Customer Reviews

Steinway and Sons

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Lieberman is the director of the archives that house the Steinway collection, and writes as a knowledgeable insider. The history of the family and its pianos is told, from its beginnings in Germany, up through the sale to CBS and the Birminghams (the sale to the Selmer Company in 1995 happened after the publication of the book.) As a bonus, there's a great history of Yamaha pianos and its fierce competition with Steinway. It's well-written and there are numerous photos.

This is great reading, and a wonderful resouce for anyone interested in music or pianos.

Steinway & Sons is a rich, absorbing history of a business dynasty that stayed vital over six generations. Lieberman astutely analyzes the twin forces of creativity and hard-nosed business sense that made and sustained Steinway's preeminence as the concert piano of choice. This richly anecdotal book does not shy away from the dark side of the family's history-- its contempt for the piano workers, its unthinking patriarchy, even its active cultivation of the Nazis in Germany during World War II. (In America Steinway emphasized its patriotism by draping its conert hall with American flags and publicizing the Steinway sons who were serving in the American armed forces.) In this balanced account, Lieberman takes pains to catalogue the family's numerous contributions to the conert piano's evolution, as well as its unceasing promotion of the finest artists. The Steinways' mixture of creative technical innovation, fine musical taste and ruthless business practices makes them a family of particular fascination. Lieberman brings the various figures, strong and weak and flawed, to vibrant life.

Steinway & Sons, by Richard K. Lieberman, is considered to be the ultimate treatise on the history of the Steinway piano at M. Steinert & Sons of Boston. (Lest there be any confusion, M. Steinert & Sons was a piano manufacturer in its own right before the Great Depression of 1929, retaining its name now as the oldest piano dealership in the nation.) Lieberman's book is suggested reading at every Steinway dealership in the world, and although I've been tuning and teaching for over 30 years, I just now decided to sit down and read this book that was released sixteen years ago. But what of that, as the story begins 214 years ago?

The book is exceptionally well written and chock full of facts and historical information. It should be required reading in our history classes, for it covers the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800's, the Civil War of 1861-65, WWI, riots, strikes, the Spanish Influenza of 1918, the formation of unions in the 1940's, WWII and the role a Steinway member had in each event; not to mention the living conditions and economic swings of the times.

Steinway's history begins in 1797 with the birth of Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, ultimately the sole survivor of fourteen children. We are brought back to a time when Germany was divided into thirty-eight states, each with its own government, legal codes, weights, measures and currencies. Torn by wars and revolution, the now successful piano maker decides, at the age of fifty-three, to take his wife and five children and emigrate to New York. (One son, Theodore, remains behind.) With no English language skills, they begin working in a piano factory in New York City where German is spoken--incidentally, German is the main language spoken in all piano factories of the time, and it is to the Germans that we owe thanks for bringing the piano and its wealth of music to the United States.

Three years later (1853) Heinrich and his four sons open their own factory, Americanize their name to Steinway and begin their journey as Steinway & Sons. It is interesting to note that the two sons, Charles and Henry Jr., are those primarily responsible for the patents and innovations that gave birth to the piano we know today: innovations that helped Steinway & Sons win every prize of the 19th Century when exhibitions and fairs featured major inventions of the Industrial Revolution. However, with the death of these young men in 1865 (ages thirty-five and thirty-six) it is William Steinway who takes the reins as he begins to create a publicity campaign by paying European artists to tour the country and make the name Steinway & Sons a household word. He coaxes brother Theodore over from Germany and opens showrooms in London, Berlin and Hamburg. Theodore is responsible for the invention of the rim-bending press, which gives the modern grand piano its continuous bent rim, but William perpetrates the illusion that it is the living Steinways that are responsible for every patent as "dead Steinways would have no allure." William is a powerful public figure at every level as he sings his way through New York Society, creates Steinway Village (to have complete control of his workers), roads, schools, amusement parks, train routes, plans the modern subway system, encourages Daimler to build his new invention--the motorized "riding car" in the Steinway Factory. (William Steinway is the first American to ride a motorized vehicle in the streets of New York.)

