Streinway "Accelerated action".

[Bill Ballard]

At 8:47 AM -0400 5/6/03, A440A@aol.com wrote:
>  The hammers were juiced, but then again, all Steinways seem to be.  They
>were rather small and had been filed numerous times.  
>     The man was able to play rapidly, that is the main thing.  However, his
>hammers, even as old as they were, did check fairly close to the strings, (as
>I remember, after examining the piano at the factory before it was
>"restored").  The keys had less lead than normal, due to the hammers being so
>light.  There wasn't much power in the piano at the time, it was just loud
>and brassy.

A good description of his piano. Also, Joe Bisceglie has been quoted 
as saying that the hammer pinning was so loose that the "hammers 
literally danced their way up to the string".

So there you have it. Horowitz's piano was so light-hammered and 
brassy that only he could make music with it. Given this set-up, 
these pianos (two in the basement and one chez lui, in his final 
years) were probably the only ones he could play. And Franz Mohr was 
the only one who could stand to work on them.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

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