88 Keys: The Making of a Steinway Piano
New York: Clarkson A Potter, 1997. Hardcover. Fine in fine dust jacket. Oversized hardcover. Illustrated endpapers. 143 pp. with glossary index. Illustrated throughout with color and line drawings by Rodica Prato. Beloved by concert performers and amateur enthusiasts alike, the Steinway piano is the most complicated piece of musical machinery made by hand in the world today. Steinways are still being manufactures, after a century and a half, in the same Long Island City, New York factory that has always been its home. The author of the text is the great-great-grandson of the founder Henry Englehard Steinway and takes the reader on a journey from the selection and aging of the wood to the delicate voicing of the finished instrument. Find here, portrayed by Prado's lovely artwork, the strong men who bend grand piano rims to their trademark curve, the "belly men" who fit the harp to the wooden frame, the carvers who shape the piano's legs and pedal lyre, and the many other craftsmen who have perfected their specialized contributions of the finished product. Fine / fine. Item #E32781
ISBN: 0517703564
Price: $17.50