Thompson Centennial Steinway

In 1975, Nancy Thompson’s partner, Oliver Coolidge, received a personal letter from his friend John Steinway, great-grandson of the company’s founder. After personally consulting the factory logbooks—this being the method of record-keeping at the time—Mr. Steinway wrote:

#35349 is a grand piano, Style IV. This is the ancestor of our present concert grand. It was made in 1877, shipped October 3rd to O.H. Ditson Company in Boston, Massachusetts, who were at that time our representatives in the area. I hope this miscellaneous information from our intelligence files will interest and amuse you. With best wishes, I remain, Sincerely, John.

The piano’s whereabouts following its departure from the O.H. Ditson showroom remain unknown. By the 1960s, however, it appeared in probate as part of the estate of Dr. Norman. Local legend holds that the piano had once belonged to a throuple who ended their lives in a suicide pact, leaving no heirs. As a result, the instrument entered probate and ultimately found temporary residence at the Ipswich Historical Society. Ms. Thompson, a volunteer at the Society at the time, became acquainted with the piano there. Over subsequent years, it circulated among several locations in Ipswich, depending on who could accommodate such a formidable instrument, eventually coming to rest at her home.

In July 2005, Ms. Thompson contacted me to evaluate the piano for restoration. Unsure of what to expect, I instead encountered an extraordinarily well-preserved 1877 Steinway Centennial Style IV concert grand. Despite nearly 150 years of use, the instrument retained much of its original integrity, including its remarkably elaborate rosewood veneer and serpentine legs.

Several firms, including Steinway & Sons, submitted bids for the restoration. Following my on-site inspection and submission of a written proposal, Nancy visited my workshop with her daughter Rachael, the benefactor of the project as a gift to her mother. By my own admission, I was still relatively early in my career. While my shop was well equipped and I was already immersed in contemporary advances in action design and soundboard replacement, I believe it was ultimately my passion for the historical significance of this piano that resonated most strongly with the Thompsons. Steinway, by contrast, recommended shipping the instrument to New York with little personal engagement. In the end, I was awarded the contract.

This was anything but a straightforward restoration. The piano presented numerous structural and mechanical eccentricities. The soundboard was mortised directly into the case and incorporated a device designed to add adjustable compression at the bass cutoff bar. The case itself was jointed in the manner typical of the period, predating the later development of the continuous bent rim.

In a synchronistically fortunate turn of events, I was invited to exhibit a piano at the 2006 Annual Piano Technicians Convention in Rochester, Massachusetts. Once it became known which piano I intended to bring, I was introduced to Bill Shull of the Period Piano Center, one of the foremost authorities on historical Steinway instruments. Mr. Shull became an invaluable advisor, and through him I was introduced to the production studies of Roy Kehl, whose exhaustive research would later be published as The Official Guide to Steinway Pianoswith the assistance of David Kirkland.

At the time, no such official guide existed. Consequently, there was no definitive framework for understanding precisely what we had in our possession. Historically significant pianos have too often suffered inappropriate or irreversible alterations in the course of restoration. Even the most conservative intervention risks obscuring the historical record. Nevertheless, with guidance from the most informed scholars of the period, I was able to proceed responsibly. This piano represents a direct evolutionary link between the early Steinway concert grands and the mature—or modern—concert grand. Understanding this distinction is essential.

Roy Kehl’s Production Highlights reveal that 1878 contains more significant entries for Steinway grand pianos than any other year before or since. The Centennial Grand incorporates many features now taken for granted in the modern grand piano, which reaches full maturity around 1884 with the introduction of the treble bell and continuous rim. By 1878, Steinway had been producing pianos under its own name for twenty-five years, beginning in a kitchen on Varick Street, later expanding to Walker Street, where refinishing and in-house action work were introduced. In 1855, the firm won a gold medal for its overstrung square pianos with full iron frames and 88 notes. The first wing grand followed in 1856, and the first overstrung 8′4′′ concert grand appeared in 1858.

By 1859, Steinway issued its first price list identifying pianos by Style numbers—denoting case design rather than length. These were Rococo cabinets of varying ornamentation, with Style VI as the flagship, distinguished by its scalloped rim. This same year marked Steinway’s introduction of the agraffe. While Erard had employed agraffes decades earlier, Steinway refined the concept by tilting them forward and threading them directly into the plate, allowing for a more advantageous hammer strike point. In 1860, Steinway & Sons opened its expanded factory on Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue). Importantly, Steinway models did not evolve uniformly. Innovations were often tested on specific models before being adopted more broadly. In 1878, the familiar letter designations (Models A, B, C, and D) became standard. That year also saw the replacement of compression screws with the Pulsator, patented in May, and the introduction of Model A—the first piano to feature a continuous bent rim, radial bracing, and a metallic shoe, later known as the Tone Collector.

The Thompson Centennial Grand predates these developments and therefore does not yet represent a fully mature concert grand. There were relatively few production highlights in 1877, the year of this piano’s manufacture, though it is notable thatAlbert Steinway died that year. The Thompson Steinway belongs to a group of instruments conceived in 1875 as the nation prepared to celebrate its Centennial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ-Ewur6ngI&t=1s