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1893 MESSRS. STEINWAY & SONS, PIANOFORTE MANUFACTURERS. 15 AND 17, LOWER SEYMOUR STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE, W.
No musical instrument has had a more interesting career or exhibited such striking features of rapid development, and none is more truly indispensable to the art it serves so well. Among the many makers whose names have a prominent place in the annals of pianoforte manufacture, it may with justice be said that none have done more to raise the instrument to its present high condition of perfection than Messrs.
Steinway & Sons, the world-renowned firm whose business
we propose to briefly review in this article. The name of Steinway
has become a synonym for the highest order of excellence in
pianoforte making, and this firm’s instruments have established a
standard of merit so far in advance of that which obtained forty
years ago (when the Steinway pianos first made their appearance)
that one is fain to admit the seeming impossibility of further
improvement. Messrs. Steinway & Sons still have their headquarters at New York, where their vast manufactories rank among the largest industrial establishments in the “Empire City.” Their American show-rooms are at Nos. 107 to 111, East Fourteenth Street, New York, and they have a wonderful establishment at Astoria, opposite One Hundred and Twentieth Street, New York, comprising factories for making piano-cases and actions, foundries, metal works, drying kilns for wood seasoning, saw-mills, timber yards, and basins, all upon an immense scale. This is quite an industrial city in miniature, and has come to be known as “Steinway.” The firm also have a finishing factory at Hamburg, Germany, with a depot in the same city for the Continental trade. Altogether over a thousand hands are employed in the manufacturing departments in Europe and America, in addition to the large staffs attached to the firm’s various branches in different parts of the world; and there is every reason to believe that Messrs. Steinway are by far the largest pianoforte makers in existence. Their immense trade in the United Kingdom is now conducted from the London house, which was opened in 1875, and which has become one of the institutions of the country in the musical instrument trade. This establishment is situated in Lower Seymour Street, Portman Square, and comprises spacious and elegant show-rooms on the ground and upper floors, displaying a magnificent stock of Steinway pianofortes in every size and style, and at prices ranging from one hundred guineas upwards. The premises also include well-appointed shops for regulating and repairing instruments, and in immediate connection is the well-known and favourite Steinway Hall, one of London’s prettiest and most comfortable concert halls.
Here there is excellent accommodation for an audience of about six
hundred persons, and the convenient situation of the hall, coupled
with its elegant appointment and admirable acoustic properties,
bring it into very great request during the London musical season.
This handsome little hall has an equally notable “American cousin”
in Steinway Hall, New York, which is also the property of the firm
under notice. It is enough for our purpose here to note that musicians and virtuosi of every nationality are agreed in the opinion that the Steinway pianofortes in their present advanced state of excellence are practically unrivalled for their comprehensive merits. They present probably a larger combination of good qualities than any other instrument of the kind extant, and are well-nigh unique in their adaptability to both the great branches of musical art in which the pianoforte is called upon to display its capabilities, viz., the accompaniment of vocal music, and the exhibition of virtuosity in solo or concerted performance.
In other
words, the Steinway pianofortes are the instruments for both singers
and pianists, and in this respect they are above and beyond
competition. The contrapuntal style of music in vogue a hundred
years ago was easily satisfied with a pianoforte of moderately good
tone and mechanism; but the elaborate compositions of modern times,
with their masses of harmonic colouring, make much heavier demands,
not only upon the player, but upon the instrument, and call for
qualities of tone and action in the latter which exist in a
superlative degree in the magnificent productions of Messrs.
