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Welcome to the Web site of our 1884 Steinway model "A" grand piano! This site is intended to serve as a record of the transformation of a glorious old instrument into a beautiful "like new" antique instrument. Please email me if you have any questions or comments about the piano or the site. The piano is a Steinway 6' grand, serial number 50443, finished in Brazilian rosewood. The serial number dates the piano back to 1883/1884 based on Steinway's record of serial numbers. The model "A" is no longer manufactured by Steinway in their New York factory, though it can still be ordered from the Hamburg factory. The following e-mail from Steinway confirms the 1884 date and gives a bit of information about its first two owners:
There's a very good chance that Miss Georgina Schuyler is the same lady referenced in the following articles: Lazarus's Poem For the past several months the piano has been under the care of Pianos by Rösch in Calgary Alberta. It has had the following things done to it:
Essentially it is now a new piano in an antique shell. The replacement parts are either from the same suppliers used by Steinway or they are hand-crafted from materials better than what Steinway currently uses in new pianos. The story of how we came to own this piano is pretty simple really, though the details are long and dull. In short, we did everything through Pianos by Rösch, but the journey that led us to them took several months. When we started working on the plans for our new house, one of the things we factored into the design was a music room big enough for a 6 foot grand piano. At first I figured I'd shop locally for a good Yamaha or Kawai grand piano - the premier Japanese brands, but after visiting the dealers and then doing some research on the Internet, I discovered that I could get myself a vintage Steinway and have it restored "like new" for a similar amount of money. I started looking around for a rebuilder since finding a good rebuilder is much more difficult than finding an antique piano. There are many technicians who will repair or recondition a piano, but very few who will perform the major overhaul necessary to make the piano "like new" so that it will last 70 to 100 years without further major restorative work. It's akin to replacing the entire engine and transmission of a car, but with somewhere in the order of 12000 moving parts rather than several hundred. It's true, a completely rebuilt piano is no longer an antique in the purest sense of the word, since the interior is brand new and the exterior is old, but if you want to be able to play the piano rather than just look at it from across the room, there's no question that this is the way to go. It's like having a vintage Rolls Royce that you can still drive to work every day and get mileage and performance on par with something that just rolled off the assembly line. The search for a rebuilder eventually led me to Josef Rösch and his company Pianos by Rösch. I exchanged many emails with his wife Csilla discussing the pros and cons of various rebuilding approaches, and spoke to both of them on the phone several times. Piano construction is part art, part science, and when it comes to the rebuilding of a vintage instrument there are many opinions on the best way to handle certain modifications. Some rebuilders will not install a new soundboard, preferring to repair the existing one with shims. Even fewer will install a new pinblock since each of the piano keys requires from one to three strings, and each string requires a precisely drilled hole into a perfectly laminated piece of hardwood cut to an exact shape. Imagine having the first 150 holes drilled at exactly the right depth, size, and angle, then botching the next one and having to throw out the pinblock and start over. You can see why it's not something everyone does. Josef and Csilla carefully explained the materials and techniques they use and why certain repairs need to be done in a certain way. Eventually I became as convinced as they were that a full rebuilding to their specifications was the best approach for both the short term enjoyment of the instrument and the long term value of the investment. Having put my faith in the Röschs, the next step was to find a piano. This was in the summer of 1999, around the same time that we were coming up with the rough floor plan of the new house. Being "in the business", the Röschs had several contacts across North America, with their primary supplier located in Cleveland. Aside from the fact that we'd already decided on a Steinway, our requirements were not too specific: something in the 6 foot range from the years 1880-1940. The "war years" especially were to be avoided since materials and craftsmanship were in short supply in those days. Some non-Steinway pianos were available, but we stuck with the Steinway requirement mostly out of brand recognition. I knew enough about the piano industry in the period to know that brands such as Mason & Hamlin, Knabe, and Chickering were every bit the equal of Steinway in quality and sound, but not many people outside of the piano industry have heard of those brands so we were willing to pay a premium for the marquee value that goes with the name Steinway. In early July 1999, the Röschs called me to say that their contact in Cleveland had a 1939 model "L" (5'10½") in walnut similar to the following picture (click to enlarge):
It looked great to us, so we told Josef to contact Cleveland and put it on hold until we could wire the funds. The customer buys the antique and then enters into a separate rebuilding contract, so whoever gets the money to Cleveland first gets the piano. Unfortunately, we waited one day too long and the "L" was snapped up by someone else. A few days later we got word that a model "A" from approximately 1883 was available for the same price. Based on pictures of model As from the same time period, we figured it would look pretty much like this one:
That was fine with us, though we weren't exactly crazy about the fancy scrollwork on the music desk. My brother and sister were both living in Calgary at the time, so the Röschs offered to take them to see an 1879 "A" that Josef had rebuilt for a customer a few years earlier. Both were so taken with the sound of the piano and the look of the Victorian era Rosewood case that they convinced me to go for the "A". To our pleasant surprise, when our piano arrived in Calgary we discovered that it was a slightly less ornate version, with a solid music desk rather than a scrolled one. Restoration work began in earnest in early 2000 and was completed in early May. The 1883 vs. 1884 date is a matter of debate since the manufacturing began in 1883 (the cast iron frame is stamped 1/9.83, meaning it was made in 1883), though it wasn't considered "done" by Steinway until Feb. 9th 1884. Copyright © 1999-2003 Eric Rosenquist. |
