Very lovely piano. Dr. Indrek Laul of Estonia pianos called me after mine was delivered as well. It was a real honor to talk with him. My sister actually had the honor of having him play her piano in her home and sign her plate!

P.S. - Mr. Jordang - I do not watch American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. I generally find TV to be a waste of time when there's a great piano in the house.

This is very nice indeed, manufacturers calling customers after delivery.

I wonder how many dealers[/b] are effectively calling their customers within a week or two after delivery? All too often I read posts of the kind "my piano was delivered a months ago...there was a little problem with...I called the dealer and he sent a tech over to...". I am afraid the number could well be something between "none and very few". This should be a standard procedure in many if not all B to C business transactions.

Benefits for the customer:
* peace of mind
* strenghtened realationship with dealer
* customer feels valued etc..
Benefits for dealer:
* proves his service claims are not merely lip-service
* anticipation is always better than reaction
* avoids customer spreading negative publicity
* or even customer is running to the competition in the (near)future etc..

schwammerl.

My dealer called me the night the piano was delivered. I was irritated because I was playing as he called and didn't want to be interrupted. I think I said rattled off something like "I-was-playing-it-when-you-called-it's-beautiful-
thanks-for-everything-goodbye."

Your travels are wonderful, and there is nothing like a quest for some goal to make a big trip extra interesting. However, I am surprised that in all your research you apparently haven't encountered the Mason & Hamlin. I have a 1913 Mason & Hamlin AA (6'-2") completely restored, and it has that big warm full sound you want! Mason & Hamlin is in business again, and I just played their new 9'-6" concert grand. Words cannot describe how wonderful it is! It blows away every Steinway and Bosendorfer I have ever played (including the Imperial). Of course, at $90K+ it should. But check out Mason & Hamlin pianos in general. They are incredible!

__________________________________________________

Look at Jordang's tag line

Oh.... heh! I didn't read so carefully... But there are larger M&H pianos available now. They are hard to beat.

Thanks for reviving this thread. So much has happened since we wrote this story. When we finished the story we had just gotten our wonderful Feurich. It was much later that I learned that feurich means "fiery" and it was even later when my husband learned how to pronounce "Feurich'. :rolleyes: Several of the posters said that my husband was likely to get addicted to shopping for pianos. Well he did. :p We have been shopping in different stores and he is planning a visit for us to Piano Row in NY next month. Meanwhile he honed his internet shopping skills until he found a great buy on a recently completely rebuild M&H A in Walnut. (New soundboard, pinblock, and new action. So new strings and finish, etc.) It was being sold in an estate sale in Boston. He had it inspected, bought and shipped to us. He has paid for tunings and regulation on it. It is very nice and is more beautiful than we imagined. Yet it does hot play or sound as nice to me as the Feurich. Then he ordered the Steinbuhler 7/8 th size keyboard for our Feurich. It arrived and was regulated a couple of weeks ago. I am loving it. So we will start a new thread with pictures of it. Meanwhile he found a good deal on a Bòsendorfer 225 which had gotten mice in it while the piano was sitting in an emphy estate home. So he bought it and is having Ivan Kahn and his shop return to its new glory. They just got there last shipment of parts from Bòsendorfer today. We we hope to have it in a month where it may well replace the Mason. That will depend upon my heart once it gets here. :3hearts: I have to chose between three lovely grands!! (My husband just learned how to make an o with an umlaut last week, alt key with 149. Smart guy.)

I can't believe i totally missed this thread last year. it's delightful to read your detailed account. Best wishes for a future filled with music and happiness.

hallo Jordang,
did you never play a FAZIOLI grand piano??
It is a very wonderful instrument, with an easy keyboard and a rich sound, plenty of armonical effects...
You must fill this gap on your researches!!!
You need came to Italy, to see the Fazioli's factory... or perhaps you can go at the next music exibition in Los Angeles, where you could find the Fazioli's instruments.
ciao
anna maria h.

Greetings Dr. Habermann. Thank you for reading our "Adventure". You are so right about the Fazioli pianos being wonderful. This last February we played several and started a thread which then mostly changed to a thread talking about the merits of Steinways... PW Fazioli Thread

We wrote:
After reading about several people commenting that they had played Fazioli pianos at the International Piano Gallery in Little Rock, AR we decided to visit there yesterday. What an amazing place! The owner is Steve Whitkowski who until recently was the Fazioli importer. He also sells Mason and Hamlins, Schimmels, Kawai, and a large number of rebuilt antique German grand pianos. Man! did I have a wonderful time playing his pianos.

My husband and I were truly amazed at the facility that Steve has recently completed. In addition to having several large show rooms with wonderful pianos, he has built the Windsong Arts Center. It has a 310 person concert hall with wonderful acoustics and an amazing stage, a full recording studio, and a hall to host weddings and receptions with a large kitchen and such. His stage has a floating wood floor with a crown like a piano sound board so that the stage amplifies the sound like a piano does.

People who want to record can use the concert hall stage or the large recording studio. Pianists can use any of his amazing pianos. This is where Herby Hancock recorded his recent award winning album.

