James Barron, writing in the New York Times (May 11, 2003), begins a series entitled "Invention for 900 Hands." It describes the making of "Steinway piano No. K0862 at Steinway & Sons factory in Astoria, Queens. It will take about eight months to finish No. K0862, an 8-foot 11 3/4 inch concert grand; along the way, the rim will be aged in a room as dim as a wine cellar; it will be sprayed with lacquer, rubbed and sprayed again; it will be broken in by a machine that plays scales.... Every Steinway is made same way from same materials by same workers; yet every Steinway ends up being different…."

For additional information from the Loper website about grand pianos, please see A Piano in the Parlor.

Note: To purchase the complete text of James Barron's article, see How Does a Piano Get to Carnegie Hall?. After 5 - 30 days, the NY Times will remove this article from its archives of free publications and will require a fee to return a single article. As of the date of this article's publication, this fee is $2.95 and permits unlimited viewing for 90 days.

For more on The New York Times policy, see Frequently Asked Questions About Rights and Permissions