Striking a Chord
With the Prices of New Grand Pianos Reaching the
High Notes, High-Quality Used Pianos Have Become an Increasingly
Attractive Alternative
by Miles Chapin
Chances are there's a piano lurking somewhere in your
childhood--maybe it was in the music room in grade school or in your
grandmother's front parlor. But though we may be familiar with
pianos, few people can say with any certainty what makes them
work, or can articulate the difference between a flea market special
and a concert grand.
The piano has held the central position in Western music
for two centuries and, according to the Oxford Companion to Musical
Instruments, more music has been written and published for the
piano than for any other instrument. We carry images of the grand
piano and its players in our hearts and
minds--everything from Frédéric Chopin and his
romantic compositions and Irving Berlin with his popular melodies to
the flamboyant Liberace and the rambunctious Jerry Lee Lewis,
who was reputed to have once set fire to a piano onstage. But
regardless of who is striking the keys, be it an old-time master or a
popular contemporary artist, a few intractable facts about
grand pianos cannot be avoided: they are big, they are usually
immobile and they are terribly expensive. But there is a lot more to
the story of the piano, and the history of the instrument is far from
finished.
A grand piano may be the most complicated piece of machinery made
by hand in the world today. More than 12,000 parts, mostly wood and
mainly fashioned by manual labor, go into a grand piano, and it can
sometimes take up to four years to go from the tree to the
concert hall or living room, depending on the manufacturer. The metal
frame, hammers, strings, tuning pins and woodwork that you see
underneath the top of a modern grand piano embody nearly 300 years of
technological progress that has evolved toward one goal: to create a
musical instrument with the greatest sensitivity to the artist's touch
and with the highest potential for the production of sound. Yet these
instruments are also capable of great delicacy--the music of French
composer Erik Satie must be played on the same instrument that
can handle a Tchaikovsky concerto. Or, to put it another way, the same
piano that can serve the delicious trills and runs of a jazz virtuoso
such as Art Tatum must also handle a flat-out rocker like
Little Richard.
However, unlike many other highly engineered objects (sports cars
are a good example), pianos are often thought of as mere
decoration. Isn't there a white baby grand piano in every New York
penthouse in every MGM musical? What about the magnificent White House
piano that sits in the East Room--a gilded mahogany case embellished
with scenes of Americana, seeming to float above golden legs carved in
the shape of eagles? Do these instruments ever get played?
In the case of the White House Steinway (the company's 300,000th
instrument, presented to the country as a gift from Steinway &
Sons in 1938), the answer is yes, occasionally. For the baby grand in
the Hollywood films, the answer is probably no. In fact, it's likely
that the piano at the old MGM studios wasn't even a musical instrument
at all, but simply a white, piano-shaped object used as set
decoration. The music, if the piano was to be played at all in a
movie, was added in post-production.
For many people, a piano is something that simply sits in a corner
of the living room collecting dust, a grand symbol of civilized
living. If the name on its keylid is a prestigious one, so much the
better. Others with a more musical bent may want an instrument that
has a good touch and a nice sound at the lowest possible price. This
dichotomy has affected the piano market for decades, making the
purchase of a piano, new or used, a stressful event for many buyers.
In recent years, as many people's incomes have soared, a
new buyer has emerged--one who is as interested in the musical
qualities as much as the decorative, status or investment aspect of
the instrument. The market for high-quality used instruments that
satisfy both criteria is soaring.
Maximiliaan Rutten, a Manhattan dealer in the high end of the
market, describes this new breed as "very sophisticated, very
well-educated, wealthy individuals who are at a point where they want
to reward themselves and their families with the best of the best. If
they have a serious piano education, they may emphasize the decorative
aspects of the piano less. If they do not have that background, they
are very often admirers of music, and they go after a piano that is
not only high quality, but also an instrument that in style and design
matches their interior."
In choosing a piano, you are looking at a commodity that must
serve several purposes at once. Whether you choose an instrument for
its looks, its sound or its investment potential, you should
proceed cautiously. There is today, and historically has always been,
a large measure of chicanery in the piano trade. Fortunately,
quality pianos are tremendously durable and the basic design hasn't
changed much for almost a hundred years. Pianos are plentiful,
and numerous options are open to the buyer in terms of new
instruments, older instruments both refurbished and not, and the
specialty trade in one-of-a-kind or limited-edition pianos.
But you must look carefully; two pianos that appear nearly
identical may carry vastly different price tags: one could go for a
few hundred dollars while the other might cost a hundred thousand.
Is there a difference between them? You bet. It gets confusing
very quickly, though, when you are dealing with a two-headed beast
like a collectible piano. To appreciate some of the subtleties, it
helps to have a little historical background.
The instrument generally regarded as the earliest ancestor of the
modern piano was "invented" by Bartolomeo Cristofori, an Italian
craftsman at the Medici court, around 1700. Three of his instruments
still exist--one is in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. In
creating his "Arpicembalo che fà il piano e il forte," as he
called it--a harpsichord that could play quietly and
loudly--Cristofori adapted the physics of the clavichord, a
popular instrument of his day, but with one important innovation. To
improve upon the limited vibration that the clavichord's string
produced, Cristofori devised a free-falling hammer mechanism (called
the "action") that would allow the string to vibrate along its entire
length. The repetitive movement of the mechanism (which lies between
the piano key and a string) enabled trills and flourishes to
be played that previously could not.
This innovation also made one other crucial thing possible:
the ability of the keyboard artist to vary the sound the instrument
produces by varying the touch upon the keys. Harpsichords, which were
the primary stringed keyboard instruments of Cristofori's day, cannot
do this--their strings are excited by plucking, and their action is
far less sensitive to the artist's touch. The organ, the other
keyboard instrument in wide use in 1700, is similarly limited in its
expressive range. The introduction of this new instrument, it can be
argued, altered the course of musical history; would Chopin have
created his romantic Ballades if the only instrument available to him
was a pipe organ?
Within a few years of Cristofori's invention, the pianoforte, as
it came to be known (piano meaning soft, and forte,
loud), displaced both the harpsichord and the clavichord as the
premier stringed keyboard instrument. Craftsmen, mainly in Vienna,
London and Paris, adapted Cristofori's action for use in their own
instruments, and the engineering advanced rapidly. Competition was
intense. By 1850, names such as Broadwood, Pleyel, Erard,
Bösendorfer, Blüthner and Bechstein were well established,
but it was at the International Exposition of 1867 in Paris where a
grand piano from the young American firm of Steinway & Sons
caused a sensation.
This piano included several modifications that created a bigger,
more responsive sound than had ever been heard before. Collectively,
these innovations were known as the "Steinway System." In addition to
garnering gold medals, and the instantaneous prominence that went with
them, the company also came under the intense scrutiny of other piano
makers. While patented at the time, Steinway innovations such
as the one-piece overstrung cast-iron frame and the solid
bentwood rim were rapidly adopted by nearly every major piano builder,
and have since become the standard of the industry. They can be found
underneath the top of just about any grand piano made since the 1930s.
The story of the House of Steinway is uniquely American. Founded
in New York in 1853 by Henry Englehard Steinway, an illiterate German
cabinetmaker and musical instrument builder, and four of his five sons
(the fifth stayed behind in Seesen, Germany, but joined his brothers
in New York in 1865), the firm became, within a few years, the
preeminent maker of pianos in the world--a position it enjoys to this
day. Then, as now, Steinway made pianos both for the home market and
the concert stage, realizing early on that there was a causative
connection between the two. The company pioneered the sponsorship of
touring legendary piano soloists such as Anton Rubinstein and
Ignacy Paderewski, making sure that the artists' testimonials were
prominently featured in Steinway's advertising. The guiding
hand and business acumen of Henry's son William, and his relations who
ran the company after William's death in 1896, remained
consistent; the family saw to it that an image of civilized life and
the pleasures of living in a gracious, culturally enhanced home was
emphasized as much as the pianos themselves. Since this coincided with
the emergence of the middle class, the timing was perfect.
With few home leisure activities available at the turn of
the century, a large portion of disposable income often went towards
the purchase of the ubiquitous piano in the front parlor. According to
D.W. Fostle, author of The Steinway Saga (Scribner, 1995),
musical instruments made up 7 percent of the value of all consumer
durables produced in the United States in 1904, and one dollar
in seven was spent on a "cultural" product. Without radio, television,
movies, home stereo and computers as competition, consumers poured a
lot of money into the piano business.
For some well-to-do Americans, a standard-issue piano was not
enough. Maybe it wouldn't fit in with their decor, or the buyers
wished to announce their arrival on the social scene by
commissioning a unique instrument. To satisfy such longings,
a rarified category called the "art-case" piano emerged
just after the Civil War. The market for these special
instruments originated in Europe, but the newfound
wealth of the Industrial Revolution gave it a great push in the
United States. Steinway & Sons worked with such people as Joseph
Burr Tiffany, George Schastey, Herter Brothers, Pottier and Stymus,
Hunt Brothers and Jules Bouy to fashion pianos in America,
while in Europe illustrious cabinetmakers such as Louis Majorelle,
François Linke and Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann created piano cases
for nearly all of the major manufacturers. Many of these pianos still
exist, in varying conditions, and a few are being created today
by contemporary artists such as Hans Hollein, Christian Adam,
David Linley and Wendell Castle.
