Fw: Steinway Model..and the winner is..

[Robin Hufford]

Hello Michael
     You could measure one of the 26 note "A"s.  The real A, as far as I know
will be 6 ft 1&1/2 inches or thereabouts, unless it is the A3 which will be
6'4'' and which, I think, should be called the A4.   The O is about 5 ft 10&1/2
inches.  So, if your 26 note pianos are this length, perhaps they are what we
call O's here.
     I have often speculated that the O was brought in, not only as a cheaper
instrument which I have read in Fostle's "The Steinway Saga"  to be the case,
but also to satisfy an expectation for the roundtail kind of sound which must
have been well established by the early part of the last century.  There are a
number of knock-off of the roundtail A here in the US suggested the public had
some consciousness of them.  There are also some knock-offs of the half-round A
which the company began producing in 1897.
     This was the year after the death of William Steinway who had been the
managing director of the company for 25 or so years and, perhaps, new blood
enabled new designs to be expressed.
Regards, Robin Hufford





Michael Gamble wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Gamble" <michael@gambles.fsnet.co.uk>
> To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 8:54 PM
> Subject: Re: Steinway Model..and the winner is..
>
> > Hello Robin Hufford
> > You said:
> > "     Perhaps they are calling the O an A.  As far as I know, and I feel
> > fairly
> > confident about this regardless of the supplier's catalogue, there is no
> > such
> > thing as a 26 note A, at least on this side of the pond.   We'll see, I
> > guess."
> > I'll let you know just what I find in those "A"s with 26 note Bass. On
> this
> > side of the pond they're fairly common - which is why the Fletcher's
> > catalogue quotes both types. Wow thing! We'll have to ask Margaret for a
> > definitive history of a couple of specific 26s and see what she says.
> Maybe
> > they were all built in Hamburg.
> > Now what about that 6' 4" "A". London has no knowledge about that.  They
> > were equally unhelpful about the plate-tail embossing - except to add that
> > S&S didn't keep the plates for more than a year before using them. Bit
> more
> > detective work needed methinks...:-)
> > Regards
> > Michael G (Across the PondUK)
> >
>
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