What Happened to the Greatest Piano Ever Made?

Hi, I'm Robert Estrin, this is LivingPianos.com with an unbelievable story about what happened to the greatest piano ever made. Well, I've got to give you some background on this. You know, I had worked my way up to different pianos and one time I had a Young Chang 6 -1, and then I worked up to a Baldwin L, and then what happened was really interesting. My piano technician, my top piano technician who was a concert technician, his personal piano that he had babied was a pre -Aeolian Mason & Hamlin BB. For those of you who are not familiar with this, this is a seven foot behemoth Mason & Hamlin with the fattest tone you could ever imagine. Better than that, it was in the hands of a master technician, so this thing was just so dialed in. Well, my 10th technician was moving to Hawaii and he asked me to sell it for him, and as soon as I played it, I knew I had to have it. So I put my piano up for sale, managed to sell it, and I had the greatest piano.

Or so I thought. Here's where it takes a really strange turn. There was a concert pianist looking for a piano for a friend of his, and he came in and I had yet another Baldwin L for sale at this time, and he went and played it and he liked it, but then he went over to my piano, the Mason & Hamlin, which was now my instrument, and he starts playing it, and I said, well, that's not for sale, that's not the one for sale. But he just said, I know, I know, but he kept playing it. Well, he comes back a few days later, and once again, he plays both pianos, and I told him, that one's not for sale. He said, well, look, I'll make your deal, you can't refuse. And he offered to buy both pianos, and it was like, my heart kind of stopped because that piano wasn't for sale.

So I reluctantly did it, and then once I did it, you know, you talk about buyer's remorse, I kind of had seller's remorse, and I figured the only way I could ever have a piano as good or better than that Mason & Hamlin was to go up to a nine -foot concert grand. So I started on a search for the absolute ultimate piano, and better than that, I took my pianos technician with me on this trip so we could inspect pianos, and we searched near and far. At one point, I even bought a nine-foot Baldwin from San Francisco, took it back, worked on it, realized, no, that's not quite a great piano, but the greatest piano of all time, it wasn't it. But then we hit it. In the San Fernando Valley, we found the ultimate Baldwin SD -10 concert grand, one of the great concert grands of all time, one of the greatest pianos I've ever played, and in fact, we had a concert series with that piano that Arts District Pianos and all the pianists who came and played that piano said it was the best piano they had ever played. My piano technician who helped me find this piano said it was one of the two or three best pianos he'd ever come across, and he was a concert technician.

So I loved this piano.

Well, what happened was we moved to a place that it was just a little bit overpowering. In the loft with the 19 -foot ceilings, it was perfect, but in the smaller place, it was just too much volume, so I very sadly decided to put it up for sale. I put it in the showroom, put it online. I had offers from around the country. I mean, it wasn't solidified because you know the way, it was different concert series, and they have to work with boards, but I made a really cool arrangement with two different organizations who were interested in the piano that I would do the dedication recital. I'd fly in and play the concert, so it would be a beautiful send-off of my treasured beloved concert grand piano.

Well, wouldn't you know it, they took their time because they have to go through all this rigmarole to get the approval, and it was one Sunday afternoon, I'll never forget this, an elderly couple came in from the desert, and they came in, I guess they saw the piano that was online, and it was still available, and the man walked over to the piano and played only one thing and said, I'll take it, and what he played, I kid you not, was this.

That is the craziest story about what happened to the greatest piano of all time, and I can't tell you how many pianists told me how much they loved that piano, and these concert series had wanted these pianos, and it's sitting in some home in the desert now for chopsticks.

You talk about mixed feelings on the sale of that piano, well, so that's what happened to the greatest piano of all time. If you have other stories, share them here on livingpianos.com, we are your online piano resource, thanks again for joining me, I'm Robert Estrin.

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