Steinway Pianola Grand (repost)

Berley Antoine Firmin II firmin1 at bellsouth.net
Wed Mar 19 07:39:15 MST 2008


These Steinways (upright, I presume), are of the same high quality as their non-player brothers, but usually have had much more use. Steinway sold the empty pianos to Aeolian who then fit the Pianola action into them. Aeolian, at the time, used the finest materials available for their players. Usually Steinways were either expression players (Themodist-Metrostyle) or fully reproducing (Duo Art), rarely just an 88-note foot-pumped player. 
A Steinway grand player of the  period was a little different. In order to accommodate the player mechanism behind the fallboard, and extra 6 inches was added to case length by Steinway, as well as lengthening the keys by a like amount. Some pianists can ascertain the difference in playing these long keys versus the regular ones, but others don't notice until they are told.
All Steinway player-grands of the period were either just Themodist-Metrostyle expression players, some even foot-pumped, or full Reproducing Duo Art pianos with an electric suction pump. Sometimes the beams underneath the pianos were cut or re-designed to accommodate the pumps. 


Hope this helps!

Berley
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