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RESTORATION OF STEINWAY MODEL C 1880 GRAND PIANO SERIAL NO.41860

This is our diary of a project to restore an old Steinway grand to its former glory.

In early 2009,Youngs pianos we were asked to make an offer on a very old worn out Steinway grand.A price was agreed and it was brought into our workshop. As usually is the case with old unplayable pianos, we sell them on to the piano trade. Had this been an ordinary piano of the 1880s, the cost of complete restoration would far outweigh the value of the instrument when restored, but this was a Steinway after all so we thought hard about what we should do and decided to embark on a full restoration knowing that the cost of doing so would be high but a Steinway is a Steinway and the name alone was enough to decide that this one should be saved.
The next thing was to find out something about the piano.We went to Steinway and Sons London to see if they could come up with anything on the piano.They hold vast numbers of records going back to the beginning of the company in mid 1880s.

The reply from Steinway and Sons London....

Thank you for your inquiry.
Steinway & Sons piano serial number 41861 is listed as a model C grand in rosewood finish. It was completed in our New York factory on May 19, 1880 and shipped to Steinway & Sons in London on September 30, 1880.

The records show that our piano was made in New York and made its way to the UK around the time when the London branch of Steinway and Sons opened. Also it is clear from the records that this particular piano was one of Steinway and Sons Hire fleet. Steinways would rent large grand pianos out to concert halls etc.. or to concert artists of the time.

One name that is really interesting is that of 'Rosenthal'.On researching the names on line, Rosenthal is the only one that has some relevance.it happens that Moritz Rosenthal was a famous concert pianist around that time and was touring the world most of his career.It is very likely that he was the person that the piano was hired to from 8th June 1915 to December of that year.The war had started and perhaps Moritz stayed in London and used the piano for practice.We have not come across any records of him in concert in 1915 but we found a referance to him playing concerts in Germany in 1916, so he was in Europe in 1916 and could well have been the year before. Our research goes on and if anybody taking an interest in this can offer any more information on Moritz Rosenthal, especially the year of 1915 we would be very pleased to hear from them.If you would like to know more about the man, then do a google search and you will find much more about him including 'YouTube' recordings.

The restoration begins.

Our company has, over the years, carried out many full rebuilds on grand and upright pianos and through experience ,we know the costs involved in doing thorough work.This venture will indeed need serious funding to acheive the desired result.We decided this piano was not going the way of others..to the trade and usually ending up abroad.... we were going to breath new life in to this one.
The work would have to be arranged around our busy workshop schedules and there will be times when the project will seem to be standing still but hopefully, completion will be middle of 2010.
After a few months of inactivity with the piano and a busy workshop, it was decided to do make a start beginning with a thorough survey of the instrument to see where all the problems might be. Firstly,the soundboard was checked and it showed no sign of serious cracks. The soundboard on a piano is not a flat piece of wood, it is under an upwards tension created by the ribs and this one factor amongst others,help give a piano tone and sustain.There is much discussion in the piano restoration world about replacing or repairing soundboards on pianos of high quality such as a Steinway. Some say that by replacing the soundboard, the heart and the original Steinway sound is lost. Some will always 'repair' than replace, argueing that it is the only way to retain what makes it a Steinway in the first instance.
From our experience we have heard awful sounding Steinways with 'renewed' soundboards but also we have heard awful sounding Steinways with 'repaired' soundboards. It would be decided on how much crown was left, if any, on the soundboard.If no crown, then we might have decided to shelve the venture and sell it on to the trade and more than likely the piano would end up abroad.
We checked thoroughly and there was still a crown and linked with the fact that the notes that did play had some beautiful sustain,it was decided to retain the soundboard.We have always been of the opinion that ripping a Steinway's soundboard out and replacing it, removes the originality of the instrument.We wanted to try to re create what this piano would have sounded like to our Mr. Rosenthal.

We will update this page as often as possible so if you are interested in our project and want to follow the progress either bookmark this page and click on the links top left or fill in your email address above to be informed when updates are added.
Please note that it will be unavoidable to refer to a lot of technical jargon that may only be familier to people in the piano field.If you do not understand some of the terms we use to describe a process or find that you do not know what some of the words or phrases mean, please contact us by email and we will gladly explain in everyday language.

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