Rebuilder Spotlight: Cunningham Piano Company

Acoustic
& Digital
PIANO
BUYER
REBUILDER SPOTLIGHT CUNNINGHAM PIANO COMPANY
TIM OLIVER AND RICH GALASSINI
began manufacturing pianos in 1891 and,
in its time, was one of the largest piano makers in Philadelphia. In Pianos and Their Makers, by Alfred Dolge, Patrick Cunningham’s business
was described as being “as true to the traditions of honest values in pianos as any the old Quaker City has ever produced.” Composer Vincent Persichetti
is quoted as having said, “In the beginning, God created a Cunningham player
piano,” and the Charleston Museum in South Carolina houses the Cunningham
piano on which George Gershwin composed Porgy and Bess.
cunningham piano company
The Cunningham factory ceased production in December 1943, due to the effects of the war effort, but
at the end of the war, Louis Cohen, a piano technician
for the company, purchased and reopened the business,
and actively promoted the Cunningham brand while
also turning his focus toward a booming new industry:
piano restoration. Cohen’s two daughters, Rose Karr
and Doris Reber, continued their father’s work by dedicating their 45,000-square-foot, four-story facility solely
to piano restoration, while transforming a three-story
Masonic Temple on the same historic block into a piano
showroom. The showroom displays not only the company’s restored pianos, but also a selection of fine new
pianos from Bösendorfer, Mason & Hamlin, Estonia,
Charles R. Walter, Wm. Knabe, and Hailun.
In 2007, the Cohen family sold the company to us,
Tim Oliver and Rich Galassini, both musicians with long
histories with the company and close associations with
the Cohen family. Rich began his career at Cunningham in 1987, after graduating from Temple University
with a bachelor’s degree in Music Education and Vocal
Performance. Tim came to Cunningham in 1997, after
earning a bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance from
Lycoming College, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a
successful stint as manager of
a music store. As owners, our
primary goal has been to turn
the piano restoration shop
into a complete piano remanufacturing facility capable of
upgrading or replacing every
worn-out component of the
pianos it restores.
Cunningham’s philosophy of piano rebuilding places
the highest priority on the instrument’s performance
while retaining as much as possible of its original scale
design. This philosophy takes the modern approach of
replacing all aged materials with the best available new
parts that most resemble the originals. To that end, Cunningham seeks out the technicians, processes, and suppliers best equipped to achieve that goal. The rebuilding
of vintage Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, and other famous
American grands from the 1870s onward comprises the
bulk of Cunningham’s piano restoration business.
The restoration facility is divided into three major departments: Belly/Woodworking, Refinishing, and Action/
Assembly. Each department has its own manager, all
overseen by vice president and factory foreman Kurt
Weissman. Joining Cunningham in 1990 and foreman
since 2008, Weissman has been a piano rebuilder for 35
years. Raised in the piano rebuilding scene of New York
City, Weissman has had a lifetime of exposure to manufacturing techniques used by Steinway & Sons and Mason & Hamlin. His pursuit of knowledge has even led him
to the Bösendorfer factory in Vienna, Austria, where he
acquired advanced voicing techniques. It is his concepts
and tooling inventions that guide Cunningham’s restoration business today.
The first area of the restoration facility a piano
will encounter is the Belly/
Woodworking Department,
headed by Jason Andino,
who joined Cunningham in
2009. Andino’s résumé includes 14 years of installing
Excerpted from the Spring 2011 Edition of Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer
Copyright © 2011 by Brookside Press LLC. All rights reserved. www.pianobuyer.com
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ribs are crafted and positioned in the
shelf of the inner rim, using fixed locating points to ensure that all measurements are correct. After the ribs
are glued to the newly crafted tapered
soundboard, the bridge positions are
also precisely located, and the bridges
are glued to the soundboard in the
bridge press. (A tapered soundboard,
which has more mass at its center, is
more flexible and gives the instrument’s tone better sustain.) Once the
new soundboard is installed, a replica
of the original decorative soundboard
decal is applied, followed by a light
coat of finish to protect the spruce
without impeding its natural vibrations, and the piano is ready for the
Soundboards ribs are positioned in the shelf of the inner rim, waiting to be glued next department.
to a new soundboard.
Lee Bauer, manager of the Refinishing Department, focuses not only
soundboards and pinblocks at Steinway & Sons, reon refinishing, but on cabinet restoration, antique presbuilding pianos for the Manhattan School of Music, and
ervation, and overall beauty. Having always gravitated
having been raised in the New York piano rebuilding
toward artistic fields that require hands-on skills, Bauer
shop of his father, a well-known rebuilder who worked
sought out Cunningham years ago with the goal of learnat Steinway for 25 years. Andino places a high priority
ing about cabinet preservation. His desire is that the work
on the exact re-creation of original downbearing, sidehe performs last as long as possible. The piano’s cabinet is
bearing, and pinblock fit, as well as staying true to the
disassembled into some 20 individual pieces, and each is
types of spruce and maple used by the original manufacstripped of finish to create as clean a surface as possible for
turer. Although soundboard cracks and rib separations
the new finish. Each part is meticulously examined with
are treated with concern, Andino regards the existence
an eye to its qualities as a work of art, rather than as just
of sufficient soundboard crown as the most critical elea piece of furniture, and for loose veneer and damage that
ment to be considered in the question of whether or not
may have resulted from years of use. Replicas of worn-out
to replace a soundboard. And in order for pianos made
carvings are made, and new veneers are applied where
before WWII, when restored, to achieve the proper susneeded. A moisture-resistant polyester sealer is used as
tain and warmth of tone, the question of whether or not
a primer to give the instrument a clean, smooth surface
to replace the soundboard is most often answered by Anthat will not change with time. A UV-blocking protective
dino in the affirmative.
