A Steinway is Born… Finally

For the past 10 months, the New York Times has been following the construction of a single concert grand piano from the Steinway & Sons factory in Queens. The series recently concluded when piano K0862 got its serial number, a new name, and a classy new home in… a basement?

After almost a year of being shaped, assembled, painted, polished, and fitted with keys and strings, K0862 was born this spring as "No. 565700," according the stenciled number recently applied to its cast-iron plate.

That name didn't last long. Chosen to be part of Steinway's "concert fleet," the piano was dubbed "CD-60" and shipped to Manhattan, where it joined about 300 other pianos beneath Steinway's 57th Street showroom. The greatest pianists in the world come to that underground room to choose the perfect instrument for their New York performances and recording sessions.

Over the course of a week, Ronald Coners, the company's "chief concert technician," fiddled with CD-60, which had already gone through weeks of fiddling at the factory. Coners respaced some strings, realigned some hammers. At last the new baby was ready for its first visitors, the 15 esteemed pianists who had been invited to try CD-60.

According to the Times, Emanuel Ax played Debussy and declared the piano "nice." Robert Taub offered Chopin and was more effusive: "tremendous." Show-man Marvin Hamlisch played "The Way We Were," and jazz great Kenny Barron took a spin with "The Very Thought of You." The Labeque sisters, Katia and Marielle, tackled some Ravel.

The overall verdict? Mixed -- but about right for a brand new piano. "Raw" was a common assessment. Lang Lang "said it was like a car that needed to be driven fast and hard, 'in sixth or twelfth gear.'" (A New Yorker, unfamiliar with actual automobiles?) Erika Nikrenz "compared it to "a colt that was fun to ride." Hamlisch "likened it to a flower that has yet to bloom."

Closing the nine-part series, the Times' James Barron declared, "only time will tell" how young K0862 will fare as a concert piano. Its first test was slated to have taken place in May, at the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Recreate all nine parts of the piano's journey at the complete Steinway feature section of the New York Times site

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