The Henry Steinway Story

On this episode of Our American Stories, Henry Steinway's story is about resiliency and the search for freedom.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habibe, and this is our American stories.
And our next story is about a brand name we
all know, Steinway, but a man you don't know, Henry Steinway.
In the end the story we're about to hear, he's
a story about resiliency and a man search for freedom.
Here's Greg Hangler. As guests dine on succulent roasted fowl

(00:39):
and mouth watering marinated oysters, washing their palettes with ice
cold champagne, piano music is in the air. The occasion
is the opening of the new Steinway factory in New
York on April first, eighteen sixty A correspondent from a
local newspaper declares, it is conceded that the Steinway piano

(01:04):
in make tone, sweetness, precision and durability, is the most
perfect instrument of that class to be had anywhere in
the world. The road to victory began sixty three years
earlier in Wolfshagen, a small forest hamlet nestled in the

(01:24):
slopes of the Upper Hartz Mountains in northwest Germany, where
Heinrich Steinwig, founder of Steinway and Sons, is born. Church
records revealed that the Steinwigs were master charcoal burners. They
lived in the woods, and, like most charcoal burners, were
regarded with deep suspicion by townspeople who rarely saw them.

(01:47):
Steinwig's childhood is marked by many tragedies and twists of fate.
At the age of eight, during a harsh winter, his
mother and most of his siblings die from exposure. He
is orphaned until his father than brothers, once thought to
have been killed in action, returned from the Napoleonic Wars
and claiming. Then at fifteen he is orphaned. Once again.

(02:10):
Penniless and living on the streets, he seeks refuge in
the German army. Two years later, he's fighting against Napoleon
at the Battle of Waterloo on June eighteenth, eighteen fifteen.
Family legend has it that when an advance is made
a Napoleon, the charge is signaled by a lone bugler,

(02:32):
Heinrich Steinwig. According to this tale, he has awarded a
bronze medal for bugling in the face of the enemy.
When not heading off to battle, he is in the barracks,
making mandolins and other instruments, and occasionally striking up a
tune with the military band. After six years of military service,

(02:56):
Steinwig begins an apprenticeship with his church's Oregon builder. He
is also introduced to the piano through his Jewish friend,
Carl Brand. Steinwig learns to build a piano by copying brands.
As he changes the pipes of church organs, he becomes
interested in notes, octaves and chords. Thirsting for knowledge, He

(03:19):
appears every Friday evening at his church to listen to
the organist rehearse for Sunday services. Every German craftsman in
eighteen thirty five has to belong to a guild or
what we would call a union. Since Steinwig doesn't have
a master craftsman diploma as an instrument maker, he's not

(03:39):
allowed to build pianos officially, so he becomes a cabinet maker.
But he's still very much interested in building instruments. Here's
master piano builder Chris Mono. He has a restored I
think many instruments you have seen them. He have compert
then and he has made his own conceptus own piano Afterteinfodheim,

(04:04):
who has better down the instruments he has seen Ronten.
Apart from being skilled and working with wooden special tools,
building a keyboard instrument requires musicality in a complex knowledge
of mathematics and physics, but Steinwig relies on intelligence and intuition.
The cabinet maker decides to start building fourte pianos and

(04:27):
courts a woman He falls madly in love with, Juliana Tima,
the daughter of a well established glovemaker. For the wedding,
Steinwig wants to impress Juliana with a very unusual gift
sounds wonderful. In eighteen thirty five, he gives his bride
his first square piano that he designs himself. Here's Heinrich

(04:50):
Steinwig's great great grandson, Miles Chapan. That is consistent a
little bit with this image of a businessman. I mean,
if if your first product is very complex and technically complicated,
you don't want to sell it because it might break,
in which case your reputation is ruined before it's even
been made. So for him to take his first piano

(05:10):
and give it to his wife, I think that's wonderful. Here,
you play this, honey and tell me if it works.
Newly wed and raring to go, Heinrich Steinwig wants to
build not only a good pianos, but the best pianos
in the world with meticulousness and passion. He begins building
his first grand piano in eighteen thirty six, which he

(05:33):
later sells to the Duke of Brunswick for three thousand marks.
This piano is later named the Kitchen Piano and is
now on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art,
along with the square piano he gave to his wife.
I believe he started out as a cabinet maker. But
if you think about it from a businessman's point of view,

(05:55):
with the amount of labor and the amount of time
it takes to make one thing that's this big. Okay,
if this thing is a chest of drawers, you could
sell it for X. But if this thing that you're
making is a piano and takes longer to make, you
can sell it for five times X, six, ten times X,
so that his product could be more valuable to him

(06:17):
and his profit margins would be greater. I don't think
he was driven musically at all. I don't think he
was driven creatively at all. I think he was purely
might take is a purely a businessman, and he had
a product that was a higher value product and he
would get a higher profit from it, easier to transport
easier to build at home. He could have one at
a time going and that was why he went into it.

(06:39):
And what a story you're hearing about the Steinwig family,
which would of course become the Steinway family. And Miles Chapin,
what a point he made about the reason and what
drove Steinway to make pianos. And it wasn't art, it
was commerce. It was profit. And so often we share
the story of how free enter I serves the public.

(07:01):
And without that profit motive we may not have had
the Steinway expertise and the brilliance of these pianos. He
was driven to not be a cabinetmaker and to make
more profit with everything he did, and of course in
came the excellence and the mastery and everything else. When
we come back, more of this remarkable story, the story

(07:21):
of the Steinway family and the Steinway piano. Here on
our American Stories, le Habibi here the host of our
American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring
stories from across the Great Country, stories from our big
cities and small towns. But we truly can't do the

(07:44):
show without you. Our stories are free to listen to,
but they're not free to make. If you love what
you here, go to our American Stories dot com and
click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
Go to our American Stories dot com and give. And

(08:08):
we continue here on our American Stories with a life
story of Henry Steinway. And let's return to Greg Hengler
and to where we last left off. Heinrich Steinwig's first
grand piano is an enormous success. To meet the growing demand,
Steinwig decides to train his young boys. Even as five

(08:32):
year old has to help out in the workshop. His
musically talented daughter Doretta is only allowed to watch. The
crafts are strictly for men. With the help of his sons,
Steinwig can make ten to twelve instruments a year. Then,
in eighteen forty eight, riots engulfed most of Europe because

(08:53):
of political instability and economic uncertainty, spawning movements towards socialism.
Second son, Charles, is on the front lines in the
fight for the people's sovereignty against an absolutist prince and
the civil liberties for the Christian middle class. The socialist
revolution fails to produce a redistribution of wealth, land, or power,

(09:17):
but it does paralyze businesses throughout Europe, thereby encouraging businessmen
like Heinrich Steinwig to consider leaving fear and reprisals for
their son. Charles leaves Germany and sales to New York
City in eighteen forty nine, where he's to find a
safe haven for both himself and for the Steinwig piano business.

(09:41):
In June eighteen forty nine, Charles lands in New York,
the heart of professional music making in America and of
America's piano industry. The other major piano manufacturing cities are Boston, Baltimore,
and Philadelphia, all centers for German immigrants. Pianos have only

(10:02):
been in America since the Revolution, Most of them brought
in from shipwrecks by pirates as part of their booty.
The rest were imported by John Jacob Astor, the German
millionaire fur trader who occasionally bartered furs for pianos. Six
weeks after his arrival, Charles writes to his family for
the first time, praising the quote progressive spirit of America.

(10:27):
Beloved parents, brothers, and sisters. New York seems to be
in El Dorado for keyboard instruments. I soon found employment
with a piano manufacturer. It's a pretty well paying job.
The growth of wealth in the United States promises great
opportunities for piano manufacturers. You'll hardly believe it, but in

(10:47):
nearly every household there's a piano. Family. Music is part
of daily life. Here, be courageous and do not hesitate
for too long. Frustrated by an assortment of government regulation,
interference and unjust taxes, tens of thousands of Germans leave
their homeland and flee to America. Here again is Heinrich

(11:11):
Steinwig's great great grandson, Miles Chapin. It was a time
of great political upheaval in Germany, in Europe, all through Europe.
It was not a climate conducive to business. And the
Steinway as if anything, were businessmen, and Heinrich, if anything,
was a businessman. And he lived in this small town

(11:31):
in the Hearts Mountain region, Zaison, and he made his
pianos one by one at home. But to sell them
he had to take them places, and to take them
places he had to cross borders. And when he crossed
borders there were tariffs. They were added costs that weren't
going into his pocket. And he was ambitious. I think
he just decided rationally to leave Germany to set up

(11:54):
a shop in New York City. May twenty eighth, eighteen fifty,
the Steinwigs, along with their three daughters and three sons,
bore the first German ocean liner in Hamburg. On her
maiden voyage. The Steinwigs reached New York City in just
thirty days. Their eldest son, Theodore, stays in Germany to

(12:18):
run the rest of the company. When the Steinwigs arrive,
they face no restrictions, no questions, no Ellis Island, and
no statue of liberty. They quickly move into a small
rented apartment on Hester Street, in the middle of a
quarter that's known as Little Germany. The Steinwig's apartment is
certainly very different from their spacious home back in Germany.

