Mozart played on an acoustic and digital piano

If an acoustic piano is well-voiced and regulated, one can attempt to make a timbre and touch comparison with a "hammer-weighted" digital piano by playing a side-by-side excerpt from the repertoire. In this instance, my Steinway grand is in the process of undergoing hammer filing and regulation, so the two instruments are not perhaps justly…

The Great Piano Auction

Photo of York, piano tuner, standing beside the Steinway auction piano Fresno Auction Company Public & Private Auctions Estate Liquidations Appraisals On an early Tuesday morning, in December, 2008, I spotted an eye-catching Fresno Bee Online ad for an estate auction that listed a “Steiney” (?) grand piano among an Allen theater harpsichord organ; rare,…

Under the spell of Vladimir Horowitz

Claudia S., one of my hard-working piano students, paused during a recital rehearsal to sample a collection of Steinway grands housed in the parlor of the Fresno Piano store on Ashlan. The instruments on display ranged from the model "M," about 5'7" in dimension to the "L," nearly 6.' A particular piano was a facsimile…