I began by playing Rachmaninov preludes and a Beethoven sonata on the Fazoli 228 grand. What an exciting experience that was! The piano was an instrument of perfection. The action and touch were wonderful and the sound was amazing! We wanted to compare this piano with the Mason and Hamlin A and AAs he had there. There was no comparison in the quality of the action or the sound.

I walked to other places in this beautiful facility and played a number of rebuilt large grands, Ibach, Bechsteins, Bluthners, etc. They were beautiful to look at, but they did not sound or play as well as the Fazoli pianos ---- but were closer to the M&Hs in quality. Then Steve took us to a Steinway D which he believes is as fine as a Steinway can be. I am not a great admirer of Steinway, and it did not impress me. [Embarrassed]

Steve then took us to his recording studio where he has a 9 foot Fazoli concert grand and a 10 foot concert grand. He uncovered each one and told me to try them out. Wow! The only piano that I have ever played which compares to these is the Steingraeber concert grand which I played last May. Amazing pianos! What a grand experience!

Before we left Steve had me play two twin Fazioli 228s. They have serial numbers next to each other so that they were made at the same time, by the same people, voiced by the same man, etc. They both were true perfection to play and to listen to. Neither was too harsh or brash as some have suggested of a Fazioli. Yet they did not sound just the same. One sounded bolder and richer in the bass. The same piano was warmer and brighter. Steve also said that they sounded different and he preferred the same one as I did. He opinion as to why they sounded different was that even though Fazioli goes to great effort to chose the most wonderful wood for the soundboards, each soundboard sounds different, just as of the fine Stradivarius violins, each sounds different. [Wow!]

Since you designed an ergonomic piano bench be sure and read our thread about an the new ergonomic smaller keyboards by Steinbuhler.
PW Steinbuhler Thread

Ciao[/b]

Smaller keyboard??? OK, I know the idea...
You couldn't believe, but I want tell you my (sad) history about. (Excuse me for my simple english)
I had an ugly adventure with my inter-changeable smaller keyboard for piano: PATENT n.00239023, registered "only" in Italy by "Jacobacci e Perani" in Torino-the 1996 october 7th-
In this time I was too stupid.
During the Frankfurt music exibition -in March 1997- I displayed my project and the pictures of prototype, realized for my Blüthner, to "herr" Kluge,who made keyboards.
After six months an american friend sent me an article published on "Wall street Journal" about a reduced keyboard, entitled "Ms Reimann wants to make world safe for small pianist" -as you can see on W.S.Journal of tuesday november 4, 1997- The keys' measures -reported on the article- were the same of my project, and the factor was an "unnamed man" who made keyboards for a famous german piano factory! I found also a similar article on the magazine Piano Today (fall 1997)...
NO COMMENT... Anyway it was too expensive for me appeal to law, and perhaps it could be also useless because I didn't have extended my patent (a worldwide protection was inconceivable...)
C'est la vie!!!
ciao
anna maria h.

that's too bad anna maria. You seem to have some very interesting contributions to the world of pianos. I hope you post more often.

Congratulations to your new Feurich!

Like Stuttgart's Pfeiffers, these can be really outstanding instruments, not widely known but often terrific!

Norbert

Thanks Norbert. I have heard of Pfeiffers, a person in our town has one and I found the Pfeiffer website. Our Feurich is trully a wonderful piano and we have continued to try out other high cost pianos to compare and enjoy playing.

Dr. Anna Maria Habermann,
I am surprised and amazed to find that you also have worked on a smaller keyboard. Do you have a smaller keyboard for your Bluthner?

It now appears from your post, that several people in the world have worked on this problem in the last several years. David Steinbuhler started working on this problem more than 18 years ago. He has found encouragement here in the US from many people but not much support from piano manufacturers. I believe that he is not aware that you or anybody else has worked on this problem.

You should contact him, and maybe you two could work together, if you like, because I believe he needs people in Europe to help him. Together you both could accomplish more.

I would love to hear more about your keyboard and your efforts.

I search to explain how I started to conceive my keyboard with "narrow keys": this happened after my impossibility to lengthen my fingers to play Scriabin's first etudes op 65! The only one solution was to reduce keyboard's wideness ...
I tought also that the children -who play string instruments- could begin their studies with a correct hand's position, having smaller instruments. Since that's impossible for piano, I conceived a narrow keyboard with a complete plank, easily "inter-changeable". I found two handicraftsmen -the "Barra sons" of Torino- who realized the prototype for my Blüthner. It is obvious that every different piano model needs a different axial structure, therefore I went in Frankfurt to search some piano manifacturer who would take(purchase)my project/ or could realize two keyboard for each piano model: the smaller one for children or woman with little hands,the normal for other people... I was thinking that the Japanese piano manifacturers should be interested, but I found many difficulties to have a meeting with them. Someone adressed me to herr Kluge... you know the history...
The Barra-sons were very elderly...and passed away some years ago. I don't know if ms. Annah Reimann is still carrying on narrower keyboards: she wrote (february 1998)that had an associate, Ludwig Tomescu, who after 15 years experience working with Steinway & Sons, become indipendent and was travelling around the world to repair grandpianos.
That's all... If you want you can send this letter to mr. Steinbuhler
ciao
annamaria

This is a great example of how much need there is for a narrower keyboard.. it is not a "niche" market..now if piano manufactures can get it through their "thick" heads..that if you build it they will come!(and buy!)