MANY USED AND REMODLELED GRAND PIANOS FAIL TO SAT... https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/09/garden/many-used-and-remodleled...

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ARCHIVES | 1981

By RITA REIF APRIL 9, 1981

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online
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OLD grand pianos never die -they are reborn with new strings, felts, sound boards,
pin blocks, hammers, bushings, keys and furniture finishes.
Or are they? That is a question many people have puzzled over in shopping for a
used or remodeled grand piano. It is a problem that Jacob Lateiner, the concert
pianist teaching at the Juilliard School of Music, agreed to investigate last Saturday
in testing 23 used and restored pianos at five different outlets. Most of the pianos he
was shown did not measure up to his standards for quality.
''Everyone should decide at the outset the purpose for which one is buying a
piano,'' Mr. Lateiner said, adding that some people view a piano as a piece of
furniture and their expectations are different from those of musicians who expect a
piano to be technically and tonally sound. Such expectations can prove to be
extremely frustrating, he said. ''Some of my students shop for five years before they
find what they are looking for,'' he commented.
If he were shopping for a piano, Mr. Lateiner said, the most important step
would be to have a technician go over every inch of the instrument. The pianist

The dramatic differences in the sound and technical quality of grand pianos is

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explained in part by the fact that there are thousands of parts inside. ''Aside from the
metal frame, pianos are made of wood, leather and felt - they are all organic
materials -and each one differs,'' Mr. Lateiner said. ''Why, even the quality of the felt
makes a difference, and that is determined in part by what the sheep ate.''
With so many factors involved, it is advisable for a person who is uncertain about the
sound of the instrument to enlist the advice of a professional musician or someone
else who knows how pianos should sound.
Less knowledgeable buyers soon discover that what they do not know about a
piano would fill the Grand Canyon. If there is a hairline crack in the metal frame, the
instrument is worth nothing. It is extremely difficult to find a top-quality restored
instrument that has an acceptable sound and technical quality and also looks well.
Mr. Lateiner tested 23 grands at the showrooms of the Baldwin Piano and
Organ Company, 922 Seventh Avenue (at 58th Street); Steinway & Sons, 109 West
57th Street; Sotheby Parke Bernet's York Avenue Galleries at 72d Street and two
dealers - A & C Piano Craft Inc., 149 Wooster Street, and Camilleri Pianos, 121 West
19th Street. In each case, he played the same music - several minutes of Beethoven's
''Waldstein'' Sonata and Beethoven's ''Emperor'' Concerto.
At Baldwin, where there are very few used or remodeled grand pianos, the price
when they are available is from 20 to 50 percent less than new ones, which range
from $10,000 to $25,000. ''And as soon as we get them we sell them,'' said Jack
Roamann, manager of Baldwin's concert and artist department. More often than not,
he continued, ''our clients sell their grands privately.'' Those that are sold by
Baldwin, however, carry a warranty (Steinway also gives a warranty).
Mr. Lateiner played two Baldwin grands, the first of which is a 6-foot 3-inch
piano that was made 16 years ago and was formerly owned by Leonard Bernstein.
Mr. Lateiner said, ''The action was very loose, there was no sense of quality to the
sound and it was loud and banging.'' The piano was recently sold for $6,500. The
second, a 30-year-old, 5-foot 2-inch grand, ''had an unusually good sound for a
Baldwin that size,'' Mr. Lateiner said. The piano had just been delivered to the shop
and had not been reconditioned. When remodeled, it will sell for about $6,000.
At Steinway, two pianos that have been used for concertizing are about to be
retired and will be available for purchase. One, a sevenfoot instrument called a ''B,''

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will be $17,000 or $18,000. Both, Mr. Lateiner said, are ''concert quality'' and the
nine-foot one is ''an exceptionally beautiful instrument.''
This was not true of three of the five others available in the used and reworked
department. A 5-foot 10 1/2-inch grand in walnut, called an ''L'' for large, is less than
two years old and has never been sold. That explained why ''it sounds like a new
piano - not worked in - it's cottony,'' Mr. Lateiner said. The price is $13,500.
Another grand of about the same age and priced at $13,900 had, he commented,
''no quality.'' An ebony piano of the same size at $12,100 was ''completely muffled
and will probably never open up,'' he remarked. The two he liked were a slightly used
one, again in walnut, and a one-year-old ebony grand at $16,100 that was the best
available he saw that day.
At A & C, staffed by piano makers formerly employed at Steinway, there were
many more grand pianos to choose from - 55 in stock, 15 or 20 ready to play and five
that Frank Martira, one of the four partner-owners, said were quality pianos. The
best, according to Mr. Lateiner, is a 1900 seven-foot Steinway at $13,500 that ''has
some heaviness but is completely manageable.'' A 50-year-old Mason and Hamlin at
$7,000 has, he commented, ''a nice tone but I don't think it will wear as well as a
Steinway.'' Mr. Lateiner was pleasantly surprised at ''the quality of the tone'' of a 15-
year-old, 6-foot 3-inch Baldwin. He also liked a 5 foot 10 inch Steinway dating to
1923 and priced at $9,500.
Samuel Camilleri, a co-founder of A & C who is now on his own, was also
formerly at Steinway. He had four Steinways, including the second-best available
instrument Mr. Lateiner had played that day - an ebony 1896 seven-foot design that
is $14,000. Two seven-foot ebony Steinways, however, were not so successful. One,
he said, which dated to 1889, ''didn't feel like a Steinway'' (it is $11,000) and the
other ''had a smallish base and gorgeous treble -it's crazy.'' The fourth one, built in
1889, a six-foot piano at $10,000, ''has a gorgeous top and the rest is O.K.''
At Sotheby's York Avenue at 72d Street, five of the 10 pianos that will be offered
in an auction next Thursday were set up in advance of the presale exhibition so that
Mr. Lateiner could play them. John Turner, Sotheby's musical instrument specialist,
described the five as representative of the range of quality for this sale. Not included
in the selection, he said, are two of the best pianos - a Knabe dating to 1930 that may

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The others, he said, should be judged as furniture - all have exceptional cases,
including one 7-foot-2 Steinway dating to 1910 and framed in Coromandel screens
that may sell for up to $120,000. This was the best of the four -''a marvelous old
instrument - everything is there and it just needs to be rebuilt.'' The others, an 1885
Bechstein, an 1889 Ernst Munck and an 1860 Knabe, are ''unplayable,'' he said.
A version of this article appears in print on April 9, 1981, on Page C00006 of the National edition with the
headline: MANY USED AND REMODLELED GRAND PIANOS FAIL TO SATISFY EXPERT.

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