88 Keys - The Making of a Steinway Piano (Amadeus) [Hardcover] Review

This is fundamentally an oversized pamphlet.It is double-spaced with wide margins and still only has about 130 pages including many illustrations.Steinway has a CD-rom, which one can obtain quite easily, which covers many Steinway construction topics with better illustrations (including video) than this pamphlet. Anyone with any knowledge at all of piano construction (viewers of the Steinway CD- rom video, and a couple of manufacturers' brochures) will be disappointed in this book.
The book contains no photographs.Hard to believe, eh? The illustrations are excellent, but do not seem to be integrated with the text and very few are diagrammatic showing how things work, just show how they are, if you are lucky.
Many topics are described without detailed reference and explanation with an illustration or diagram.
E.g..Pg. 15 clavichord mechanism is described verbally, without diagrams.
Pg 64:English style ... "the hammer heads are placed at the far end of the mechanisms and move forward when the keys are struck."I am clueless as to what this would look like. " a glimpse at any contemporary grand piano keyboard will..." How about a picture?
Pg 48-49 Re:matched veneers:" a careful look at the case of any natural wood-finished Steinway will show you how good they are."No photographs or illustrations.
Pg 52 re Scales."these characteristic dimensions differentiate pianos from different makers more than any other technical element."Perhaps I do not understand the statement, but a Steinway salesperson will point out three distinct differentiations between Steinway and its competitors, which are technically related in my mind.
I was abhorred to look down at the page number, 62, half way through the book, and realized I had only learned a few things of interest and had not learned anything of several topics which I had assumed would be covered.While I did not keep track of the time, I felt I had only been reading a short while.
On several occasions the author begins on what appears an interesting topic, but he either aborts early or has no illustrative diagrams and I cannot follow, despite very good grades in science classes from a prestigious private etc.
Pg. 56.He starts talking about harmonics, but has no diagrams, and again, if one does not know harmonics will probably just be confused.
He talks about sound board gluing, but again no illustrative diagrams or dimensions on final cut.How thick is a soundboard?
Bridge: verbally describes making one, but no diagrams or detailed illustrations.
I will stop with the last.One thing I would certainly expect from a book on making a piano is a detailed explanation with diagrams of how the action works. Pg.71 (this paragraph is unbelievable):"A model of a piano's action is a fascinating thing to behold.I used to play with one for hours on end ..." "The answer is that the pianos action has evolved over years of experimentation."That's it!No explanation of how the mechanism of the action actually works.One very nice still illustration, but no explanation or additional diagrams.
If this book does not sell on Amazon, it will not sell anywhere, because I would never have bought this oversized pamphlet at a bookstore.
Sorry.

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People and Pianos: A Pictorial History of Steinway & Sons (Amadeus) [Hardcover] Review

First written in 1953, People And Pianos is a chronicle of the history of Steinway & Sons, an institution famous for creating great pianos. The original edition was a memento to commemorate the company's 100-year anniversary; now a new edition is made available to the public, filled cover-to-cover with vintage black-and-white photographs and illustrations as well as an update by Bruce Stevens that continues the saga of Steinway & Sons to the present day. Personal reminiscences on maestros such as Ignace Jan Paderewski, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Josef Hofmann, Glenn Gould, Rudolf Serkin, Dame Myra Hess, and Arthur Rubinstein by Henry Z. Steinway, the last family member to be involved in the business, are included. A remarkable narrative, especially recommended for piano enthusiasts interested in knowing the inner details of an institution that took upon itself the task of creating great and complex musical instruments.

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Product Description:

This is the story of how the Steinway piano came to be the instrument of choice for the world's greatest pianists. In 1953, Theodore Steinway wrote this narrative in longhand on yellow legal pads as a tribute to his father and to commemorate the first 100



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