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The Making of a Steinway
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By RALPH I. BARTHOLOMEW
HAD long speculated on the secret of the Steinway.
Among all the commodities of commerce this remark-
able instrument has for two generations stood apart,
differing from all other products in so far that its su-
premacy has never even been questioned. Opinions
may differ as to which one of several excellent motor-cars is the
very best; and so of watches and of guns and of wines and of every
other commodity that is made on this round world of ours—except-
ing always the Steinway.
About this there is no dispute. From the days of Liszt
and Wagner, the world's great musicians have acclaimed it.
Kings and emperors have honored it. The French Republic has
bestowed upon its maker the cherished medal of the Legion
of Honor.
It has passed into our every-day speech, and we use it as a
symbol of perfection. To the man on the street it stands for
a unit of value, much the same as the dollar-mark or the pound
sterling.
When a novelist like Arnold Bennett describes a drawing-
room in a fashionable London district, he can find no better
way to suggest the culture of the ow r ner than to say the room
contained "a piano by Steinway." Or when he makes his
virtuoso Diaz prepare for a world-triumph, he tells us that he
practiced incessantly on this famous instrument.
But why is all this?
What is the secret of this unchallenged supremacy?
When I was invited to go to Steinway, Long Island, to see
the Steinway in the making, I thought I would find the answer.
They showed me the lumber-yard—a veritable metropolis
of timber. Wood from both hemispheres was arrayed in great
rectangular piles, suggesting the blocks of a city, with streets
and avenues running between. There were millions and millions
<>f feet of it. More of it—a shipment of maple from Michigan—
had just come in and was being removed from the wharf. As
T came nearer I saw an inspector on the top of the pile. He
was examining each and every board with the absorption of
a naturalist who has just discovered a rare specimen.
Tt seems that the lumber is inspected and reinspected and
inspected again before it is shipped, and that only the cream
of eacli inspection ever reaches the good town of Steinway.
"How long before this wood will be immortalized in a
Steinway?" I asked.
"We season all of our wood for four or five years, and after
it leaves the lumber-yard it takes a year to make a piano."
I thought perhaps this long seasoning might explain the
Steinway secret.
"What financial investment does all this lumber represent?"
I inquired.
"About five hundred thousand dollars." I was told.
T figured that the interest on this sum of money for the
four or five years of seasoning, would amount to. roughly, one
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars more. But the tying
up of this considerable amount of money in lumber could not
be the explanation of the Steinway supremacy, for capitalists
would wait in a line all night for the privilege of furnishing ten
times this six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars if the
investment would result in a piano equal—if only in a com-
mercial way—to the Steinway. T must look further for a solu-
tion of my problem.
A Small Foundry with Big Ideals
We went to the foundry, which is small as foundries go.
Mindful of my lessons in economics, I questioned if the Stein-
ways could not buy their string frames, commonly called plates.
from some large outside iron works for less money than it costs
themselves to make them.
"Oh, yes, we would save a great deal," I was told. "But
we make not only the iron and brass castings, but the actions,
the keys, the hammers—in fact, all of the parts which go into
our pianos, and on each and every part we undoubtedly pay a
premium.
"For example: We pay more for the lumber which we use
for our sounding boards than we would have to pay for the
finished sounding boards if we were content to buy them from
a high-grade manufacturer.
"But we make our own sounding boards, and know that
each one of them, when it goes out into the world, will give
an account of itself.
"By the same token, we could effect a large financial saving
if we were willing to buy our plates. But it would be false
economy, for we do not believe that there is any foundry that
will take the same interest in them that we do. We are almost
fanatics about our plates.
"We order the different pig irons according to analyses
which, in combination, have given unusual results. From every
shipment of iron we take borings which we send to two rival
chemists. Unless their analyses absolutely agree and also tally
with our own formula, we reject the entire consignment.
"At each casting we make two more tests of the iron—for
tensile and transverse strength. It is imperative that the plates
contain no latent defect.
"You see their duty is to stand the enormous pull of the
strings, which are tugging on the plates to the extent of from
thirty-six thousand to fifty thousand pounds, according to the
size of the instrument. By making our own castings we are
not only sure of getting perfect plates, but are able to use
lighter ones, and thus have a minimum of weight with a maxi-
mum of strength.
"The vibrating quality of our pianos, which is so highly
esteemed, is the result, to no small extent, of the use of these
light piano plates."
"Light plates," said I to myself, "may be a good point in
the piano—but surely they are not the secret of the Steinway
success. If others would go to the trouble and expense, they
undoubtedly could cast light piano plates too."
The Dignity of Labor
Chancing to glance down, my attention was attracted to
the tense expression of a moulder who was putting the finishing
touches to his mould. He was black with graphite, but there
was something heroic about the way he had abandoned himself
to his work. So absorbed was lie that he was obviously quite
unconscious of our presence.
I think that never have 1 seen a man so surrender himself
to his work. He would scan every inch of his great mould
and deftly touch it here and there, cock his head as he appraised
the result, and fall to again.
He went over and over and over the surface of that mould,
delicately touching it here, straightening it there, correcting a
microscopic flaw at one point and tenderly smoothing out some
hair-line at another.
A Rodin putting the finishing touches to his masterpiec
could not have shown more abstraction.
"Here," said I to myself, "is indeed the dignity of labor.
Here is a man who is putting the best there is in him into his
work."
T thought that now, perhaps, I was on the trail of the
Steinway secret.
Suddenly the tapping-hole of the blasting furnace was