- Steinway & Sons piano builders work 6 days a week (Monday through Saturday), 8 hour a day – this is Steinway & Sons’ attempt to satisfy the demand and eliminate the backlog. Unfortunately, neither additional space, nor overtime solve the problem: the demand for Steinway & Sons pianos is higher than the factory’s manufacturing capacity of approximately 3,600 pianos per year.
- Steinway & Sons and Yamaha pianos are offered by the same piano dealers in Germany; Yamaha grand pianos sell for half the price of the same size Steinway & Sons pianos.
- Yamaha presents to public its “Conservatory CF” concert grand piano, exhibiting it at the Frankfurt Fair, the Chicago Trade Fair, and during the special presentation at the Terrace Room of the Plaza Hotel in New York, just around the corner from Steinway Hall. Everett Rowan makes a brief speech, announcing that Yamaha has spent $1,000,000 to build 47 “Conservatory CF” grands, aiming to create the world’s best concert grand piano.
- David Rubin, Steinway & Sons’ head of Concert and Artists department, admits with certain alarm that the new Yamaha concert grand sounds better than similar instruments manufactured by Baldwin, Bechstein or Bösendorfer.
- Yamaha donates $10,000 and 40 new pianos to New York’s Metropolitan Opera, promising to replace them with 40 newer, better pianos next season and continue to do so in the seasons to come.
- Yamaha organizes a small-scale piano bank, using Steinway & Sons strategy to capture Steinway & Sons territory: world’s top musicians.