D-274 (or D) is the model name of a concert grand piano, the flagship of the Steinway & Sons piano company,Fine, Larry, The Piano Book: Buying & Owning a New or Used Piano, Third Edition, Boston: Brookside Press 1994 first built in 1884."Grand piano guide to Steinway and industry standard sizes", Bluebook of Pianos. Accessed March 12, 2010.Katie Hafner: A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano, Bloomsbury Publishing USA: New York, 2008, and . It is generally described as the first choice of most concert pianists. As of 2017 a D-274 finished in Polished Ebony has a MSRP of US$175,700.
At long, wide and ,"Specifications and Features – Model D" , Steinway & Sons Official Website, Accessed March 12, 2010. the D-274 is too large for most homes. In concert hall settings, on the other hand, the D-274 is a major presence. An example would be the famous Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which offers contestants a choice of two D-274s owned by the Van Cliburn Foundation, one a mellow-toned instrument made in New York, the other a bright-toned instrument made in Hamburg. These are supplemented with a third Steinway piano brought in for the event.
An estimate from 2003 suggested that more than 90 percent of concert grand pianos worldwide are D-274s."Just about perfect: The dichotomy of Steinway piano design" , STEP Inside Design, issue of November/December 2003, p. 68."Mythos in Schwarz-Weiß, Wie ein Steinway-Flügel entsteht", Report of 5. April, 2010, by Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) (in English: North German Broadcasting).
Design
Virtually all critical design elements of the Steinway 'D' were developed during the 19th century. Among them are the action and string scale designs perfected by Henry Steinway Jr., the company founder's son; the hammers, cast iron frame and laminated wooden rim, all originating in designs patented by C. F. Theodore Steinway, another of the founder's sons; the trapwork (pedals), first devised by Albert Steinway, a third son; and most aspects of the soundboard. Since those early years, only two notable improvements to the model have been made: a concentric shaping of the soundboard, a design patented by younger family member Paul Bilhuber, was introduced in 1936; more recently the action was changed to provide a greater mechanical advantage to the player, resulting in less touch resistance with no loss of power."Today's Pianos Have Prelude In Yesterday's; Steinway Family Legacy Pervades Factory in Queens," The New York Times, July 19, 2003 (accessed March 24, 2010)
History
Even before the German-born family emigrated to the United States, the founder, Henry E. Steinway, had built a grand piano in 1836 (the so-called "kitchen grand"), which today is preserved at the Steinway Hall in New York City. Such grand pianos with a limited keyset of 6 or 6.5 octaves and double strings produce less volume of sound than a D-type concert grand piano.Ronald V. Ratcliffe: Steinway. Chronicle Books, San Francisco (USA) 1989, .
Concert grand pianos of full size are able to fill a concert hall with sound for 2,000 to 3,000 spectators. This was foreshadowed in the 1860s when grand pianos were given harps or frames of cast iron. Initially employed to accommodate the cumulative and extraordinary tension of the strings, thereby protecting the wooden structure from destruction, iron frames quickly facilitated a dramatic increase in string tension. With increased string tension came increased power and projection.
At the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there were several manufacturer's competitions, including a piano competition. The Steinway company sent two grand pianos displaying their latest developments, demonstrating the firm's innovative and markedly improved piano quality. Their determined pursuit of quality was rewarded at the world exhibition with a gold medal. Steinway won the competition against several established, well-known American piano makers, including Chickering & Sons and Weber Piano Company.
This Steinway concert grand piano, the direct predecessor of today's Model 'D', has become known as the "Centennial grand". It remained in production until 1878, when improvements prompted the Steinways to re-designate their models, replacing numeric designations (Types 1 through 4) with Model letters, i.e., A, B, C and D. These letters still mark the types of Steinway's four largest instruments.
This was a time of remarkable advance:
The open pinblock was discarded in favor of the full frame. Always mindful of production as well as excellence, Steinway realized that covering the pinblock with the plate would save manufacturing costs. Open blocks had necessitated multiple levels (to account for the height difference between the bass and treble bridges), whereas this disparity could be easily compensated for in the full frame casting. Further, the pinblock was no longer visible and as such needed no cosmetic treatment such as an attractive veneer.
The capo d'astro bar displaced agraffes in the upper treble sections. While agraffes continue to be used in the bass, tenor and lower treble of modern instruments, earlier pianos also employed them in the upper treble. The massively cast capo bar, an integral part of the plate, enhanced the clarity and power of the upper treble
The pedal lyre was strengthened dramatically, and the pedals redesigned as a self-contained unit. Pedaling became more reliable and precise, and withstood violent pedaling that often accompanies violent playing.
String lengths and tensions increased dramatically, and hammers were made heavier and employed denser felt. These and other improvements remarkably enhanced the performance, power and brilliance of the new Steinway 'D', enabling it to fill ever-expanding concert venues with sufficient sound.
