Articles on the "Horowitz" Steinway touch weight

[Les Smith]

Rich, Although I cannot now remember the source, I read something similar
a couple of years ago. I think I have the article around here somewhere.
If you watch tapes of Horowitz playing you'll notice that he compensated
fpr those ultra-bright hammers by using more una-corda pedal than any other
pianist I've ever seen. So much so, that if you concentrate on the action
of the piano, you'll think that you're watching a Duo-Art reproducing player
with a shifter mechanism rather than a human pianist. Be that as it may, no
one will argue with the results he achieved!

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net

On Thu, 2 May 1996, Richard Adkins wrote:

> List:
>   Can anyone confirm this?Have any of you had a close up examination
> of this piano? (Mike Mohr?)
>
> In the May/June '96 Clavier Walden Hughes writes:
>
>    "Horowitz often told his technician that the keys should go down if
> he simply blew on them. To achieve this,{Franz}  Mohr found it
> necessary to file down the sizes of the hammers. Horowitz required a
> precisely 44 grams of key resistance, but full-size hammers were too
> heavy for an action of this gram-weight: the average Steinway is
> weighted to approximately 50-55 grams....
>
> >>>>>>>
> I think what he says further on to be true for all concert instruments...
>
> {Later in the article he writes: "before anyone draws the obvious
> conclusion that piano manufacturers should redesign all pianos to
> conform to Horowitz's conception, the tradeoffs should be noted.
> In order to maintain the full dynamic range with such bright hammers,
> especially at the lower dynamic levels, the hammers will have to be
> maintained frequently, entainling much expensive work by a first-rate
> piano technician......}
>
> Rich Adkins
> Coe College Music Dept.
>
>