Heirs Turn to Other Careers : At Steinway, Only the Pianos Remain

NEW YORK — For more than a century--since 1853--the male descendants of a German immigrant cabinetmaker followed their fathers into the business of making quality pianos.

But the curtain appears to be coming down on that tradition. The fourth generation of Steinways in the business apparently is the last.

Just two of Henry E. Steinway’s descendants, both of them past retirement age, remain with the company.

Brothers John and Henry Z. Steinway are now consultants with Steinway & Sons, providing the final link with the creator of the Steinway piano, their great-grandfather.

“They’re really involved in a special way. We value them highly,” says Bruce Stevens, current president of Steinway. “What better link do we have with the past and tradition?”

The new generation of descendants of Henry E. Steinway chose different routes.

“None of the kids were interested in coming in,” says John Steinway, 70, over the constant plink-plink-plink of piano tuning outside the office he shares with his brother. “They all wanted to go out and do their own thing.

“We’ve got a banker, we’ve got a computer expert, we’ve got an architect--we’ve all kinds of things in the next generation.”

John Steinway can recall childhood dinner guests such as Sergei Rachmaninoff and Arthur Rubinstein breaking bread at the Steinway table. His father often took the two brothers on weekend day trips to the piano factory in Queens.

“I got brought in with my mother’s milk, in a way,” recalls John, sitting inside Manhattan’s Steinway Hall, an ornate piano showcase/museum. “I was brought up in it.”

Walking around Steinway Hall, John is greeted time and time again by workers he has known for years.

“No. 237--that’s Horowitz’s piano,” Steinway says, pointing to a concert grand, one of about a dozen kept in the basement for use by visiting performers. “That’s one of his bats.”

Steinway recalls the day he decided to become a piano man.

“In those days, a job was a job,” says John, who joined the firm in the late 1930s. “My father said, ‘If you want to work with the company, fine. You go out to the factory at 7:30 in the morning and start your apprenticeship.’ Which I did.”

Three years later he began moving up in the company. Henry became president of the company, while John handled marketing and production. When the inevitable became apparent in 1972--when there were no members of the Steinway family to move into the business--the decision was made to sell.

CBS Inc. purchased Steinway & Sons, but the corporation’s handling of the family trade struck a bad chord with Steinway.

“We were not very happy with CBS, as part of a large corporation,” Steinway says.

The company was sold to Steinway Musical Properties Inc.