(12:42):
With more than six hundred thousand German immigrants, New York
is a German enclave. By eighteen sixty one out of
every four New Yorkers is German born. Only Berlin and
Vienna have more German citizens. These Germans brought with them
a classical music culture that didn't exist in America. Here's

(13:03):
Kathleen Haltzer from the New York Historical Society speaking to
us on Saint Mark's Place, just between Second and Third Avenues.
On this street, you could see how busy and productive
Germans were when they got to America. There would be
pretzel sellers along this street, people selling cabbage, women selling clothes,

(13:26):
and the Germans were really good at founding their own groups.
They liked to get together and do things together, so
they had turned Fine a club for men. They had
their beer gardens where the whole family would go, and
they had things like a gun club, which you can
see right on this street. It's still here. The gun club,

(13:47):
the schutzen Gazet Schaff is something that was not just
about shooting targets. It was also about men enjoying each
other's company and drinking beer. The Stundwigs don't go into
business right away. Instead, they decide to work for others
until they get their feet on the ground and learn
some English and New York methods. Heinrich and his sons

(14:11):
select the best New York piano makers to work for
so they can learn the latest and finest techniques. But
three years after their arrival, an economic depression hits New York.
Heinrich's sons are unemployed and he's earning a very low
day's pay as an employed piano maker. In these times

(14:31):
of instability, Heinrich quits his job and opens his own
piano workshop with his sons. They no longer have very
much to lose, but with this move they now have
the potential to achieve a lot to help with sales.
Business friends advise the Steinwigs to americanize their name, and

(14:53):
so Heinrich Steinwig becomes Henry steinway A humble attic Varick Street,
just below Canal Street on the west side of Manhattan,
becomes their very first company headquarters. On March fifth, eighteen
fifty three, with only a verbal contract and a capital

(15:13):
investment of just six thousand dollars, Steinwayan's Sons is founded.
It is a good time to be in the piano business.
Musical life in America is flourishing, and that piano is
at the center of the increasing interest in music. Most
piano pupils are women, other instruments being seen as detracting

(15:35):
from feminine attractiveness. The cello demands that a woman spread
her legs, and the harp ruins her posture, but at
the piano she can sit demurely with her feet together.
Even courtship increasingly takes place at the keyboard. From the beginning,
the women were there to support the men, assist the men,

(16:00):
cooked the food for clean up after the men, but
it was a man's business. Doretta one of the daughters
the original Steinway's, she gave piano lessons, but I don't
think she ever worked for the company. I don't think
she was ever a salaried employee of steinwayan Sons. She
probably owned a few shares in the company herself, but

(16:20):
she didn't work there. Now, my mother was the Steinway
in the family, and she had four older brothers who
she watched, one by one go off and work at
the family business. So naturally, when she came of age,
she asked her father, when do I start in the
family business, And the story goes that he brought her

(16:41):
to the piano and said, come here, opened the piano,
read me what it says in the piano Steinway and Sons.
Please don't embarrass me. There's no women at Steinway and Sons.
Even my secretary is a man. Closed the lid of
the piano, forget it. Here's Andy Horbachevsky, vice president of

(17:02):
Steinley and Sons. New York. What was amazing to me
is that in the ten years from eighteen fifty three
to eighteen sixty when they started the factory, the very
big factory on Park Avenue here, they went from scratch
to building the most pant grand pianos of any other
piano manufacturers. And I think that's a credit to not

(17:26):
only the excellent design and craftsmanship, but they were tremendous
I think businessmen and marketers and salesmen, and what a
story this is, the stein Wigs becoming the Steinways. It's
a classic immigrants story. There were no restrictions here in America,
there were no questions. Henry Steinway. The family story continues

(17:49):
here on our American stories. And we continue here with

(18:10):
our American stories and with the story of Henry Steinway.
Let's return to Greg Hengler and pick up where we
left off. Each Steinway and Sons grand piano is handcrafted
and comprises twelve thousand individual parts, assembled by as many
as four hundred and fifty people. The process takes over

(18:32):
a year to complete. Although it's always the same construction
plans and materials, no two pianos ever sound alike. Steinway
grand pianos all have their own individual sound and personality.
Here's Lang Lang, who is considered by many to be
one of the finest concert pianists of all time. Lang

