The Way Grandpa Played It

Convinced they are rearing the Artur Rubinsteins or Peter Duchins of tomorrow--or at least children who will grow up to enjoy making music--U.S. parents are buying a record number of pianos. In 1966, sales hit 243,800, nearly 100,000 more than a decade ago. The company that is hitting the top notes of this financial fortissimo is privately owned Aeolian* Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of pianos, which last year crafted 50,000 units and grossed nearly $30 million.

While the Aeolian name itself is not widely recognized, its golden trade names have graced the underside of fall boards for more than a century and a half. Most familiar is the Chickering, whose owners included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Teddy Roosevelt. Francis Scott Key played The Star-Spangled Banner on a Knabe; Lyndon Johnson has a Knabe, and Bobby Kennedy a Chickering. Other Aeolian pianos, built at seven plants in the U.S. and Canada, include Mason & Hamlin, Fischer, Pianola, Weber, George Steck, Duo-Art, Cable, Hardman Peck, Winter, Kranich & Bach, Ivers & Pond and Mason & Risch.

Once known as Winter & Co., the firm was founded in a Bronx, N.Y., loft in 1899. In those days, The Bronx alone had 40 piano manufacturers and suppliers. Most of them went under in the Depression. What saved Winter was the company's pre-crash takeover by Sears, Roebuck & Co., which kept the firm in business through the bad days.

Typically, Sears was interested in low-priced pianos; its grands sold for $245 and uprights for $150. Two brothers, William and Henry Heller, whose father was one of Winter's founders, were convinced that the real future lay in high-quality, high-priced models. They bought back the piano interest from Sears in 1941 for a mere $180,000 and merged with Aeolian American Piano Co., long a leader in the quality field. Today prices range from a high of $7,250 for an ebony Mason & Hamlin concert grand to a low of about $400 for a 64-key spinet upright. After years of lagging popularity for the old player piano, the company in 1956 revived the Pianola, last year's most popular item, with 3,500 sold.

Enter the Japanese. Now there are 19 U.S. companies in the growing piano market, and it has become more competitive than ever. Some companies actually pay artists to use their pianos. Prestigious Steinway sells all the pianos it can make (3,500 a year), hence does not bother; but many manufacturers spend as much as $50,000 for an endorsement from a big-name performer or a music center. The struggle for the mass market has stiffened with the entry of low-priced Japanese models. Even now, before the Kennedy Round tariff reductions, which will lower duties from 17% to 8%, Japanese grand pianos sell for one-fourth the price of domestic models. Their U.S. sales climbed from 6,219 in 1964 to 9,263 last year.

Anticipating growing competition, Aeolian in 1951 moved Ivers & Pond south to Memphis and built the company's largest and most modern piano plant. It was close to the supply of high-grade wood, opened untapped markets, and, for a while at least, labor costs were considerably lower. Nevertheless, even a low-priced piano takes about six weeks to manufacture, while a more expensive one can take up to six months. As President Henry R. Heller Jr.--the grandson of the company's co-founder--puts it: "We can mass-produce to a point, but when you reach the final assembly, it requires a great deal of hand work."

Other companies, such as Wurlitzer Co. and Chicago Musical Instrument Co., have diversified into a variety of musical instruments, but Aeolian has stuck to its specialty and produced some 700 kinds of pianos, more than any other company. For all its wide range, there is no compromise with tradition. As one Aeolian executive describes piano-making: "Anything different from what Grandpa built is suspect."

* The aeolian harp dates back to Greek mythology. It was a box-shaped musical instrument with stretched strings through which Aeolus, the god of wind, blew dulcet tones.

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