On March 5, 1853 – 165 years ago today – Steinway & Sons was founded in New York City by a German immigrant named Henry Steinway. Born Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, Henry Steinway’s life and accomplishments are a textbook example of the great American success story: of an immigrant and his family who by dint of the hardest work, ambition, sacrifice, artistry, and no small bit of genius created something of true and lasting import. Just as the 27-inch retinal display iMac on which I am writing this post saw its ancestor born in a garage in Cupertino, California, so the magnificent concert grand Steinway D (serial number 587837) that sits in my studio/office roughly five feet away from the computer saw its earliest ancestor built in a kitchen in Seesen, Germany in 1836. For the computer I must thank the Steves Jobs and Wozniak. For the piano, Henry Steinway and his sons. Heinrich Steinweg/Henry Steinway’s life reads like a combination rags-to-riches and disaster novel! He was the youngest of 12 children, born on February 15, 1797 in the village of Wolfshagen, in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. The timing and location of Heinrich’s birth were, well, unfortunate. The Napoleonic […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Archive for Steinway Artist
It has been a very good week. I distrust very good weeks. I would explain. By calling this a “good week” I am (obviously) asserting that good things have happened during the last seven (or so) days. And that is true. But saddled (as I am) with my particular psychoneuroses, such a positive assertion is riddled with dangerous implications. You see, by publically admitting that I’ve had a good week I fear I have called down a Karmic wet blanket that will suffocate my present high spirits and render me, once again, susceptible to the existential gloom that is my natural emotional condition. I expect it can all be boiled down to a single unfortunate assumption: that when a good thing happens there must be a bad reason for it. So here’s what’s happened. On Saturday last, I got married, as documented previously on this site. Yes; all good. In fact, all great. Then today (Thursday), I was informed that I’ve been designated a “Steinway Artist” by Steinway & Sons piano manufacturers. This is, no doubt, a tremendous honor, and I have indulged myself mightily by announcing it here on this page. But my ingrained suspicion of positive news has […]
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