Making The Moves On Steinway

“Accusations of hard-knuckled dealing continue to circulate among titans of the keyboard as Bösendorfer and other manufacturers mount renewed challenges to Steinway’s overwhelming dominance of the high-end piano market. Bösendorfer — a 175-year-old Austrian firm whose instruments were played by Liszt, Brahms, Dvorak and Bernstein — has now opened its first New York showroom and begun pushing to get its pianos more widely heard, and seen, on American concert stages. Bechstein — a venerable German maker whose 150th anniversary just coincided with Steinway’s — introduced a newly designed concert grand in January. A relative newcomer, Fazioli, is attracting a following among performers, some of whom are running afoul of Steinway in the process.”