[rollei_list] Re: OT Pianos

Aaron Reece wrote:
Two of the best pianos I have ever played were Hamburg Steinways. One was a recent model purchased brand-new for a music school I was attending and the other was a factory-reconditioned 1898 model B (I think) purchased in Vienna by a faculty member and shipped to the USA. It was like playing melted chocolate. It must have been one of the last to have only 85 keys - the top A#, B, and C are not present. It's very strange playing one of these if you are used to the "standard" 88-key keyboard.

The Hamburg instruments seem to have a rounder tone, maybe a little smaller (though I did not think so) and sweeter than the American Steinways. A lot of American Steinways seem to me to have a disagreeable, "brassy" tone and a clunky action that makes it impossible to do a real pianissimo. But this may be due more to the huge number of them out there and the large variation among piano technicians' abilities.

Unfortunately I never got to play the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand at my alma mater. (snipped)


I've recorded a few Hamburg Steinways (we have one in Boston at the Gardner Museum; it can be heard regularly at their wonderful recital series), the Imperial Grand, and of course many concert-grade American Steinways. With apologies to Dirk, these three are THE instruments by just about anyone's standards...

The American Steinways are hand-made instruments and very variable. Artists go to the factory and play many many pianos over a period of weeks and sometimes months before settling on one...


Eric Goldstein
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