Tuesday, September 30, 2008

100 Year Old Steinway

My piano is 100 years old this year...

it is a 1908 Model A Steinway Piano, six feet/one inch...

it still has all of its original parts...


and ivory keys...a few chipped and cracked, but I love the feel of the ivory under my fingers (I know that is completely politically incorrect to love ivory keys and I DO NOT in any way endorse the killing of elephants for their ivory tusks!)...


the "Steinway" harp logo above the pedals...all in all my piano is a marvelous instrument. I hope to play it for many more years.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Birthday Party for our 1908 Steinway

We are having a party for our Steinway Model A piano as it is now 100 years old. I truly believe that they do not make them like they used to. Our piano left the Steinway factory in Queens, New York in 1908 and was sent to a family in Portland, Oregon where the piano resided until the 1930s. The piano was then sold to a family in San Francisco where it lived in a beautiful Victorian mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. We bought the piano in the 1990s and moved it across town to the foggy outer regions of Mount Davidson. Our Model A has most of its original parts and a magnificent art case. Some of the ivory keys, however, are chipped and stained, and the instrument could use some restorative work, but in general it is still beautiful in both sound and body. Happy 100th Birthday Steinway Model A!

In 1908...
E.M. Forster's A Room with a View & Gertrude Stein's Three Lives are published
Matisse coins the phrase "Cubism"
Sergei Diaghilev presents his Ballet Russe for first time in Paris
London hosts the Olympic Games
Chicago beats Detroit to win the World Series!
Wilber Wright flies 30 miles in 40 minutes
The Ford Motor company produces the first Model "T"
(15 million eventually sold)
Grover Cleveland is the President of the United States
And the Steinway Factory in Queens, New York produces our Model A Piano!




Come and Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Our
1908 Model A Steinway Piano

Saturday, September 27

2:00 PM – 6:00 PM

At 409 Bella Vista Way / San Francisco, California

Performances of popular, ragtime and classical pieces from 1908 will be performed on our 1908 Steinway by:

Nancy Bloomer Deussen, Patti Deuter, Ed Dierauf, Evelyn Dilworth, Frank French, Dan Glover, Brian Howell, Susan Kaplan, Chisato Karasaki, Linda Lyons, Seth Montfort, Edie Plodinsky, Trudy Roughgarden, Charles Ridley, David Saslav, Bill Serbin, Melissa Smith Susan Smernoff and Kelly Walker

Black and White Treats and Libations will be served
Performances begin at 2:30 PM

Hosts: David Saslav and Melissa Smith