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Piano
  
---- The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand
by James Barron
published by Times Books
© 2007 by James Barron


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From Booklist
The gestation period for a $100,000 Steinway concert grand piano is 11 months, give or take a few days, though that's counting neither the journey of the timber from the forest nor the shopping and bargaining trip made by Steinway's shrewd purchasing agent to buy the wood. Adding those into the total and season with the fact that Steinway pianos are still made in basically the same way and in the same place since the 1880s, and you have the makings of a delectable book. In the hands of veteran New York Times staffer Barron, who followed the step-by-step process as concert grand K0862 grew and took shape from its first 17 strips of maple to its final staining, tuning, and polishing, the story becomes greater than a mere chronicle of a manufacturing procedure. For it turns out that these exceedingly complex instruments known as Steinways have an equally complex backstory that encompasses the lives of the people who build and have built them and the politics of a very competitive industry. ~~ Donna Chavez

Copyright © 2007, American Library Association. All rights reserved.

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