With the death of William in 1896 of typhus, the torch passes to the son of his late brother, Charles H. who harvests the fruits of the labor of those who have passed away in what are known as the Golden Years of Steinway & Sons. He dies, tragically, of the influenza virus in 1919. His brother Frederick follows for another eight years, but it is Theodore, son of William Steinway, who inherits the heavy crown as Steinway faces the Great Depression and heads into WWII. He is passionate about music, memorizing Wagner operas and attenting performances at the MET regularly. He is ultimately overwhelmed by insurmountable obstacles, Theodore ultimately finds solace with his companion of choice: gin. When Theodore passes away at the age of seventy-four, the responsibility shifts to his son Henry Z. Steinway--(who, by the way, just left us two years ago at the age of ninety-three and was the last president of Steinway & Sons).

Theodore is not a musician, nor does he have much appreciation of the arts. He is a Harvard Graduate businessman set on making Steinway & Sons financially solvent by tightening the belt, consolidating the Ditmar and Riker factories and in 1958 selling Steinway Hall to Manhattan Life Insurance Co., (while still maintaining the showroom). In 1955 he decides to stop using ivories. This is not due to any humanitarian bent on his part or the fact that from 1860-1930 up to 100,000 elephants were killed each year for their tusks (one tusk made fifty keyboards), but because of the labor-intensive task of preparing the ivory's consistency of color and use (ivory importation into the US remained legal until 1985).

According to Lieberman, Steinway & Sons began to use TFE-fluorcarbon resin in 1957 (The DuPont product known as Teflon), to replace the traditional wool felt cloth used in the action's 1,130 movable parts known as "bushings." This decision was made to compensate for the low quality of post-war felts, and, it was hoped, would resolve the problem of sticking in humid weather and looseness in dry weather. Unfortunately the organic material--wood--which was married to the Teflon bushings did not remain static during changes in humidity and the sluggishness in summer and clacking in the winter proved to be a curse that plagued the American Steinway piano for over twenty years. Although encouraged to follow suit, we learn that the Hamburg factory never made its own parts but bought (and still buys) ready-made action parts from Renner, which never adopted the Teflon idea. (Perhaps why the Hamburg Steinway holds an untarnished reputation.)

But it is Japan and the Yamaha piano that strike fear in the heart of Henry Z. Steinway as Yamaha seeps into America as the white man seeped into the territory of the Native American Indian. With American pumping aid back into the Japanese economy after WWII, they were actually enabling Japan to invade our musical economy as they produced as many pianos in one week as it took Steinway to produce in one year--with a labor force that earned $1 to an American's $5. In 1967 Yamaha ousted the Knabe as the piano of the Metropolitan Opera by giving the house $10,000 and forty new pianos every year.

By the late 1960's Henry begins to drink and fears that Steinway will bring him to the same end that it brought his father. And although it has been rumored in the piano world that no Steinway family member was interested in carrying on the family tradition, we learn that this is false; Henry's sister Betty has two sons, Theodore and Simon, who are anxious to follow in their forefathers' footsteps but, alas, their last name is not Steinway, it is Chapin and their enthusiasm is squelched. Steinway is sold to CBS Musical Instrument Division in 1972, who then turned it over to the Birmingham brothers in 1985--whose contribution is the creation of a modestly priced piano to compete with the Yamaha, and named it after their hometown of Boston. They, in turn, sold Steinway to the Selmer Company ten years later and Steinway is now publicly traded, in unison with Selmer's clarinets and saxophones, under the umbrella of LVB (Ludwig Van Beethoven).

P.S. In 2002 Steinway introduced the Essex piano--a modestly priced instrument with 26 of Steinway's unique design features.

Lieberman's book is a wonderful and absorbing social history of our times disguised as a family history. The book covers a journey which begins in the 1850s and ends in the 1980s when this manufacturer of exquisite pianos was sold to a larger corporate entity, CBS. The story reads like a novel because it is a dramatic family and corporate tale that unfolds as you read.

Richard K. Lieberman's "Steinway & Sons" will fascinate dedicated specialists, because its 374 pages are chock full of photos, facts and figures he extracted from the Steinway archives. The book's extensive notes will also appeal to serious scholars (or truly devoted Steinway fans). But this book will not suit general readers, who should instead consider "88 Keys - The Making of a Steinway Piano" by Miles Chapin & Rodica Prato.

