Steinway & Sons 5’-7” Medium Grand Piano.

  This 1926 Steinway & Sons grand piano is one of the finest musical instruments ever built, in the history of mankind. It is truly a historical piece of Americana. It was built during the golden era of American piano building and Steinway & Sons was the piano that every other was judged by. It is handcrafted and took a full year to build. The Steinway factory held nearly all of the important patents in the industry and the third-generation Steinway family participated in all of the significant operations of the factory. Modernizing and improving the manufacturing of pianos in the 19-th and 20-th centuries is nearly exclusively the responsibility of the Steinway company. The grand Steinway Hall in New York City was completed one year before this instrument was built. Three years later, a young Russian defector, Vladimir Horowitz and fellow Russian pianist and composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff met in the hall’s basement and played Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto, which became Horowitz’s trademark masterpiece. In the world of musical instruments, there are pianos – and then there are Steinway & Sons.

This piano was recently restored in our 88 Keys Piano Workshop. The very finest materials were employed in this extensive eight -month process. To hold the tuning pins tightly, it received a new 5-ply premium hard rock maple Bolduc pinblock. The Bolduc factory from Montreal, Canada is the company that produces the current new Steinway pinblocks. We selected German-made, premium Renner Blue Point hammers, shanks and flanges to replace the originals and new Renner damper felts and wires were included. The repetition levers and springs were replaced with Renner also, as were the let-off buttons and backchecks. It was re-strung with Mapes International bass strings and treble music wire, the same as new Steinway pianos. The soundboard was free of serious cracks, so the original was repaired and refinished. The white Natural keys were recovered with the finest keytop material and the hardwood Sharp keys were re-lacquered black. The flame mahogany cabinet and original bench were beautifully refinished by our fine re-finishers. All of the cabinet hardware, bolts and casters were re-plated. It isn’t a secret that preowned Steinway pianos that have been restored are the biggest competition to exorbitantly priced brand new models.

Historically, the model M is Steinway’s most popular model and features the classic “Steinway sound”; having a strong, sustained singing treble, a compex and rich tenor, and a powerful bass, rich in high harmonics. The duration of tone (sustain time) is lengthy, which enables legato phrases to be extended while new counter-point phrases are performed, providing a lush tonal experience. The dynamic range is wide, allowing the pianist to play the softest pianissimos and strongest fortissimos, expressively and emotively. The tonal color or timbre is neither overly mellow and dull or overly bright and tinny. The mid-treble, where most of the melody lines are played “sings” and doesn’t disappear under the background of an accompaniment, partially due to the Steinway patented Duplex scale. It has the power that most pianos aspire to but not the harsh, brash “loudness” that often results. This instrument is suitable for the serious pianist, classical performance venues, houses of worship and many school, teaching and institutional situations.

The Steinway & Sons piano action with its 12,116 individual and cataloged parts is the vanguard of piano actions. All of their grand piano models have the same number of cataloged action parts. Steinway has held most of the patents issued to piano manufacturers by the US Patent Office for action improvements including the exclusive “Accelerated Action”, which increases the speed of repetition. The patented Tubular Metallic action frame maintains proper alignment of the action parts, unlike other manufacturers that have components that can move out of regulation. The middle pedal is their patented Sostenuto. A proper grand piano action regulation requires 14 separate adjustments per key so our talented 88 Keys piano technicians have been busy and this action has been well-regulated and ready now for the next concert performance.

Restrung with a new pinblock and tuning pins.

The harp was refinished with their own color, “Steinway Gold”.