[CAUT] Hamburg Steinway

[Porritt, David]

Israel:

Interesting story!  I'd love to have a closer look at how you educated
the pianists to choose based on qualities of the instrument rather than
some perception.

We have 2 concert instruments in our recital hall, a 1983 NY D, and a
2000 CFIIIs.  There are those who can pick their instrument based on
what they are playing and the condition of the instrument on a given
day.  There are others who can't get past the fact that one is not a
Steinway. 

Last week Leon Fleisher was here again and while he is a Steinway artist
he again chose the Yamaha for his concert.  The sponsoring concert
promoters paid extra to have both pianos prepared for him since had had
chosen the Yamaha on 2 previous occasions and wouldn't be here until a
couple of hours before the performance.  

In reality, with most pianists the instrument is chosen based on some
perceived quality more often than real qualities unless there is some
obvious disparity in the instruments.

dp
 
David M. Porritt
dporritt at smu.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Israel Stein
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 2:29 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] Hamburg Steinway

At 11:00 AM 5/5/2007, Charles Ball wrote
>The Hamburg pianos can be obtained new through local Steinway 
>dealers, but the selection must take place in Hamburg.  There is a 
>$50,000 difference in price between what we were quoted for a new 
>American D and a new Hamburg D.  Nonetheless, I tune for two 
>important venues that present major Classical pianists, both with an 
>American and a Hamburg Steinway D.  At one venue, about 95% of the 
>artists pick the Hamburg (I would characterize the American there as 
>"good" and the Hamburg as "very good").  At the other venue, where 
>both pianos are quite superior, about 90% pick the Hamburg.  It has 
>been many years since a visiting artist requested an instrument from 
>another manufacturer.

One of my favorite cans of worms...

Here at San Francisco State we have 3 concert instruments on stage - 
a Hamburg Steinway D, a 1970 NY D and a 1953 NY D. All three 
instruments have been kept in top condition by my predecessors, 
myself and my current colleague - new strings, hammers and action 
rebuilds when indicated. The California climate is good to pianos, 
and structural deterioration of pinblocks, soundboards and bridges is 
not significant. So here is an interesting story:

When I first came to work here 2 1/2 years ago, all of the classical 
piano faculty considered the Hamburg Steinway the superior instrument 
and insisted on playing it. So did 95% of the students. The jazz and 
pop faculty and students were more partial to the New York 
instruments and the staff accompanists preferred the newer NY 
instruments over the Hamburg and the older NY. Some jazz people 
objected to being discriminated against because the classical people 
had priority on the Hamburg (and we basically took it out of service 
when others wanted to use it to prevent total overuse). There really 
isn't enough open time in the hall to properly maintain a piano under 
such heavy use. Guest artists either played whatever we gave them or 
chose the Hamburg by 2 to 1 over the NY. This in spite of the fact 
that the Hamburg had essentially a dead bass with all kinds of zings 
and pings which we couldn't get rid of without totally killing the 
tone, the steel strings were also quite worn (often breaking) and the 
piano really was not putting out enough tone (leading to lots of 
"banging" and more broken strings). The Hamburg was being played to 
death, people were fighting over it,  with the two other pianos being 
quite underused.

One of the faculty, who likes to perform lots of two-piano 
repertoire, eventually discovered that it was impossible to match the 
Hamburg to the New York - it just didn't put out enough tone. So she 
started using the two New Yorks for those concerts. Then at the end 
of last year I took the Hamburg out of service for restringing over 
the summer (so that it can be done and all settled in by the start of 
the Fall 2006 semester) - and they all had to use the NY pianos at 
semester's end and over the summer. When the Hamburg again became 
available after the summer, they all wanted to play it again. And 
then, a funny thing happened. Little by little they started 
gravitating back to the newer NY. Of the three primary piano faculty, 
two now actually select the instrument that is most appropriate to 
the repertoire and teach their students to pick the instrument on the 
same basis (or on the basis of how well the instrument suits their 
technique. The Hamburg is a lot harder to control for the less 
developed player...) The third faculty member - born in Australia, 
trained in Europe, tours worldwide - has been loyal to the Hamburg 
and I assumed that he plays the Hamburg because that is what he has 
played all his life. I was totally floored when two weeks ago he 
insisted on the newer NY for a performance of a Chopin concerto with 
the student orchestra. It really made life difficult for me - I was 
counting on him using the Hamburg to make the rest of the 
end-of-semester concert schedule work - but he was adamant.

I had some discussions with these people over the past two weeks, and 
it seems that they are now judging the instruments on their merits 
and teaching their students to do the same. They like the deep, 
growly bass of the NY instruments - the Hamburg doesn't do it there. 
They like the color of the Hamburg instrument. The relative merits of 
the actions are not an issue. So they pick the instrument based on 
repertoire. They  don't think that the Hamburg is any worse than it 
was before - they have just discovered that the newer NY is a pretty 
darn good instrument...

This basically reinforces my theory for the reasons why the Hamburgs 
are getting so popular:

1. Often the NY instruments are not at their best because of poor 
prep and upkeep.
2. The Hamburg instruments are shiny.
3. The Hamburg instruments are different - the exoticism factor.
4. Lots of hype by the "grey market" dealers who made an awful lot of 
money selling the Hamburgs at inflated prices.

When pianists put aside current prejudices and actually judge the 
instruments on their merits, a good NY instrument can hold its own 
against a Hamburg instrument quite easily. They are different 
instruments, each has its own strengths and weaknesses and which one 
to use is often a tough decision. One often wishes that somehow the 
properties of both could be available in one instrument (as one of 
our faculty confessed to me last week).

In the meantime at SFSU the Hamburg currently is almost neglected - 
it's used about 1/3 of the time vs. 2/3 for the newer NY. The 
students use the NY more, the faculty go back and forth. I don't 
expect this to last - the instruments change, the students change, 
faculty preferences change, the proportion of use will necessarily 
change. But I don't think that we will ever go back to the former 
condition of everyone automatically choosing the shiny piano over the
others.

Israel Stein
Piano Technician
Creative Arts Technical Services
School of Music and Dance
San Francisco State University