Steinway bashing? Many years ago it was Wurleys...they're out of business; then for several decades it was Baldwin...they're out of business for all intents and purposes; now it's Steinways. It seems to me that technicians love to blast pianos and their manufacturers. It just depends on where the collective bullseye ends up. Must be a piano technician ego thing...and we do have humongous egos! Just my 2 cents worth. Joy! Elwood Elwood Doss, Jr., M.Mus.Ed., RPT Piano Technician/Technical Director Department of Music 355 Clement Hall The University of Tennessee at Martin Martin, TN 38238 731/881-1852 FAX: 731/881-7415 HOME: 731/587-5700 -----Original Message----- From: John Delacour [mailto:JD at Pianomaker.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 4:38 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Steinway bashing At 16:27 -0400 6/7/10, Al Guecia/AlliedPianoCraft wrote: >...I say, bash the management, bash the way it leaves the factory, >but it's still a Steinway and can be made to be a Steinway in the >right hands. I'd be interested to hear what simple trick can be used to straighten out a Steinway plate that gives a 7mm variation in strike height, as I have had in both the latest grands (a D and a B) that I've had to deal with. Neither of them left the Hamburg factory (in 1970 and 1985 respectively) with the hammers correctly matched to the anomalous frame and therefore neither of them had ever performed as they were intended to perform. >Steinway is on more concert stages than any other piano. >Steinway is requested by more artist than any other piano. Does that mean that the Steinway is a beautifully made work of art and a fine musical instrument? Far from it. With a lot of expensive after-sales work most Steinway grands can be made acceptable and a few (generally very old ones) exceptional. Nevertheless no serious improvements have been made to the Steinway for 120 years and the scaling was well behind the times even in 1900. The bass strings can be greatly improved, as Will Truitt has mentioned, but only within the limits of the given string scale, which is archaic and faulty by any standards. A well-prepared Steinway is probably the best choice for a concert hall that cannot afford to provide and maintain the 6 or 7 different instruments that ought to be offered to musicians according to the music to be played. The piano that is suitable for a Rachmaninoff concerto is not suitable for a recital of Scarlatti or Bach, and for these even the best-prepared Steinway will be a poor substitute for a piano suited to the music in question. As to "artistes", they are generally quite ignorant of the possibilities, since they, and the public, have been conditioned for years and years to believe the Steinway is a Stradivari with three legs. Half the Steinways I hear on the radio sound shockingly bad. I think the public has no idea. So long as they can clap and holler at the end they don't care what the piano sounds like provided it's vaguely in tune. If a Steinway is good, the credit goes 90% to the technicians, tuners and toners who bring it to life and 10% to Steinway for providing the raw, very raw, materials. Nevertheless the tonal characteristics of a "good" Steinway make it the best choice, I think, for any concert hall. I've never heard a good Yamaha, I hate the Bösendorfer. Kawai is a fine piano but their marketing hasn't been good enough. The Fazioli is beautifully made but seems to lack something in the sparkle department, etc. etc. The greatest shame is that for years and years nearly all the others have been taking the Steinway sound as the standard. It is only on the rare occasions that you hear music performed on a very different instrument that you realise that the Steinway sound is not the only possible flavour, and in many cases it is far from the most suitable. The great pianists of 100 years ago most certainly did not all prefer the Steinway, even when it was a lot better than it is today. JD
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