MUSIC GEAR
MAY 31, 2021
beautiful sound of steinway and sons piano
Speaking of piano we will recall one name that has the quality and reputation for more than one hundred years, the beautiful sound of Steinway and Sons piano.
Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (born on February 15, 1797) was a piano maker from Seesen near Brunswick, Germany since 1825. He married to Julianne Thiemer in February 1825 with a square shaped fortepiano as the wedding gift.
At the time he built his first instruments in his house and in 1836 the Steinweg family built their first grand piano at the kitchen. In 1849, he sent his son Carl to America to explore the business possibilities there.
On June 29th, 1850, Heinrich and his wife, along with three daughters and sons joined Carl in the United States for a new life.
Heinrich was 53 when he left German, his imaginative sons encouraged him to take this brave move. Despite the prosperity enjoyed so far, New York City appeared offered more better for his business prosperity.
Like many immigrants, he anglicized his surname and some given names from Steinweg (meaning “stone road”) to Henry Steinway, to sound more American. On March 5, 1853, Steinway and Sons was formed and they began producing square pianos from a small shop at 85 Varick Street, New York City.
The first piano unit made there was given the number 483, as they had built 482 pianos in Germany previously. Over the next thirty years, Henry and his sons developed pianos and becoming standard for modern piano today.
In 1860, Steinway opened the uptown Manhattan factory at 52nd and 53rd streets and Fourth Ave – known as Park Avenue today. This new production facility could produce up to 1.800 pianos in a year.
The Steinway Hall located near the fashionable Union Square was built in 1864. A multi function hall not just for music performances. It would then moved uptown to 57th street in 1925, joined the high society ranks.
After Henry’s death in 1871, his sons moved the operational of the company to Queens. One of his sons, William Steinway even had ambitions more than just pianos, expanded to transportation and automobiles.
In 1963, the largely family-owned business was bought by Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (now CBS, Inc.). Steinway ownership changed again when it was sold to a private group of investors in 1985.
A third change came in 1996, when the legendary piano maker was sold to a Los Angeles investment group: The Selmer Company, Inc. operated Steinway and Sons as an independent interest with over $100 million in sales.
Steinway and sons now operating 300 showrooms and 200 authorized dealers worldwide. They produce 2.600 units of grand pianos and upright pianos annually.
About 1.000 grand pianos and 250 upright pianos are produced in the New York factory each year. Similar number of pianos also produced by the Hamburg Steinway factory.
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