For the past 6 months I’ve been helping build a new high end piano retail store in New York City. Allegro Pianos Manhattan is an expansion of Allegro Pianos of Stamford CT. We represent Bosendorfer, Bluthner, Steingraeber, Estonia and Kawai. I split my time between maintaining all the pianos and working with customers.
It’s been a challenging period, to say the least. It has been a brutal winter in NYC and it has taken time to get the pianos stabilized and sounding their best. We’ve got a pretty incredible selection, including concert grands from Bosendorfer, Bluthner and Steingraeber, a Bosendorfer 225, a beautiful Bluthner model 2 and over 25 other pianos, both grands and verticals. I have really enjoyed becoming more familiar with these makes and in particular getting familiar with how to get the best tone. I’m reminded once again how much difference careful regulation can make in tone, without even touching the hammer. I’m also reminded once again how differently they different makes respond to voicing and why, to get the most idiomatic tone from each make, you have to be flexible in your voicing technique. But, the basics apply across the board, including string seating and careful fitting of the hammers to the strings.