Rating of manufacturers of piano

They say that the brilliant Richter did not like to choose a piano before his performance. His playing was brilliant regardless of the brand of the piano. The current pianists are more selective - one prefers Steinway's power, to another, because of Bechstein’s melody. Everyone has different tastes, but still there is an independent rating of manufacturers of pianos.

Parameters for evaluation

To become the leader of the piano market, it is not enough just to produce instruments with excellent sound or to overtake competitors in sales of pianos. When evaluating a piano company, several parameters are taken into account:

1. sound quality - this indicator depends on the design of the piano, mostly on the quality of the resonant deck;
2. price / quality ratio - how balanced it is;
3. lineup - how fully presented;
4. the quality of the tools of each model should ideally be the same;
5. sales volumes.

It should be clarified that the piano rating is somewhat different from the piano rating. Below we consider the place in the piano market and those, and others, simultaneously highlighting the features of the brightest brands.

Premium class

Long-lived instruments, whose lifespan reaches one hundred years, fall into the "big league". The elite tool has an ideal addition - up to 90% of manual work and at least 8 months of labor take to create it. This explains the piece production. Pianos of this class are extremely reliable and highly sensitive to sound extraction.

The undoubted leaders of the piano market are the US-German Steinway & Sons and the German C.Bechstein. They open the list of premium-class pianos and they are the only representatives of the piano of this class.

Elegant Steinvays adorn the most prestigious world scenes - from La Scala to the Mariinsky Theater. Steinway is respected for its power and rich sound palette. One of the secrets of its sound is that the side walls of the case are a one-piece construction. This method was patented by Steinway, as well as the other 120-plus technologies to create pianos.

The main rival of Steinway - Bechstein - conquers with the "sincerity" of the sound, soft and light tone. This piano was preferred by Franz Liszt, and Claude Debussy was convinced that piano music should be written only for Bechstein. Before the revolution in Russia, the expression Bechstein playing was popular - so the brand was associated with the very concept of playing the piano.

Elite concert pianos also release:

• American manufacturer Mason & Hamlin - uses innovative technologies in the piano mechanism and the deck dome stabilizer. The quality of tone is comparable to Steinway;
• Austrian Bösendorfer - makes the deck of the Bavarian fir, hence the rich deep sound of the instrument. Its feature is a non-standard keyboard: the keys on it are not 88, but 97. Ravel and Debussy have special pieces for Bösendorffer;
• Italian Fazioli uses the red spruce from which the Stradivari violins were made. Pianos of this brand are distinguished by sound power and rich sound, deep even in the upper register;
• German Steingraeber & Söhne;
• french pleyel.

High class

Manufacturers of high-class pianos use in their work on instruments not manual labor, but machine tools with numerical control (CNC). In this case, the manufacture of the piano takes from 6 to 10 months, so the production is single-piece. Serve high-class tools from 30 to 50 years.

Some piano companies of this class have already been covered above:

• some models of pianos and pianos Boesendorfer and Steinway;
• Piano Fazioli and Yamaha (only S-Class);
• Bechstein pianos.

Other high-end piano manufacturers:

• pianos and pianos of the German brand Blüthner ("singing pianos" with a warm sound);
• German Piano Seiler (famous for transparent sound);
• German grand piano Grotrian Steinweg (exquisite clear sound; famous for double piano)
• Yamaha Japanese large concert pianos (expressive sound and sound power; official instruments of many international prestigious competitions);
• Japanese big concert grand piano Shigeru Kawai.

Middle class

For the piano of this class is characterized by mass production: the manufacture of the instrument takes no more than 4-5 months. In work apply CNC machines. Served middle-class piano for about 15 years.

Bright representatives among pianos:

• Czech-German manufacturer W.Hoffmann;
• German Sauter, Schimmel, Rönisch;
• Japanese Boston (Kawai brand), Shigeru Kawai, K.Kawai;
• American Wm.Knabe & Co, Kohler & Campbell, Sohmer & Co;
• South Korean Samick.

Among the pianos are the German brands August Foerster and Zimmermann (Bechstein brand). They are followed by German piano makers: Grotrian Steinweg, W. Steinberg, Seiler, Sauter, Steingraeber and Schimmel.

Consumer class

The most accessible instruments are consumer grade pianos. They are made only 3-4 months, but serve for several years. Distinguishes these pianos mass automated production.

Firms of this class:

• Czech piano and piano by Petrof and Bohemia;
• Polish piano Vogel;
• South Korean pianos and pianos Samick, Bergman and Young Chang;
• some models of American pianos Kohler & Campbell;
• German pianos Haessler;
• Chinese, Malaysian and Indonesian pianos and pianos Yamaha and Kawai;
• Indonesian euterpe pianos;
• Chinese pianos Feurich;
• Japanese pianos Boston (brand Steinway).

Separate attention is required by the manufacturer Yamaha - among its tools occupy a special place disklaviry. These pianos and pianos combine both the traditional sound capabilities of an acoustic piano and the unique capabilities of a digital piano.

Instead of conclusion

Leading the piano in all respects Germany. By the way, it exports more than half of its tools. It is followed by the United States and Japan. China, South Korea and the Czech Republic can compete with these countries - but only in terms of production volumes.