A Destination Like No Other

Like many in the music community today, I am mourning the announced sale of the Steinway & Sons store on 57^th Street in New York.  Steinway is one of the great American companies, continuing to make products of the highest quality workmanship and materials—in America.  Every piano that bears the iconic Steinway & Sons “lyre” logo is made by hand by a team of specialized craftsman in a factory in Astoria, Queens.  No aspect is mass produced, which is why every Steinway has its own voice and personality. 

Steinway & Sons has been around for nearly 2 centuries, having been one of the first American manufacturers to eclipse its European competitors in the global market.  Unlike high-end cars and other symbols of “wealth,” a high end Steinway is one of the few material investments that will appreciate in value.  Today, the Steinway concert grand remains the instrument of choice for nearly every leading artist, across every musical genre—not just classical music.   

I’ve been a Steinway girl since my family first surprised me as a young 15-year old with a modest Steinway grand.  I had a beloved great uncle who very much wanted to see me practicing everyday on a better instrument.  His benevolent effort made it possible to procure a well-worn instrument that had sat as a piece of furniture in a wealthy woman’s home for decades.   It was a good instrument with a depth of sound that comes from its signature, hand-carved sounding board. 

I am now on my fourth Steinway grand piano.  We scraped together spare change early in our marriage to buy a retired road warrior from a Waylon Jennings tour.   Although it looked like it had been left out in the rain, I loved that it “felt” like a Steinway.  This piano was later traded in for a 60s vintage Steinway with a walnut cabinet and Teflon bushings—a failed technology from the era when Steinway was owned by CBS.   About 12 years ago, when I began performing again, my husband made one of his most magnanimous gestures, presenting me with a brand new, full-size Model B.   By then, the Steinway company had passed back to the control of the Steinway family and then to sensitive investors who understood the value of preserving the artisanship of the process.   The story of bringing a Steinway grand to life is beautifully told in the documentary, “Note by Note:  The Making of Steinway L1037.”

I feel very strongly that once you play a Steinway grand, you are ruined for all other pianos.  There are things that you can do with a Steinway—the booming of the bass and the crisp, clarity of the upper registers—that cannot be executed as successfully on other pianos.  One of the great tests of a Steinway is to pound a great chord and then listen carefully for how long is reverberates in the space.  A Steinway will normally outlast other brands in the sustainability of its sound.  But even more remarkable is how different one Steinway can be from another.   For my current grand, I spent hours—literally—sampling one Model B after another at a factory sale.  I played different genres of music, finding that some pianos favored the baroque and early classical repertoire while others were a better platform for rich Romantic works, like Chopin and Liszt.  Since my sweet spot is somewhere between Chopin and Rachmaninoff, I chose an instrument with a deep and velvety middle range, a bright upper register, and a clearly defined bass.  And then there are the “Steinway muscles.”  A Steinway grand is harder to play.

The selling of the Steinway & Sons 57^th Street building is not an indication that the company will compromise it production and quality in any way.  But the New York location, across from Carnegie Hall, has been a pilgrimage destination for musicians through the ages.  On any given day, you can see a cross-section of the musical elite there.  Sergei Rachmaninoff met Vladimir Horowitz there in the 1920s.  Today, artists from Emmanuel Ax to Harry Connick, Jr. descend on the ornate Beaux Arts building to try out the pianos, selecting the instruments for their performances, or even looking for a specific instrument to elevate a specific piece.  I have been there many times, playing the many pianos in its endless array of showrooms.   It is a vortex for inspiration and a shrine to pianistic majesty.  Imagine major league baseball closing down its Hall of Fame, or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences abandoning the Oscars.  This is a tragedy of epic proportions, rendering as collateral damage of the economic downturn one of the most recession-proof icons.  It is yet another sad sign of the times.