Although Lieberman deserves praise for assembling a massive collection of facts, his book falls short because he apparently didn't know what to make of them. This lack of understanding is further aggravated by Lieberman's poor editorial judgment. He gives trivial facts undeserved attention, he exaggerates, and he leans toward simplistic, black-&-white judgments that cannot capture the nuance of real life. In one particularly annoying case, Lieberman abuses the reader's time with a pointlessly salacious account of a sexual scandal that surrounded one of the Steinway wives more than 100 years ago. This would be fine if it contributed to the story, but it doesn't. Instead, it is mere interruption. Worse yet, no thoughtful reader will ever trust Lieberman again after reading that this woman "slept with almost every man she met". Such obvious exaggeration is an extremely unbecoming trait in a reputed scholar, and it undermines the impression of seriousness created by the book's 50 pages of endnotes.

Lieberman's poor grasp of the science of pianos is another serious problem, since it causes him to maul technical issues that should be handled with care and precision. Regarding the development of the one-piece iron plate, for example, Lieberman says, "It could hold the strings under greater tension, thus increasing the length of time a piano could stay in tune." But since a taut string is more likely to stretch (and thus go out of tune) than a slack one, merely tightening the strings cannot guarantee a well tuned piano. The reader is left wondering what Lieberman means. Several possibly sensible interpretations can be imagined, but the reader should not be forced to translate an author's gobbledygook into something meaningful. Sadly, many of Lieberman's other technical claims are similarly imprecise, incomplete, or carelessly framed, leaving one with the unpleasant feeling that he simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

Lieberman's very superficial understanding of business also limits this book's value. He tells the Steinway story with the voice of a maven at a cocktail party, not with the voice of a business authority. This isn't surprising, since Lieberman is a history professor. Nevertheless, his inability to understand and explain the Steinway experience as a business phenomenon is a serious flaw. One almost feels that he considers it a matter of blind luck that Steinway has survived for nearly 150 years and that it continues to produce many of the world's finest pianos. Readers who are interested in business will find few insights here, although raw data is plentiful.

In summary, Lieberman's book is rich in facts, figures, and fascinating photos, but it is weak on analysis and exposition. Perhaps Lieberman will bring us a revised edition prepared with the help of a co-author who is knowledgeable about business. If so, he should submit all of his technical claims to authorities who can review and clarify them. Barring such changes, this book will mainly appeal to Steinway scholars. General readers should look elsewhere for a warmer, clearer, more accurate, and more entertaining discussion of the Steinway story.

This was a very interesting book. Very informative. It contained a lot of information germain to running a business, but it was never dry and was easy to read. It not only traced the history of the business, but detailed how society has evolved dramatically over the years. Read this book!!

I am a fourth generation piano restorer - [...]and found the book to be extremely helpful in understanding the family history of Steinway as well as the company itself. Anyone who is interested in getting a better understanding of how such a incredible company was able to produce one of the finest made pianos would love this book.

Richard K. Lieberman's "Steinway & Sons" delighted me. As a writer doing research into late nineteenth-century New York, I found Lieberman's saga of this German family bringing its craftsmen's tradition to New York and making out very well indeed fascinating. The members of the family come alive in all their shrewdness and occasional peccadilloes. Lieberman does a fine job of tracing how the public's regard for the piano changed overtime. He also brings to life the internal contradiction within the company. On the one hand they wanted recognition as the makers of the finest concert grands, on the other hand the money was in selling to the mass market which wanted cheap pianos for home entertainment. This is a great read, even if the only instrument you play is a tape deck.

Steinway & Sons is one of the best books of its kind I have ever read. It's carefully researched, informative, entertaining, and clearly written. It's an exceptional example of scholarship that brings to life times gone by, looking through the lens of the Steinway saga. Read this book! You won't be sorry!

I was pleased to read Lieberman's book on the Steinways and their pianos. This social history of pianos, piano-making, and piano-promoting makes its characters come alive. And just when you were wondering what the context is - what was happening in New York City, in the United States, or in Germany at the Germany at the time - Lieberman is there to tell you. While it's clear that this was a monumental research effort, it doesn't read like one. This is a great book of social history written by a historian who obviously relishes telling a good story.