Development of the modern D-274
In 1878, Steinway began producing their new small Models 'A' and 'B' with laminated maple cabinets, creating the modern "rim" case: Very long, thin (3.5 mm) planks of maple were slathered with hide glue, bent around a form, clamped together and allowed to dry. This process made rim fabrication quicker, and the resultant structure stronger and more stable. It also was cheaper, requiring fewer man-hours and being less wasteful of hardwoods that need several years of storage and precise seasoning. This speedier production method was of great advantage in a time of huge demand for good pianos.
In 1880, the two big grand models 'C' and 'D' were changed accordingly. Both the old 85-note 'Henry'-designed (father & son) 'C' grand (formerly named 'Parlor Grand'), and the concert grand Model 'D', which had made a great success on the Centennial Exhibition 1876 in Philadelphia, received a 'rim' case. Among extant Centennial grands (1875-1884), approximately two-thirds have a 'constructed case' and the newer third have a bent rim case.Private investigations, author of this information is hunting Centennial D information since 2010.
There are few identical Centennial D-270 grands, so rapidly did the Steinways incorporate new ideas into their production. Accordingly that model is now seen as a transient one, a bridge to the first fully-modern Model 'D', released in the Centennial's final year of production.Private investigations, author of this information is hunting Centennial D information since 2010.
After the concert success of an 1883 prototype 'D' that featured a laminated case, radically higher string tension and capo bar (which began at note 36 yet retained vestigial agraffes all the way to note 88), Steinway unveiled the 1884 'D', a fully realized new model with a redesigned scale (including a 20-note instead of a 17-note bass), a capo bar in both upper treble sections, a newly designed pedal lyre, and a multi-laminated case.James Barron: Piano - The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand. Times Books, New York 2006, .
In subsequent years few changes occurred, though the instrument's length increased slightly (the "rim type" D concert grand pianos from 1884 to about 1895 were only 272 cm long). However, in 1936 a soundboard based on a patent of Paul Bilhuber, an "in-law" member of the Steinway family, was introduced. Bilhuber had created a soundboard that tapered evenly from the thickest central point to a thinner perimeter, and it was judged to provide greater response and longevity.
Not all Steinway innovations were successful. In 1961, Teflon bushings for the playing mechanism were incorporated into U. S.-built grand pianos – a modification that the piano makers at the Hamburg branch did not adopt despite much pressure from the New York-based company. They were able to resist only because the profits of the Hamburg plant were greater than those of the New York factory.
The Teflon bushings were intended to lessen friction problems that might occur because of seasonal humidity changes, but they themselves caused excessive friction. Further, because they were a hard and dimensionally stable substance (fixed into wood, which is not), at certain times of the year they would loosen in their holes and cause clicking during play. After years of complaints from pianists and technicians, in 1982 the New York makers re-introduced the classic felt bushings with an infused dry-grease fluid made with Teflon particles that allowed them to keep using the word Teflon in their advertising.Susan Goldenberg: Steinway - From Glory to Controversy - The Family - The Business - The Piano. Mosaic Press, Oakville (Ontario, CDN) 1996, .
The Steinway Model 'D' represents about 5 percent of all Steinway grand pianos produced, a significantly larger share of concert-grand output than the 1-2 percent that other manufacturers produce. An explanation is found not only in their exceptional quality but in their sophisticated marketing programs – the Steinway Artists program and the concert grand piano banks in New York City, London, and Hamburg have virtually guaranteed the loyalty of concert artists worldwide. On U.S. stages, more than 90 percent of performances using a concert grand use a Steinway 'D'.
Of the approximately 600,000 pianos Steinway has built (as of 2010), about 25,000 are Models 'D'. Only 424 of the predecessor "Centennial D" pianos were built; about 30 are still known to exist.Website of the piano technician Bill Shull, Los Angeles
Artists' preference – geographic origin and specific instruments
Steinway manufactures the 'D' in two factories, one in New York and one in Hamburg, Germany. Outwardly, New York and Hamburg 'D's differ most noticeably in finish, with the former displaying traditional satin lacquer and the latter high-gloss polyester.Allen, Frederick, "Steinway: Where high tech does only the simplest jobs," American Heritage, Fall 1993 (accessed March 22, 2010) Differences in the respective instruments' tone and playing character, however, have led particular pianists to gravitate to the output of one factory or the other; Vladimir Horowitz, for instance, preferred a New York 'D', whereas Marc-Andre Hamelin, Alfred Brendel, Mitsuko Uchida, Burkard Schliessmann, Grigory Sokolov, Arcadi Volodos, Artur Rubinstein and Krystian Zimerman were partial to the Hamburg product. Garrick Ohlsson preferred the brilliance of the Hamburg instrument in his youth, but the warmth of the New York 'D' as he matured. Sergei Rachmaninoff bought three 'D's, all New York products, for his homes in the United States, but he installed a Hamburg 'D' in his Swiss villa. The difference between the New York and Hamburg Steinway pianos is less noticeable today. Pianist and Steinway Artist Emanuel Ax says that "... the differences have more to do with individual instruments than with where they were made.""Steinways with German Accents...", The New York Times, August 27, 2003. Accessed March 25, 2010.
Several artists have developed documented association with particular 'D's. Examples would include the following: