Rubinstein and Steinway & Sons. Later Ignacy Jan Paderewski played 107 concerts in
117 days travelling through America with his own railway carriage and Steinway concert
grand piano.
According to Steinway & Sons, 98% of piano soloists chose to play publicly on a
Steinway during the 2005-2006 North American Concert season. Most of the world’s
concert halls have a D-274 and some have both New York and Hamburg D’s to satisfy a
greater range of performing artists. Today over 1,300 concert artists and ensembles bear
the title ‘Steinway Artist’ which means that they have chosen to perform on Steinway
pianos. Each owns a Steinway piano and none is paid to do so. They are expected to
perform exclusively on a Steinway piano whenever one is available. The Gina Bachauer
International Piano Competition and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition are
sponsored by Steinway and use Steinway pianos exclusively.
Vladimir Horowitz played his own Steinway D at all his concerts.
Van Cliburn has nine New York and Hamburg D’s in his Dallas home.
The Steinway model D-274 has over 12,000 parts of which about half are part of the
piano’s action which transmits the force of the musician’s touch from keys to strings.
Glenn Gould played his own Steinway D in most of his studio recordings of music by
Bach, Mozart and Schoenberg.
A Steinway piano has about 200 strings, one or two strings for each note in the bass
section and three strings for each note in the middle and descant sections.
The 52 white keys on a Steinway piano are made of ivorite in place of ivory. The 36
black keys are made of ebony wood or ebonite composite material.
Every Steinway is made to the same technical standards yet every Steinway ends up
being slightly different from every other in responsiveness to touch and in delivery of
tonal nuance.
About 79% of the 580,000 Steinways made over 150 years are still in use today. Older
Steinways are constantly being rebuilt and repaired.
Steinway makes less than 1% of the world’s upright pianos a year and about 7% of the
world’s grand pianos a year and remains sixth in production and sales volume after
Yamaha, Samick, Kawai, Pearl River and Young Chang.
There are 115 registered Steinway patents including patents relating to the repetition
action, the metallic frame for upright and grand pianos, improvements in soundboards,
reinforced soundboard ribs, the sostenuto pedal, silent keyboard mechanisms, the grand
piano case (which is still the current design), wood bending machines for the rim, layered
soundboard bridges, the treble bell frame for a grand piano, an upright piano case with