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jteJSMltjfeAMft^ Artur Rubinstein once phoned New York from Buenos Aires to have a Stein-way piano flown down. The Steinway he had brought with him was tied up in the harbor by a shipping strike. The substitute Steinway would have to be flown 6,000 miles, but no other piano would do. That was just after World War II. Today Rubinstein would find a Steinway on hand almost anywhere he had an engagement, but before that time it was customary for concert pianists of major rank to travel not only with a Steinway but also with a "piano man." William Hupfer is a piano man extraordinary employed for fifty years by Steinway & Sons, an H&S client served by our New York Office. He traveled with Sergei Rachmaninoff for thirteen years, regulating the piano's tone before each concert for variations so subtle the pianist himself claimed he couldn't detect them. Then he stationed himself in the wings during the performance. "I was always standing there ready, for all those years," he once said, "and I never had a thing to do except listen. But my client could say to himself, 'Now, if there's one thing I don't have to worry about, it's the piano.' " Today, aged 70, Mr. Hupfer does most of his regulating—or "voicing," as they say—in the basement of Steinway Hall on 57th Street in New York, surrounded by dozens of concert grands from which artists may choose for their New York appearance. They prefer to pay around $150 cartage and service charge for a Steinway, although other manufacturers will let them use their pianos free in an effort to break their loyalty to Steinway pianos. Some pianists run up annual charges of $5,000 or $6,000 for Steinway service of one sort or another. "It's fascinating to come across signatures of the Van Cliburns and Horowitzes on our confirmations," says Jim Begley, senior accountant in charge on the engagement. Karl A. Herrhammer, supervising partner, remembers that back in the Depression days many of the great pianists were being carried on the books as Steinway tided them over hard times. He had first taken the engagement in 1936 as a New York staff accountant while riding in the ring at the Squadron A Armory with his commanding officer, Major Frederick A. Vietor, whose mother was a Steinway. Steinway accounts for only four per cent of the pianos sold in this country, but its $12 million annual sales represent 12 per cent of the industry's total. In fact, however, the company doesn't consider itself in the same business with other piano manufacturers. "They are just volume people who know how to buy lumber and shave costs," says Henry Steinway, the president, whose great grandfather began his musical career as a bugler at Waterloo and made the first Steinway in the kitchen of his house in Seesen, a village in Germany's Harz mountains. The immense Steinway prestige is best understood when one realizes that almost all pianos used in concerts and recitals in this country are Stein ways. But that is not all. This American product, which has its roots in European culture, has completely captured the Bushings for piano-key actions are assembled by hand at the H&S client's factory. 4 Steinway's William Hupfer lends sharp ear to concert-grand test by pianist Gary Graffman.
Object Description
Title |
House of Steinway |
Author |
Anonymous |
Contributor |
Stevens, Roy |
Subject |
Steinway & Sons |
Personal Name |
Hupfer, William Graffman, Gary Herrhammer, Karl A. Begley, James J. Steinway, John Seinway, Henry Steinway, Theodore |
Portrait |
Hupfer, William Graffman, Gary Herrhammer, Karl A. Begley, James J. Steinway, John Seinway, Henry Steinway, Theodore |
Citation |
H&S Reports, Vol. 04, (1967 spring), p. 04-08 |
Date-Issued | 1967 |
Source | Originally published by: Haskins & Sells |
Rights | Copyright and permission to republish held by: Deloitte; Photographs by Roy Stevens |
Format | PDF page image with corrected OCR scanned at 400 dpi |
Collection | Deloitte Digital Collection |
Digital Publisher | University of Mississippi Library. Accounting Collection |
Date-Digitally Created | 2010 |
Language | eng |
Identifier | HSReports_1967_Spring-p4-8 |