Rich, Although I cannot now remember the source, I read something similar a couple of years ago. I think I have the article around here somewhere. If you watch tapes of Horowitz playing you'll notice that he compensated fpr those ultra-bright hammers by using more una-corda pedal than any other pianist I've ever seen. So much so, that if you concentrate on the action of the piano, you'll think that you're watching a Duo-Art reproducing player with a shifter mechanism rather than a human pianist. Be that as it may, no one will argue with the results he achieved! Les Smith lessmith@buffnet.net On Thu, 2 May 1996, Richard Adkins wrote: > List: > Can anyone confirm this?Have any of you had a close up examination > of this piano? (Mike Mohr?) > > In the May/June '96 Clavier Walden Hughes writes: > > "Horowitz often told his technician that the keys should go down if > he simply blew on them. To achieve this,{Franz} Mohr found it > necessary to file down the sizes of the hammers. Horowitz required a > precisely 44 grams of key resistance, but full-size hammers were too > heavy for an action of this gram-weight: the average Steinway is > weighted to approximately 50-55 grams.... > > >>>>>>> > I think what he says further on to be true for all concert instruments... > > {Later in the article he writes: "before anyone draws the obvious > conclusion that piano manufacturers should redesign all pianos to > conform to Horowitz's conception, the tradeoffs should be noted. > In order to maintain the full dynamic range with such bright hammers, > especially at the lower dynamic levels, the hammers will have to be > maintained frequently, entainling much expensive work by a first-rate > piano technician......} > > Rich Adkins > Coe College Music Dept. > >
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC