[CAUT] Weikert felt; was 80 year old S&S hammers

[Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)]

   Hello Fred Sturm,

  First of all, I agree with the findings of your research on period tuning. I think the tendency is to underestimate how early piano manufacturers knew equal temperament. The present range of the piano much as R & D made it sine qua non for tuners to actually apply the principles of equally tempered tuning, opposed to understanding it as an academic exercise. Also, I have a few observations and questions about the following comment: 

"I have a more charitable view of where Steinway is today. I find  
their current production reasonably facile to play, it has good  
clarity and projection, and if well prepped, one can be quite  
expressive on it. My take is that Steinway has concentrated on the  
large concert hall, and on concerto performance, where the piano has  
to fill the 2000 seat hall and project through and over the orchestra.  
That has been their strategy, and they have been successful at it,  
whatever quarrels we may have with some details."

   I think part of the reason Steinway forces us to prep-hence the caveat "if well prepped"-the pianos sent by Steinway throughout the world to various performance venues and living rooms has to do with the fact that you simply cannot make determinations about hammer density until the piano is in the room where it will live. Hence, lacquering percolates into a huge debate, because the factory elects in many cases to leave this determination to the musician using it and his or her piano technician, who may or may not be competent to make the determination. 

   I was happy, however, to find quite a few juiced pianos in the crop Steinway just sent to CCM. People should know from the factory as well that is how it needs to be much of the time. I am skeptical as to just how different a Steinway hammer without lacquer is from a century ago.    

   It is important to observe in addition to this, however, that the Steinway production model has always required the same standard from the S to the D, and this is partly why the Steinway D out of the box can at times seem inferior to other concert grands out of the box. Other manufacturers seem to think that a baby grand just doesn't mean much as a concert instrument.
    
   

     
   

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred Sturm
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 8:24 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Weikert felt; was 80 year old S&S hammers

On Apr 15, 2009, at 1:49 PM, Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

> Steinway, along with many other pianomakers, knew this "secret" some  
> decades
> back. Most seem to have lost it in these "modern" times in their  
> rush to emulate
> the hard and brassy sound that has now become so prevalent.

	I have a more charitable view of where Steinway is today. I find  
their current production reasonably facile to play, it has good  
clarity and projection, and if well prepped, one can be quite  
expressive on it. My take is that Steinway has concentrated on the  
large concert hall, and on concerto performance, where the piano has  
to fill the 2000 seat hall and project through and over the orchestra.  
That has been their strategy, and they have been successful at it,  
whatever quarrels we may have with some details.
	And of course other makers have tried to compete in this same venue,  
hence the convergence on similar design and execution principles.
	The sad fact is that most pianos are in different venues, and most  
pianos are far too loud and powerful for a living room (or most of the  
other locations they live in, like practice rooms). If you "voice  
down" you end up (often) too muddy. I think there is a lot to learn  
from the 19th century, which was, after all, the century of the piano  
composer - most of the standard rep comes from that period. Brahms  
played a Graf he got from Clara Schumann for much of his life, which  
can give a sense of proportion. What I am thinking of is the whole  
picture: amount of energy in versus sound out; ease of making various  
voices in various registers stand out from one another; degree of  
difference in timbre versus finger technique (how much "effort" to  
make a difference). I think there is a whole world of sound and  
expressiveness out there that earlier pianos had and modern ones  
don't. This doesn't mean modern ones are bad, it just means that they  
are limited to a particular spectrum of sound and performance, and the  
loss is a real shame.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu