Steinway regulation

[Richard Brekne]

A440A@AOL.COM wrote:

>  richard writes:
>
> >  . Did you ever get a chance to see the Horowitz grand. I have had
> >the
> >pleasure of viewing it and checking it out both before and after the Hamburg
> >people ruined it.
> <snip>
> >I understand that
> >New York people are re-restoring it to Horowitz's preferences now. Key
> >word there... preferences.
>
>     Greetings,
>     I was under the impression that that piano was originally restored in New
> York.  I was fortunate enough to examine it there before the work, and David
> Grossi, who was head of Restoration at the time, told me later that it had
> been done there.
>     I was asking him about the fate of the hammers that had been taken off
> the piano,  since to me,  they represented a significant bit of knowledge
> about how that piano was sounding when Horowitz died.  I was told that the
> factory position was parts were either good or bad, and the hammers were
> deemed bad and were tosssed out.  To me, rebuilding that particular action is
> akin to taking Leonardo Da Vinci's paint brushes and cleaning them all up!
>    I could hope that this total lack of conservatorship was not true, but I
> think those hammers are gone. anything else is just a guess that depends on
> living ears to extrapolate.  <sigh>
> Regards,
> Ed Foote

Quite frankly Ed, I am not sure who did the restoration. Steinway Norways Main
Man, one and only certified bonified Rep in the country, was just in town for his
rounds of the Concert Grands here in Bergen. I always enjoy a chat, he is a real
conservative, and I am anything but. We get on great, nice guy. It was he who
told be that Hamburg had done the restoration as it had just been in Oslo
afterwards where he was pictured in the national papers alongside of one of
Norways best pianists. After hearing his story the other day I had to think back
to that picture a year ago or so. These two studying this "Flygel"  admiring its
qualities and thinking of the man who played it, not realizing that it was in no
way any longer representative of him. So I assume it was restored in Hamburg, but
perhaps this is not so. Anyone got the straight skinny on that?