Steinway & Sons
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Steinway & Sons is a piano maker based in New York City and Hamburg, Germany. Steinway pianos are among the most famous pianos in the world and are the overwhelming choice of professional pianists.
The firm was founded in 1853 in New York City by Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, who emigrated to America in 1851 and anglicised his name to Henry E. Steinway. By the 1860s Steinway was the leading piano manufacturer in America. The innovations introduced by Steinway, including the cast iron frame and overstringing, have become models for other piano manufacturers worldwide.
In 1866, Henry Steinway built Steinway Hall on 14th Street in New York City. It housed the company's offices and showrooms on the first floor, and a large auditorium on the second floor which became a center of culture and music. The Steinway factory was then located on 4th Avenue (now Park Ave.) and East 55th Street in Manhattan. In 1880, Henry's son William established a community, Steinway, in Queens County, New York, including a new factory which is still in use today and worker housing. Steinway Village later became part of Long Island City, Astoria, Queens, New York. To reach all the european customers, who wanted more and more Steinway brand pianos, the Steinway family established 1880 a new, second factory in Germany in the town of Hamburg.
Steinway's long established reputation and high standard of craftsmanship set the firm apart from other makers and their success is reflected by their presence on the majority of concert stages around the world. Steinway provides more than 95 % of the worlds concert halls with their concert grand model. Production was greatest in the 1920s when the firm sold more than 6,000 pianos a year. Their total production has now reached over 570,000.
After long-time financial battles and a general disinterest regarding the business among the present generation of the Steinway family, the firm was sold to CBS in 1972. CBS sold Steinway to a group of investors, Steinway Musical Properties Inc., which after years of losses in turn sold it to Selmer in 1995. The new combined company was renamed Steinway Musical Instruments. Although Henry Ziegler Steinway, the great-grandson of the founder and now approaching 90, still works for Steinway, the management has seen its position as the preeminent concert piano challenged even further by makers like Bösendorfer and Fazioli.
Today
Most pianists have a preference for either Hamburg-built Steinways or New York Steinways. While the differences are preferential and not qualitative, each has its loyalists. Influential artists such as the late Vladimir Horowitz and Van Cliburn insisted on the New York Steinway, with its mellower timbre and powerful bass, whereas others, including Marc-André Hamelin, Mikhail Pletnev, Krystian Zimerman, Alfred Brendel prefer the Hamburg Steinway for its brighter treble and sweeter tone. Today over 1,300 concert artists bear the title "Steinway Artist," which means that they have chosen to perform on Steinway pianos. None of the artists are paid to do so. All Steinway Artists: [Steinway Artists from A-Z]
Steinway is the exclusive piano at some of the world's most prestigious piano competitions, such as the Gina Bachauer Competition and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Brands
Other than "Steinway and Sons," Steinway carries a few other brands all marketed by Steinway itself.
- Boston: The Boston brand is targeted for the traditional general piano markets, the same as the Steinway brand, but at lower prices. Boston pianos are designed by Steinway using Steinway patents, but manufactured by Kawai in Hamamatsu, Japan. As of 2006, the Boston model line offers five sizes of grands and four uprights, with the usual finish variations. Boston grands feature a fatter or boxier tail end design resulting in a larger sound board area than conventionally shaped pianos of comparable sizes, which Boston claims to produce richer sound resonance, equivalent to 4 to 5 inch longer pianos of other brands.
- Essex
References
- Robert V. Ratcliffe: Steinway & Sons. ISBN 0811833895
- Richard K. Liebermann: Steinway & Sons. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1995. ISBN 0300063644
- Susan Goldenberg: Steinway: from glory to controversy; the family, the business, the piano. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1996. ISBN 0-88962-607-3
- Miles Chapin: 88 keys: the making of a Steinway piano. New York: Potter, 1997. ISBN 0517703564
- Theodore Steinway: People and pianos: a century of service to music. New York: Steinway, 1953.
- * 3rd. edition, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Amadeus Pr. LLC, 2005. ISBN 157467112X
External links
- [Steinway & Sons New York]
- [Steinway & Sons Hamburg]
- [Steinway Musical Instruments]
- [Nine-Part Series in the New York Times following the construction of a Steinway concert grand at their New York factory]
- [Steinway & Sons Collection at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives in New York]
Trivia
- "The Instrument of the Immortals" is an advertising slogan for Steinway pianos. It is attributed to [Raymond Rubicam] who used the phrase in 1919. [link]
- The Hyperion Cantos, set in a distant future, mention the Steinway as being one of the mythical music instruments, along with Stradivarius violins.
- Among Steinway's "Immortal Artists" roster are many 19th and 20th century greats such as George Gershwin, Edvard Grieg, Vladimir Horowitz, Franz Liszt, Cole Porter, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Rudolf Serkin, and Igor Stravinsky.
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