Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Horowitz's Steinway

Isn't that what Liberace did in that episode of Batman?

Actually, Horowitz used several pianos during his long career. The one most commonly associated with him, CD314503, is the one that has been touring Steinway showrooms since the early 1990s.

Early in 1934, as a wedding present, Steinway presented Vladimir and Wanda Horowitz with a Steinway Model D, Serial #CD279503 (the "C" denotes for pianos deemed worthy by Steinway for Concert use. The "D" indicates the size of piano, in this case, nine feet long). This piano is identifiable in photographs from the highly ornate Steinway logo on the fallboard.

In the early 1940s, this piano was replaced with CD314503. This is the piano Horowitz kept in his New York townhouse, and used in recitals and recordings from 1974-1981 and 1985-1987.

CD186 (Steinway often dropped the first three digits with "CD" pianos) was selected by Horowitz for his return recital in 1965. (He described the tone as "more mellow [than his other piano], more like the human voice.") CD186 was used for subsequent concerts and recording sessions until it suffered catastrophic failure in late 1972 and was retired from professional use.

CD223 was Horowitz's piano while he kept a summer home in New Milford, Connecticut. It replaced CD186 for Horowitz's last Columbia sessions in late 1972/early 1973.

CD75, built in 1911, was found by Franz Mohr, Horowitz's tuner, in Steinway's basement and restored by him. Horowitz used the piano from 1981-1983.

CD443, Horowitz's last piano, was selected by Horowitz for home use, to avoid the inconvenience of hauling CD314503 from Horowitz's second floor living room when he went on tour. At first Horowitz had reservations about the piano's action (which was rather heavy) but came to love the instrument so much that, when he briefly considered concertizing in 1989, he planned to take CD443 with him. This piano was used for recording sessions made at Horowitz's home in 1988 and 1989.

It seems to me Horowitz didn't play a Steinway. When your down weight is 10 grams lighter than Steinway specifications, and when other significant changes are made to the action (including Franz Mohr's special treatment of the hammers), you are certainly not playing any sort of Steinway the average person can buy. When you are rich enough to travel with your own instrument from concert to concert, you are not playing a Steinway the average concert artist uses traveling from hall to hall performing on the local D.

Paderewski and Hoffman also had their own traveling instruments that suited them alone and just happened to have a Steinway logo on the fallboard. Glenn Gould kept assaulting various Steinways to get the ideal sound and action for his Bach performances, and eventually gave up using the instrument altogether. Maurizio Pollini travels with a Steinway that has been souped up to the nth degree by Fabbrini and Sons, and Barenboim plays on Hamburg Steinways when he can, which people in America cannot easily buy or try out.

To avoid misrepresentation, Steinway should stamp a capital H on the iron frame of "Beauty" as she travels around the world. That way we'll know we are playing on a one-of-a-kind Steinway H that happened to be the instrument Horowitz used.

i had the distinct pleasure of playing CD314503 this afternoon at my local steinway dealer. last time it came around a few years ago (in the company of the van cliburn and gershwin instruments) it was in a sorry state and i was sadly disappointed. i was extremely relieved to find that it has been well taken care of and i enjoyed my all-too-brief time with it most thoroughly. it was just the kind of touch that i like - very light and responsive with an easily controllable full range of sound....
a true joy to play.
i have only experienced one other piano that made me feel the same way - a beautiful D at the yaddo artist colony in saratoga springs, ny (the piano that copland's 'piano variations' was premiered on).