not so big and ugly, and once you learn how deal with the tuning process, they are particularly stable. I have several customers who own them and my experience with annual tunings reflects yours: I feel guilty collecting the check. But probably the most important point you make is right on: a 50-year-old Steinway beater is usually more fun to play than a 50-year-old beater of brand X, and if you're going to be forced to neglect pianos in practice rooms, that would be my choice of piano to win the survival of the fittest. And in the end, this, if anything, is what justifies the higher price. In fact, some friends of mine recently sold one they bought some years ago after it had spent some years in a college practice room. He refinished it himself (actually, a very nice job) and had action work done on it in the late 1970s by someone who apparently knew what they were doing (new hammers, etc.), and she had been teaching on it up until she inherited her parents Mason & Hamlin A last year. It remains a very nice example of what a 1940s Steinway 45/1098 can be like after 60 plus years. Tanner ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Wood To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 1:40 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway 1098 I guess I'm one of the seeming minority that actually likes 1098's, so I'll explain why. I'll start with a caveat--my bias. 75% of my working time is, and has been for a couple of decades, devoted to Steinway pianos. So I know them very much better than most other brands. I do happen to think that I know fairly well how to bring them to their best selves, particularly in tonal matters. I can't really say the same with other brands. So I may be a bit guilty of comparing other pianos not at their best with Steinway at its best. The comparison in reverse is just as unfair--if any piano is neglected long enough, then a new brand X will seem better. IMHO, what sets Steinway just a little apart is its range. Color and dynamic. Very big. And the 1098 can have a lot of that musical range. This is, I think, what draws the musicians to these pianos so consistently. This becomes more apparent as the pianos all age--the 50-year-old Steinway beater is usually a lot more fun to play than a 50-year-old beater of brand X. So if you're in the situation that we're in here, where the uprights are pretty near the bottom of the priority list, the advantages of the "fun-to-play-when-badly-beaten-up" piano should appeal to you. It is well to understand that Steinway has done some substantial work on the 1098. Less than 10 years ago--maybe 5 now?? I know, for example, that they stopped using 2-5/8" tuning pins in favor of the same 2-1/2" ones that all the grands use. They have also looked very carefully at the scale, v-bar, pressure bars, and upper string rests. The latter is no longer cast into the plate--just a piece of felt. Alignment issues seem much better, also--strings used to touch pressure bar screws and legs regularly. Fun for tuning! But much better today. The very small window of acceptability for the shape of the tuning remains--it's part of the musical character. And the tuning will not be stable until the pins are in EXACTLY the right position. Very demanding of tuning technique. But then exceptionally stable. So while I'd not go so far as to say they're a pleasure to tune, they are much better. And I find them a remarkable pleasure to play. Fast is something I've never managed with tuning them. But I've found that the reward for extra effort in tuning is that they are amazingly stable. I have a couple that I visit every 3 or 4 years, and I'm almost embarrassed to collect my fee. (I do live and work in Seattle!) If we had the happy opportunity to have a donor make us an "all-Steinway" school (up to 10% other brands OK), I'd definitely be looking at the 1098's. And planning for Dampp-Chaser dehumidifiers and back covers for all of them. And for arranging to tune only one (maybe 2) in a given day. I'll end with another caveat. I do not, myself, have the institutional experience with a bunch of 1098's vs a bunch of anything else. I have regulated several, with quite satisfying results. I have even dropped a new action into an older Steinway X (precursor to the K) with very good results. In 2006 I requested prices for a new 1098 action from Steinway, and came up to around $2000 my cost for all the parts. I was guessing around 25 hours of work. But that job never went through. I just know it's actually reasonable and satisfying. If the uprights ever reach that priority. Doug Wood -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081203/9f565076/attachment.html>
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