When Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi performed his haunting Elegy for the Arctic on a baby grand piano atop a floating platform off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, it grabbed the world’s attention. The 2016 Greenpeace concert shone a climate-change spotlight by contrasting the signature black Steinway against the white glaciers behind.
Pianos and water don’t form a natural pairing, but when it comes to ivories aboard superyachts, Steinway is regularly the name of choice.
Since 1853, Steinway & Sons Hamburg and New York has produced more than 622,000 pianos. Constructed primarily by hand using techniques honed over 170 years, the family brand produces the instrument of choice for 97 percent of all concert pianists. Each piano is painstakingly built using 12,000 individual parts. The Grand contains 243 strings and measures nearly 9 feet in length. Standard models retail up to $225,000, though the sky is the limit for bespoke designs.
The 883-foot (269-meter) RMS Titanic was one of the first vessels to carry a Steinway—eight upright models, to be exact. Superyachts that showcase the brand include the 511-foot (156-meter) Lürssen Dilbar, the 178-foot (54-meter) classic sailing yacht Shenandoah of Sark, and the 325-foot (99-meter) Canadian Vickers Christina O, on which Maria Callas and Frank Sinatra were among guests to have played.
Aboard the 453-foot (138-meter) Lürssen Rising Sun, the request to fit a Concert Grand piano—the largest Steinway model—in the yacht’s main salon proved challenging.
“Normally, we have a tripod fastening system that’s visible underneath the piano, but Larry Ellison didn’t want to see the fixings,” says Steinway consultant Heinz-Heinrich Schalkowsk. “Instead, we developed a special fastening that went through the three piano feet to root it to the floor.” It’s also one of only five pianos made in the past 20 years with chrome fittings instead of brass.
The standard tripod fastening system has static points to minimize movement when sailing in up to 10-foot waves. It takes a year of planning and requires a steel- or brass-reinforced floor to accommodate the fixing points. The piano is craned on board before any shipyard tests are carried out to factor in its more than 1,300-pound (600-kilogram) weight. On the rare occasion that a piano needs to be carried, it takes six men to maneuver it.
The rim of a Grand comprises 20 solid hardwood layers bent into shape by hand. The process has remained the same for 140 years, albeit with slight changes, such as reinforced clamping cauls to improve the curvature of the rim, and pneumatic wrenches to guarantee the right amount of glue between laminations. The piano is placed in a controlled conditioning room for three months to let the wood and glue cure. Then, the soundboard, which has a solid bridge on the top side and ribs on the bottom, is glued to the inner rim.
The diaphragmatic soundboard is gradually tapered from the center to the edge. It’s what gives a Steinway its distinctive, golden tone. The soundboard and keyboard are typically made of Alaskan spruce, which is sourced from one island with a microclimate that produces the right grain density and direction needed for the transmission of tonal string vibrations. Maple and bubinga are used for parts of the pinblock (which anchors the tuning pins that keep the strings taught) and mahogany is used for the rim veneers. Burl walnut, East Indian rosewood and macassar ebony can also be used for veneers. In 1989, Steinway replaced the African ivory used for its white keys with wood encased in plastic, keeping macassar ebony for the black keys.
A cast-iron plate produced in Steinway’s own foundry enhances durability. The felt hammers, made from premium Merino wool from Australia and Africa, yield a distinctive “singing” tone, while a computer-controlled boring machine ensures more accurate hammer angles relative to the strings.
The name Steinway summons images of pianos with shining black facades. The Italian furniture polish is hand-applied and then polished by computer-control to produce a flat, even and high-sheen finish. More than 90 percent of all Steinways are produced in classic black, though bespoke models, such as the gilt-and-black lacquer Steinway in the main-deck ballroom aboard the 295-foot (90-meter) Lürssen Phoenix 2, showcase a dizzying world of possibilities.
And yet, the high-polished surface is highly sensitive to sun damage. The allure of live music at sea needs to be weighed against a meticulous care plan, from ambient temperature to regular servicing.
A Steinway should be tuned three times a year for sound quality and tension. A whopping 20 tons of tension is carried in its strings, and it takes a year for the first tuning to settle. Choosing a location with the right atmospheric conditions is paramount, preferably against the inside wall of a room and not close to windows, outside doors, radiators or heating outlets.
There are no special production processes to mitigate harsh maritime conditions. It takes 200 artisans to craft one Steinway, and each one is built the same. Aboard a yacht, it falls to the crew to preserve and protect, and things don’t always go to plan.
“Six months after we installed Rising Sun’s Steinway, I received a call from the captain to say the strings had rusted,” Schalkowsk says, citing corrosion from sea spray and salty air moisture as the main culprits. “The strings need to be checked daily for moisture, and I guess they’d forgotten to do so.”
Even cruising the tropics poses issues. Constant warm temperatures, predominant wind direction and humidity are all dangers to a piano’s delicate balance. Mold and mildew affect the wooden parts and can attack the felt on the hammers, changing the tonal quality.
“The way the keyboard fits to the key bed is precise, and the key bed needs to be flat and not warped,” Schalkowsk says. He recommends a hygrometer to safeguard against humidity fluctuations, and a dehumidifier or air conditioner to control the overall environment. Keeping the piano lid closed with a cover on is the best preventive action, as are a wool string cover and a constant room temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
Some of Steinway’s more outlandish models include The Steinway Crown Jewels, a collection of grand and upright pianos with a diamond embedded into the fall board. In 2008, Chinese art collector Guo Qingxiang commissioned The Sound of Harmony, which is decorated with 40 wood inlays and is the world’s most expensive grand piano, costing $1.3 million. And then there’s the self-playing Steinway Spirio, which now accounts for 90 percent of Steinway pianos on yachts. Capable of live performance capture and playback, it offers both convenience and quality.
“The touch of a Steinway is so sensitive, so different to any other piano,” Schalkowsk says. “Whatever the pianist does with the keys, how hard or fast they play, when the hammer touches the string, the sound it elicits is golden.”
For more information: steinway.com
This article was originally published in the Winter 2023 issue.