December 1934

Fortune magazine publishes the article “Here Are the Steinways and How they Grew”. (Among its many topics, the article includes the story of Mrs. Southworth’s search for a piano, containing useful information on the cracked soundboard problem that will plague Steinway in 1990s: “I am told your soundboard cracks easily. […] The salesman seemed neither affronted nor surprised. He led her to one of the pianos, made her try it, and when she confessed she liked it he told her that for experimental purposes that particular piano had been built with a cracked soundboard. The Steinways have chosen to build into their instruments the driest soundboard in pianomaking. The dry wood gives a clarity and life to the tone. It also introduces a hazard: the drier the board, the nearer the cracking point – a fact Steinway’s competitors delight in pointing out. But when they are whole, dry sounding boards are unequaled for brilliance and they rarely split fatally.”)