- New York Times reports that Steinway & Sons has signed a contract with Aeolian Company. According to the contract, Steinway & Sons will ship to Aeolian factory in Garwood, New Jersey, for the next 25 years, 600 pianos or more every year, made exclusively for Aeolian, and lengthened by about ten inches to accommodate the Pianola player mechanism, to be installed by Aeolian. The resulting Steinway Pianolas, marketed under the label “Duo-Art”, are to be sold exclusively by Steinway & Sons and Aeolian dealers (this brief clause in the contract has, in fact, instantly doubled the number of dealers selling Steinway & Sons products). Also included in the contract is the following provision: “The Aeolian companies agree to officially relegate their Weber Pianola to second place under the Steinway Pianola; and they further agree to withdraw from the artistic piano concert field and that they will exploit the Weber piano in public only through such minor pianists as Steinway & Sons may permit.”
- Soon after signing of this contract, Ignacy Jan Paderewski resumes playing Steinway & Sons pianos.
- This contract will also result for Steinway & Sons in the 1909 gross profit higher than most of the previous years of the first decade of the century.