This is where the top money for pianos goes, and this is the niche
that the 31-year-old Manhattan dealer Rutten has developed since
opening his own piano showroom, Maximiliaan's House of Grand Pianos,
in 1992. "It was natural," he says, "that four years ago a lot of
people thought, 'Well, he's just a baby, he's just come to this
country, he'll sell a few pianos and then go out of business as many
others did before him.'"
But Rutten proved the skeptics wrong, and his business has
flourished since he arrived in New York from Amsterdam in
1992. Last summer, he expanded from the 12th floor to a more
spacious, street-level space in the New York Design Center on
Lexington Avenue. Working the fine line between the used piano market
and the antiques business, Rutten, who once considered pursuing a
career as a concert pianist, understands both sides of the
question. "Most [piano] dealers in this country, and in Europe, shy
away from buying art-case pianos on speculation, especially from the
high-end manufacturers," says Rutten. "They have to deal with
craftsmen that they may not be as familiar with. I stay away from the
standard cases. You definitely want to go about the restoration of the
[art-case] piano, especially the refinishing of the case, very
cautiously. If you open the lid of a piano, you're looking at 12,000
moving parts, and there are very few people who have enough knowledge
to know what's going on in there. We restore the instruments to the
extent necessary to bring out the full musical glory." Rutten makes
sure that the musical aspects of his pianos are given as much
attention as the case work; he has five workrooms, including two in
Manhattan, dedicated to restoration.
Rutten says that the availability of high-quality restorable
instruments is quite limited. His pianos, with a few interesting
exceptions, subscribe to the Steinway System of design and are meant
to be played regularly. Visitors to his showroom spend equal
time evaluating the pianos as musical instruments as they do
assessing them as antiques. Compared to a new piano, an older model
with a prestigious case may often represent a bargain.
For example, the largest production piano in the world today, a
10-foot, two-inch grand by Fazioli, lists for $155,500 new, while a
fully reconditioned art-case grand can be had for as little as $25,000
at Rutten's showroom. (Rutten is one of four American distributors
for Fazioli, a highly sought-after Italian nameplate that recently
entered the high-end market.) Fazioli makes six grand models,
with list prices that range upwards from $65,000 for a five-foot,
two-inch model. The firm manufactures 60 pianos annually, and Paolo
Fazioli, who started building pianos almost two decades ago,
says he'll cap production when he reaches 120 a year. To put this
in perspective, a high-volume Asian manufacturer can turn out as many
as 80 pianos a day.
Three other European manufacturers, the "three B's"--Bechstein,
Blüthner and Bösendorfer--also manufacture quality
high-end pianos. Bechstein and Blüthner have undergone
ownership and factory changes in recent years--in Blüthner's
case, the changes have been sped up by the unification of
Germany--and both companies are producing pianos as good, and in some
cases better, than they did a few years ago. They each produce a line
of vertical (upright) and grand pianos, with prices ranging from
about $20,000 to $160,000.
Bösendorfer, a highly revered Viennese manufacturer, makes
one vertical model and six grands. A distinguishing feature of its
four largest pianos is the keyboards, which provide more than the
standard 88 notes: nine keys have been added to the bass end of the
largest model, the nine-foot, six-inch "Imperial" ($165,000), and
there are four extra keys in the bass of the next three smaller
models. Little music has been written to take advantage
of these extra notes, but the additional strings and enlarged
soundboards generate greater resonance, especially in the bass
register.
Steinway & Sons offers three models of vertical pianos and
five grands. The grands range in size from the five-foot, one-inch
baby grand Model S ($27,600) to the company's flagship nine-foot
concert grand Model D ($71,900), the choice of most of the world's
concert artists. Steinway pianos are manufactured in New York City
and Hamburg, Germany. The instruments from each venue share some
parts, and the company takes pains to minimize the differences between
the two.
With this many new pianos around, many of the makers of
low-volume, high-quality pianos who have a history of more than a few
years are finding that the true competition is with their own
instruments. Consequently, a company like Steinway does a large
business in refurbishing its older pianos. A piano, like any machine
with moving parts, will not last forever. Its works wear out to some
extent after many years of use. Like an automobile, a used
piano's value depends on the initial quality, what conditions
it has endured during its lifetime and how well it has been
maintained.
The market for older high-end instruments has exploded in recent
years. Although a vertical piano by Broadwood, decorated with
three small panels by the Victorian artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema,
didn't meet its reserve bid of £20,000 ($30,800) at a 1995
auction in London, less than six months later the piano was
purchased by composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber for £65,000. The
piano had not been reconditioned and was barely playable. The record
price at auction is another piano decorated by Alma-Tadema, an 1883
Steinway concert grand sold in 1980. Valued beforehand at
$80,000 to $100,000, the piano sold for $360,000.
