Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: belly department, other piano makers, tone regulator, New York, Steinway Hall, Heinrich Engelhard (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Barron, a New York Times staff writer, expands on his series of articles published in the newspaper for a thoroughgoing chronicle of how a New York immigrant family created an American cultural institution. Barron tracks, from inception to stage, one Steinway concert grand piano named K0862, a direct descendant of the first Model D developed in 1884 by the German family of piano makers established in New York. Heinrich Englehard Steinweg from Seesen, Germany, installed his piano business, now anglicized to Steinway & Sons, on the Lower East Side by 1853, before moving to a factory on Fourth Avenue and eventually to Queens. The original Steinway pianoforte was a compact "square" designed for Victorian parlors, and evolved into a grand that contained longer strings under the lid to "deliver the kind of room-filling sound that earlier pianos lacked." Most fascinating are Barron's descriptions of the old-fashioned handcrafting of K0862 in the Queens factory, from the crucial bending of the maple rim ("the chassis of the piano"), to the fitting of Part No. 81 (the spruce soundboard), cast-iron plate, and action parts, before the piano is tuned for its distinctive sound. In this solid book, Barron pursues the family's fortunes from the company's peak in 1905 through the golden years of 1920s to its sale in 1972. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The gestation period for a $100,000 Steinway concert grand piano is 11 months, give or take a few days, though that's counting neither the journey of the timber from the forest nor the shopping and bargaining trip made by Steinway's shrewd purchasing agent to buy the wood. Adding those into the total and season with the fact that Steinway pianos are still made in basically the same way and in the same place since the 1880s, and you have the makings of a delectable book. In the hands of veteran New York Times staffer Barron, who followed the step-by-step process as concert grand K0862 grew and took shape from its first 17 strips of maple to its final staining, tuning, and polishing, the story becomes greater than a mere chronicle of a manufacturing procedure. For it turns out that these exceedingly complex instruments known as Steinways have an equally complex backstory that encompasses the lives of the people who build and have built them and the politics of a very competitive industry. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Times Books (July 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805078789
• ISBN-13: 978-0805078787
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,293 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much More Than How a Piano is Built, August 1, 2006

By	Barbara A. Clark (East Hampton, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The best thing about this book is that it actually makes riveting reading. I read it from cover to cover like one would a good novel and was disappointed when I got to the end. This is because it is written well and clearly, and the author brings in just enough of his own personal experiences and anecdotes to make it seem real and human. This book may be less meaningful to you if you are not a piano player, but I'm not a piano player and admit to a secret life-long curiosity about how pianos work. James Barron includes so much atmosphere and quirky character in his book "Piano - The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand" you will be as charmed as I was whether you know one note from another or not. This book not only demonstrates why each piano is as individual as a person, but also contains charming descriptions of the scores of people involved in its birth and development into a grand concert stage presence. This is a real treat of a book to curl up with in an armchair, and afterwards you will find yourself never looking at a piano in the same way again.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for All Music Lovers and Others, August 15, 2006

By	Carolyn Stoessinger "Caroline Stoessinger, Di... (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was afraid I was going to dread this book. I have absolutely no interest in building things or taking them apart, and I feared it was going to read like a really technical how-to manual. To my delight, it is not like that at all. PIANO
reads like a novel or a good biography. It introduces the people who made that one piano and the people before them who designed it, and it talks about how that one piano turned out. I don't think you could do a book like this about other "machines"---for example, an airplane or a dishwasher. A piano is terribly mechanical, it turns out, but it's really an instrument. It has its own personality--different from every other piano ever made. I thoroughly enjoyed PIANO.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent gift for your piano playing friends...., November 20, 2006

By	Patrick D. Goonan "www.meaningful-life.us" (Pleasanton, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I am a pianist and was recently given a copy of this book. It is well-written with many fascinating stories that are of interest to anyone, but particularly to pianists who want to understand the mystique and history of the Steinway Concert Grand.

This book follows a particular piano through the approximate 11 month period that it take to build the instrument. It describes the worksmanship involved in lucid detail that anyone would appreciate.

This title also presents an interesting history of the ups and downs of the company. Any pianist or music lover would certainly appreciate this engaging book. It certainly raised my awareness and appreciation for why these instruments cost so much and sound so great!