88 Keys: The Making of a Steinway Piano
   Miles Chapin
  1997 Clarkson Potter/Publishers NY USA
   ISBN: 0517703564


With exquisite illustrations by Rodica Prato, this book attempts to explain the most complicated piece of machinery made by hand in the world today - the much-loved & familiar grand pianofortes from the Masters at the House of Steinway.

Skitch Henderson's accolade: “As a lifelong companion of number 332408 (A Studio B signed by Theodore, Henry, John, and Frederick Steinway), I am eternally grateful to Miles Chapin for this magical tour of the inner workings of both the Steinway piano and the Steinway factory.”

For those of us, seduced as children by the wonder of a piano, so much so that we dreamed at the keyboard, created our own little ditties & mimicked the music & sounds that we heard in our lives, until our ‘well-meaning#146; parents bound us to its keys with arduous, competitive & repetitive studies, this revisitation will bring enlightenment. For the rest of us, to whom a piano is as much a part of our daily experience as breathing, Miles Chapin's book gives a fine sense of history, a glimpse of why the sight, sound & feel of a piano & a Steinway grand, in particular, is so familiar, so exciting & so satisfying.

I loved the time line at the bottom of the history chapter, now what is that melody, I wonder?

In the Materials chapter we are introduced to four treasured trees - two conifers & two deciduous. Miles Chapin gives us a fascinating historical, geographical & botanical discourse on the search for & the art of sounding the wood for use. Our elderly Poppa was reading this, being a retired lumberjack, he'd never before thought of wood in this way.

In the chapter on the Physics of Sound, we glimpse the differences between piano models, manufacturers & the sound of an instrument. Now we watch as a soundboard is completed, ready for the next step. Here, as all through this devout & charming narrative, Rodica Prato's pen, ink & wash drawings give vision to Miles Chapin's words.

The Keyboard and the Action is absorbing & detailed as too The Rim and The Case. While the former involves only one worker, in a meditation before the 88 keys, the latter involves a skilled, strong & patient crew.

Did you know that in the East Room of the White House reposes an art-case Steinway, presented by the Steinway family to the people of the United States? It's description, because it is ornately wrought, sounds like a book of American music.

All now is ready to add The Harp and the Strings: it is the materials of the strings that gives a piano its timbre. There is a lovely World War II story about the Steinway “Victory” pianos.

Slowly & patiently all the pieces come together and The Assembly begins until a piano is ready for its Voicing. Here the piano is transformed from a machine capable of producing sound into an instrument capable of making music.

Finally we come to the Finishing & Rodica Prato's illustrations in this chapter are breathtaking.

A useful Glossary/Index is included & to the end, the illustrations linger. Lovely work, well done!
(05/09/99)

Rebecca