(18:53):
compares the best pianos to great actors for their ability
to convey extremes of emotion and attitude. It was the
flamboyant pianism in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, he says
that originally drew him to the instrument. Had a great

(19:14):
privilege to go to both stamping factories in New York
and in Hamburg. And it's a big monster. I mean,
it's huge. But when they start working, almost like you
found that they're working on a Swiss watch. Is so detailed,
everything so precise, like they're making them one and are

(19:36):
making some smaller item, not like you know, you wouldn't
imagine when you go to the factory, that's the factory
of a producing a piano, such a big monster, you know,
and and that precise work really transferred and to the sound.

(19:56):
There is a unique person in Steinway's factory, the one
who may makes the final tuning for all pianos before delivery.
With an expert touch, he can quickly discern the questionable
keys and makes chalk marks. Then he patiently adjusts the
hammers to achieve the perfect string strokes. Because of his

(20:16):
acute gift, he is known as Steinway's ear. Walter Boot
is the heart and soul of Steinway's sons and has
been working in the piano factory in New York for
over fifty years. Not a single Steinway piano leaves the
building until it satisfies his absolute Here here's Walter Boot,

(20:38):
Andy Horbachevski, and Miles Chapman. My job is two even
out the tone. I get the piano. The piano, it's
all done, ready to go to somebody's house. And I
like fine tune it. I listened to it, I play it,
I make it all the town. So I'm happy with it.

(21:01):
When I'm happy with it, I know you're going to
be happy with it. I love working with time. Wait time.
Weight gave my whole life. I'm the older working person
in the factory right now. They call me uncle Wally thought.
I worked alone. When the piano come here, it looked
like a piano. When it leads, it sounds like a piano.

(21:23):
Do I put the love into the piano? Mozart Rock
Modern Off. We go through multiple tunings, multiple regulations, multiple voices.

(21:55):
So it is a really a circle of refinement where
constantly trying to get that last ounce of tone out
of it. We will baby that hammer, we will pull
out as much as we can. In the early days,
Henry Junior was the mastermind. Cf Theodore Steinway was back
in Germany and he was still making pianos, and he

(22:18):
was working on his pianos, and there's a correspondence back
and forth between Brunswick and New York, and they were
trying out different ideas, but Henry Junior was really the
one here who was getting the patents and really making
the advances. From an engineering perspective, if there was any
single patent that made the most difference, it would be

(22:39):
the overstrung one piece cast iron frame. That's what differentiated
the Steinway piano in its day. It was the first
piano company to bring a grand piano with a one
piece cast iron frame to market successfully. They first showed
it in eighteen sixty seven in Paris, and pretty much

(22:59):
you can measure the history of the piano from the
time running up to that point and the time running
away from that point. Because today you can't buy a
piano that doesn't have a one piece cast iron over
a strong frame. But before that time there were none,
and they were the first, and they had a patent
on together with his sons. Henry Steinway's credo is the

(23:22):
same as ever, to build the best pianos in the world.
You see pictures of him, and there's only a couple
of them, and he was ramrod straight, and his fists
jammed into his pocket and instead of his jaw, just
like this. He was very determined, determined to make a
successful company, to make a success of his life in
the United States, to give his children a better life
than he had. I think it's that classic American story.

(23:45):
The Steinway's future depends first on skill, then on national
recognition to boost sales. The company founder has an ingenious ideal.
He realizes that the renowned pianists and composers of the
time are the ideal advertisers for Steinway and sons, So
he signs the acclaimed artist exclusively to Steinway. They are

(24:10):
not bashful, they are not afraid to tell us if
something is not with the piano itself. I think we
are very lucky to have this very good feedback information.
Coming back to us from from this that very valuable
part of our customer base. The concert artist here's Steinway
historian Cornelia Poland why not goes off? People said that

(24:33):
if people like that play on them, then this instrument
must be of high quality. They asked for recommendations from
the aristocracy, such as the Queen of Spain, the Sultan
of Turkey, the King of Sweden, and used these recommendations
for advertising purposes too. They then built the Steinway Hall.

(24:54):
Here in the Steinway Hall is where concerts took place.
When you wanted to go to the concert hall, you
had to walk through the exhibition rooms. And so naturally
they did even more advertising for the pianos with that
for di Clamart. The New York Times wrote at the time,

(25:15):
the Steinways can be proud that they own the most
magnificent piano business in the whole world. Today, over ninety
five percent of the world's finest pianists prefers Steinway pianos
for their concerts. At sixty seven, Henry Steinway has fulfilled
all his dreams reputation, wealth and fame. But then tragedy strikes.

(25:41):
On March eleventh, eighteen sixty five, Henry Junior dies of
consumption at the age of just thirty five. Then just
days later, Henry's other son, Charles, dies of typhoid fever
while visiting his brother in Germany. Must have been devastating
to Henry Steinway. I mean to lose not only one son,

(26:03):
but two sons. I mean, of course, that was an
era where people died more easily. You didn't live as
long and children died. But it was very, very difficult
for him, especially being an immigrant. I mean, his whole
family he brought with him. They were here, and when
it's diminished by two. While he did have the one
son back in Germany, but when it's diminished the number

(26:25):
that are in New York by two, that was when
they wanted to bring Cf. Theodore over to strengthen the family.
It is William's job now to keep the family business running.
He writes to his brother Theodore in Germany that they
desperately need him in New York. Theodore leaves his successful
business in Germany, and three weeks later he arrives in

(26:46):
New York. Brothers William and Theodore form the perfect company management.
Theodore invents groundbreaking features for grand piano mechanisms, and William
knows how to sell them. They're success starts spiraling, and
what a story. And it's so hard to comprehend losing

(27:07):
two sons in such a short period of time, especially
with a family business, one with real specific knowledge and drive.
When we come back, we'll continue with the story of
Henry Steinway, and we return to the final installment of

(27:40):
this remarkable life story, this quintessential American story. And we
heard in the beginning fleeing Germany because of so many
restrictions and coming to America to just do well, do
what the Steinways do, make a great product. And now
Greg Henglow with the final part of the story of

(28:01):
Henry Steinway. Here again is Henry Steinway's great great grandson,
Miles Chapin. The skill set, the way that the talents
of the Sun's meshed is really what made the difference,
because on the one hand, you had cf. Theodore Steinway
engineering the piano differently, but then on the other hand
you had his brother William Steinway, who was changing the

(28:23):
way you sold pianos, changing the marketing of pianos. And
so when you had a company that had a demonstrably
finer product coupled with a CEO, a corporate officer who
knew how to sell that product and was innovative in
the ways he was selling that product. Boom, it came
together and it just made a sum greater than the

(28:45):
sum of the parts. Then in eighteen sixty three, those
parts were attacked by the Manhattan Workers Union strikes, disrupting
Steinway piano production. When the Furniture Makers Union decided to
target the piano industry, Steinway was the biggest, had the

(29:06):
most prominent name, and they decided to target Steinway and sons.
At that time, he had a country house out here
in Bowery Bay in Queens, and I think he had
a revelation one day he said, wait a minute, New
York's over there. I have a house here. Here's all
this land, the water, the ocean is right there. I
can bring my war materials in here. I can move

(29:29):
my factory here. And I think he deliberately set about
doing that, buying the anchorage out here, moving the company
out piece by piece, digging the tunnel underneath the East River.
You know, the Steinway tunnel was the first tunnel under
the East River. I took it this morning when I
took the subway into Manhattan. The number seven train goes
through the William Steinway Tunnel to get the workers out

(29:50):
of the social unrest and union riots in Manhattan. Steinway
has his Steinway Village built in a story of queens,
and he built gymnasiums and libraries, churches, housing for his workers,
and a lot of it is still there. You can
see on the streets. You know, the streets have been renamed,
you know, thirtieth Avenue, the thirty first Street, but you

(30:12):
can go to some of the housing that was the
factory housing and you can see chiseled on stone on
the side of the building Albert Strasse, Friedrichstrasse, and that
was the names that William Steinway had for his original city.
Then in eighteen eighty, Theodore returns to Germany in order
to open and operate a second factory in Hamburg. Since then,

(30:33):
they've split the global market into two parts. Here again
is Andy Horbachevsky, vice president of Steinland's Sons New York.
We're one company, but we do manufacture in two plants
here in New York and one in Hamburg, Germany. And
there are subtle differences, certainly a little in terms of
just the finish and the high gloss versus the satin look.