"It's definitely my experience that someone who collects furniture
of Ruhlmann, or Majorelle, or François Linke, or even a
contemporary like Wendell Castle, has not the faintest idea that these
people also designed pianos," says Rutten. "This is my joy, to see
people walking into my gallery dumbfounded that they've found a
collection of 40 or 50 instruments, each one of which is made by a
famous designer, priced less than a comparable [piece of furniture] by
the same person."
It must be the "neither fish nor fowl" aspect of this market that
confuses both the antique furniture crowd and the musical instrument
people. Rutten agrees, calling it "quite a phenomenon." To
illustrate his point, he refers to a magnificent Erard piano with a
Majorelle-designed case that at this writing, sits in his showroom.
The piano, for which Rutten is asking $116,000, is in very fine
shape as an instrument and has a lovely warm tone typical of a
straight-strung French piano from 1913. "It's from a period in
Majorelle's creative life where the desks and the cabinets and the
chairs and the armoires that he made are very highly desired," says
Rutten. "A cabinet, or an armoire, of comparable size, even at
auction, would sell for $200,000 to $300,000, depending on its
condition and its provenance and its rarity. From an antiques dealer,
it could go as high as $300,000, or even higher."
Rutten, who spent two years traveling in Asia before deciding to
go into the piano business, has the passion of a zealot when it comes
to art-case pianos. He wants to see them elevated to the same
prominence as that enjoyed by, say, vintage Ferraris or
Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
"For a limited number of reasons, pianos have never really
achieved that status," he says. "If I can show the world that the most
phenomenal things were executed on piano cases by the most famous
people from art history, then I think I will get a true sense of
accomplishment."
His efforts are paying off.
"I think now, after four years, there's a definite trend," he
says, "partially because of the work that we've done in professional
communities--musicians, interior designers, architects--where art-case
pianos are regaining interest and growing in popularity. You can see
it. For example, you see that Steinway is now making Victorian-style
legs again, and doing a wonderful job."
Recently, Steinway quickly sold out its 143-piano limited edition
"Instrument of the Immortals," a re-creation of a model it
first produced in 1885. The company plans to create more of these
special limited-edition pianos in the near future, including a model
this year that will celebrate the 200th birthday of Henry Englehard
Steinway. For Steinway & Sons, the market is definitely coming
full circle. Rutten has many Steinway pianos in his showroom,
including a 1929 "75th Anniversary" model designed to look like a
harpsichord from the 1700s. And Steinway continues to work with
individual designers on one-of-a-kind pianos, as it has for many
years. Its first art-case piano was made in 1857, three years after
the company's founding, and some people at Steinway's New York factory
expect to see that instrument come back for refurbishing any
day now.
Miles Chapin is a fifth-generation descendant of Henry
Englehard Steinway.
Fine Tuning
Pianos are built to last,
but it is inevitable that age will leave some mark--pianos by both
nature and design do not endure forever. It is not easy, therefore, to
assess the value of a particular piano either as an instrument or as
an investment without a certain amount of knowledge of both pianos and
the market for them.
To find out more about how a piano is made and what to look for
when examining a used piano, The Piano Book by Larry Fine
($16.95 paperback, Brookside Press, Boston, revised 1994) is a good
place to start. Fine also offers a candid assessment of the various
nameplates available as new and used instruments. A photographic
history of the piano is available in David Crombie's Piano
($35 hardcover, Miller Freeman Books, 1995). This large-format book
contains information on many historic instruments, plus detailed
photographs of contemporary pianos. Eighty Eight Keys: The Making
of a Steinway Piano by Miles Chapin, with illustrations by Rodica
Prato (Clarkson Potter Books, 1997) shows how a Steinway piano is
manufactured, and gives an overview of the history of the piano and of
Steinway & Sons.
In most cases it is best to use the services of a reliable
dealer. Maximiliaan's House of Grand Pianos is located in New York
City; phone (800) 742-6607. In Boston, the venerable firm of
M. Steinert & Co. can be reached at (617) 426-1900. In the
Midwest, Schmidt Music in Minneapolis (612/339-4811) carries a full
line of new and used pianos. On the West Coast, Fields Pianos, in
Santa Ana, California (714/622-2117), is gaining a reputation for
quality pianos and service. Steinway & Sons maintains a large
inventory of used Steinways (both refurbished and not) and rebuilds
its own instruments. You can contact the company at Steinway Hall in
Manhattan at (212) 246-1100.
If you choose to go it alone, the services of an independent,
trained piano technician (look under "Piano" in the yellow pages in
your area) can help you avoid the pitfalls of shopping for a used
piano from a private individual, at auction or at an institutional
sale, such as from a music school. As for major auction houses, pianos
are usually thought of as furniture and included in that type of
sale. However, Sotheby's of London has an annual auction of high-end
keyboard instruments. Be forewarned, though--you will be bidding
against experts, and the quantity of super-premium pianos available is
very small.
--MC
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