Steinway & Sons. These qualities are obtained by the united aid of
the many notable improvements introduced and perfected by this great
firm. Messrs. Steinway have also embodied in their wonderful instruments shaped metal frames in connection with the new construction of the inner and external casing in a number of layers of uninterrupted long-fibred wood, thus doing away with the grave disadvantage of weakness in the treble register of grand pianos, where the arch of the case begins — a weakness so frequently manifested in instruments whose cases are constructed upon the old-fashioned principle, with short pieces of wood. Another great improvement is secured by the metallic tubular action frame, which, being entirely impervious to atmospheric influences, ensures unerring precision, power, and delicacy of touch combined with durability. Purification of tone is further insured by the Steinway duplex scaling, a new invention which greatly increases the duration of tone, and keeps the instrument much longer in tune. The new tone-sustaining pedal is also a splendid idea, and there are many other points in which the ingenuity and scientific skill of the Steinways have been advantageously displayed, the grand result of all being a piano which is as perfect as any human contrivance can hope to be, and which unites in itself the highest excellences of pure and rich tone, lightness and quickness of touch and repetition, finished workmanship, faultless mechanism, and that durability which makes a good instrument doubly valuable.
Such masters of the art and
technique of piano-playing as Liszt, Wagner, Rubinstein, Paderewski,
and Berlioz have accorded the highest commendation to Steinway
pianofortes, and were any further proof of merit required (in
addition to that universal public verdict which is perhaps the
weightiest testimony of all) it is amply forthcoming in the long
array of exhibition honours these superb instruments have won in all
parts of the world. ”The Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 brought additional honours to Messrs. Steinway, who there obtained the highest awards for the best pianofortes and best pianoforte material, with the unanimous agreement of the judges that their instruments embodied “the highest degree of excellence in all their styles.”
Messrs. Steinway & Sons achieved a great success at the
Inventions Exhibition, London, 1885, gaining the highest award in
the power of the jury to grant, viz., the “Gold Medal awarded to
Steinway & Sons for grand and upright pianos, for general
excellence, and several meritorious and useful inventions.” Besides
all the above-named distinctions, this firm have been specially
honoured in receiving the Gold Medal of the Society of Arts, awarded
to them upon the recommendation of the Jury of the Inventions
Exhibition for the best pianos in that exhibition, and for “several
meritorious and useful inventions.” They prove conclusively that in the arena of international competition, where all prejudices are laid aside for the time, and only calm unbiased judgment prevails, the Steinway pianofortes have taken the premier place, and completely justified their universal reputation and the favourable verdict of the musical world. We may take this opportunity of drawing the attention of our readers to the admirably-printed and fully-illustrated pamphlet and catalogue Messrs. Steinway & Sons have recently issued. The catalogue, with its fine engravings, is a work of art, and the firm’s many valuable patents and clever inventions for the improvement of the pianoforte are described in a most interesting manner, with diagrams and copious letterpress.
The same publication gives reprints of
testimonials received by the firm from such distinguished musicians,
artists, and scientists as Helmholtz, Liszt, Wagner, Rubinstein,
Berlioz, Gounod, Joseph Joachim (who says “Steinway is to the
pianist what Straduarius is to the violinist”), Adelina Patti,
Sophie Menter, Annette Essipoff, Arabella Goddard, Alma Haas,
Madeline Schiller, Edward Greig, Paolo Tosti, Leonard Borwick, Senor
Albeniz, Arthur Friedheim, Benno Schonberger, Otto Hegner,
Antoinette Trebelli, Madame Melba, Minnie Hauk, Madame Gerster,
Madame Valleria, and Marie Roze.
The aggregate value of the firm’s stock of pianos everywhere
may be set down at nearly £1,000,000. The English stock alone is
worth from £40,000 to £50,000. An enormous and world-wide trade is
carried on by this distinguished firm, and Steinway pianofortes are
known, used, and esteemed by the greatest artists in every quarter
of the globe in which “the most perfect of all the arts” receives
exposition. The Steinway pianofortes have also been supplied to the Royal Courts of Russia, the Sultan of Turkey, the Emperor of China, the Mikado of Japan, the Queen of Spain, &c., thus showing their world-wide distribution." Ilustrated London and its representatives of Commerce, 1893 (messybeast.com)
STEINWAY
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