(30:56):
But there are also some tonal differences. From our perspective
as a global company, we like the choice. There are
artists that prefer the New York instrument in Europe and
vice versa that in North America here some prefer the
Hamburg to us. We think that offering a choice is

(31:17):
good and we will not change that in the future.
When the United States enters into World War two, Steinland
Sons are no longer able to build pianos. Pianos were
not deemed strategic materials during World War two in the
United States. However, some of the things that go into

(31:37):
making the piano were deemed strategic materials. Copper, for instance,
all the copper in the United States was going into
the war efforts, so the piano makers were not allowed
to use copper. The wood that they had at the factory,
some of it was used for rifle stocks, things like that.
The government at one point was suggesting that Steinway make coffins.

(31:57):
I think my grandfather, who had four sons in the war,
decided he didn't want to make coffins. They did make
glider airplanes for the war effort. They did make about
two thousand pianos for the war effort. Small olive, drab
government issue piano, the ODGI piano which I love caving
a little packing crate, had some music, a set of
tuning tools. They shipped them all over the world. The

(32:22):
one hundred and fifty year old company produces about two
thousand handmade nine foot concert grand pianos a year, compared
with the approximately one hundred a day by other companies.
These magnificent instruments do not come cheap. One is shown

(32:42):
in the Steinway showroom in New York on West fifty
seventh Street, with a price tag of one hundred and
three thousand dollars. No wonder a perspective. Buyer is very
particular in choosing a specific piano. Each handmade instrument has
its own personality. The limited production hinges a lot on
the brand severe selection standards for timber. After all, eighty

(33:07):
five percent of the Steinway piano is made from wood.
Precious timbers from all over the world are neatly stacked
in Steinway's warehouses, and there they spend two years in
their natural drying process before the next step. Space between
them insures good air circulation and the pliability of wood

(33:27):
after the drying process, only fifty to sixty percent past
the rigorous quality checks to become piano parts. As the
soundboard is the central part of a piano, the design
and the selection of the materials for it must be meticulous.
The artisans select the finest North American spruce spruce has

(33:48):
the desired regular grain to ensure a smooth resonance. Only
five to ten percent of the timber from one tree
can be used for the handmade soundboard by the experienced artisans.
Australian concert pianist Piers Lane has specially flown to Hamburg
to choose three concert grands for his hometown Sydney, which

(34:11):
works as well. There's a singing sound with quality. Now,
it'd be interesting to compare that with the one down
the end, say Piers is attended to buy Steinway and
Son sales consultant Garrett Glaner, who jots down notes while
following peers around a brightly lit showroom filled with Steinway
Grand pianos, that we start with the same thing. I

(34:50):
don't feel it's got the same fineness of quality as
the other one in the tone, but let's trust some mozart.

(35:10):
I don't think it's got the same depth of character
as the other one. The other one's got more core
to the sound. I want to compare that now with
the first one. After a sound test marathon of six
and a half hours, the pianist makes his selections. It's
interesting because it makes me play it in a slightly
different way. Of this piano, how do you feel good?
The middle one is a kind of a mixed talking boat.

(35:33):
It's true. But yeah, if I should use the term
no bliss, yes, I would find it most in this
one because there's some extra I agree on you to
know it, and I think it's the beautiful cantimely. I
like the balance of the piano. It feels, you know,
even across the whole range. But at the same time

(35:58):
it has the classical transparency as well in the texture. Periodically,
there has been in the history of the piano. The
death bell has been summoned or been struck. You know
what happened in the nineteen twenties when player pianos started
and when radio came on, people said, oh, well, nobody

(36:20):
will listen to pianos anymore. After World War Two, with
Hi Fi and television, people said, oh, people won't have
pianos anymore. In the fifties with electric pianos and Hammond Organs,
Oh no, people will never need pianos anymore. Didn't happen then,
hasn't happened now, you know. And still people are are improving, tinkering,

(36:43):
as you say, a little bit with the piano, just
trying to find small improvements to it. But there's nothing
that can replace it. Nothing can replace the sound of
a grand piano well played. After seventy five years, in

(37:08):
eighteen seventy one, an unusual life journey comes to an end,
a journey that took the orphan from the Hearts Mountains
in Germany to the highest highs of music in America. Courage, perseverance,
and family were his strengths. After one hundred and fifty

(37:29):
plus years of turmoil, feuds, depressions, wars, competition from the
far East, nothing has silenced the Steinway sound, even if
what Steinway is now selling is its past rather than
any technical innovation. A New York Times reporter referred to
the Steinway factory as a resilient treasure in a city

(37:52):
that wonders whether it has lost its soul. With his
Steinway and Son's piano Henry Steinway has made himself immortal.
I'm Greg Hengler and this is our American Stories and
great job as always Greg, Henry Steinway. His story here

(38:13):
on Our American Stories.