finish is custom-mixed to restore the instrument’s original
Andino and his team first do a thorough diagnosis to
color or to meet a customer’s request.
precisely determine the materials and processes needed
The cast-iron plate gets a separate treatment of its
to restore the instrument to its original splendor. The
own, known as regilding. After the plate is stripped
piano’s action cavity is cleaned, and the instrument’s strucdown to gray iron, a black self-etching primer is applied
ture and belly—rim, bridges, soundboard, and cast-iron
to bond to the metal. A second priming coat is used to
plate—are evaluated. Measurements are taken throughproperly hold the finish and smooth out any unevenness
out the piano, digital pictures are taken for recordin the metal surface. Finally, an appropriate metallic suskeeping purposes, and materials needed for this specific
pension finish is used for beauty. Raised plate artwork is
instrument are ordered. The belly is disassembled, and
detailed by hand, and a clear coat of lacquer is applied
each component’s dimensions and relative placement in
for lasting protection and luster.
the piano are meticulously measured. The new pinblock
Last, the piano must visit the Action/Assembly deis fitted to the plate and case, a step critical to the piano’s
partment. Once the cast-iron plate is repositioned and
tuning stability, and thus requiring great care and experthe case parts reassembled, the first task is to restring
tise for best long-term performance. Spruce soundboard
the piano. Restringing is a process where detailed work
Excerpted from the Spring 2011 Edition of Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer
Copyright © 2011 by Brookside Press LLC. All rights reserved. www.pianobuyer.com
2
is appreciated, especially by the technicians who will tune this piano over
the next several decades. A neat and
organized drilling of the pinblock,
installation of the tuning pins at the
proper angle, and careful coiling of
the piano wire on the tuning pins will
result in more predictable movement
of the pins and strings while enhancing the instrument’s appearance.
Additionally, tuning of the duplex
system will give the instrument an audible sparkle.
There are 5,000 moving parts in a
piano action, made of wood, leather,
wool felt, cloth, and buckskin, and all
the degradable materials need to be
replaced in order for the instrument
to offer the pianist the greatest opportunity for musical expression. Curt Action/Assembly department foreman Curt Brown regulating a grand piano action.
Brown and Joseph Cossolini head
up this department, bringing to their
re-create the action geometry engineered by the original
task decades of experience in restoring pianos. They inmanufacturer. However, understanding these geometric
spect all work done to this point, and install and adjust
relationships also allows improvements to be made when
all action parts. The hammers and shanks, damper felts,
needed to lighten the action, or in other ways to create a
backchecks, key bushings, key end felts, and key frame
better playing experience for the pianist.
felts are replaced, damper underlever systems are reconThe last step of the restoration process is one that at
ditioned or replaced, and the movement and timing of
Cunningham we call “concertization”: turning the piano
all action parts are coordinated through a series of huninto a fine, performance-ready instrument. First, the pidreds of adjustments called action regulating. The evoano is played in by machine for a full day to settle the cloth
lution of the piano over the last 150 years has resulted
and felt parts. Then, every part of the instrument is rein many different possibilities for action geometry, so
examined. It is fine-tuned several more times, the hamparts from suppliers such as Steinway, Renner, and Wesmers are voiced, and the action is given additional regsell, Nickel & Gross are carefully chosen to authentically
ulating as needed. Last, the piano is
given a final quality inspection in the
form of extensive playing by one or
more of the accomplished pianists on
the Cunningham staff.
When the restoration is completed,
the piano will have the tuning stability, tonal projection, feel, response,
and visual beauty of a new instrument. The owner or purchaser will,
in addition, have the satisfaction of
knowing that the original manufacturer’s intentions have been honored,
that our world’s natural resources
have been minimally tapped into to
restore rather than to create anew,
and that the cost of the restored inA Louis XVI-style Steinway grand receiving a new finish in the Cunningham shop. strument is but a fraction of that of a
Excerpted from the Spring 2011 Edition of Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer
Copyright © 2011 by Brookside Press LLC. All rights reserved. www.pianobuyer.com
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The Cunningham
Composer
new premium piano. Cunningham has been the source
of restored premium grand pianos for several piano dealers and major universities in the United States, as well
as for clients in Munich, Panama City, Beijing, Tokyo,
Milan, Seoul, and Rio de Janeiro, among other international locations.
Cunningham’s experience in restoring pianos has led
to the creation of its own brand, the Matchless Cunningham. In development for many years, this instrument
has received rave reviews from musicians affiliated with
several prestigious Philadelphia-area institutions. The
creation of the Matchless was made possible by the restoration shop’s intimate knowledge of the world’s best suppliers of piano parts. Frank Emerson, a world-respected
American piano designer, developed a new scale based
on the original American-made Cunningham. His commission was to create a balanced, warm tone from top to
bottom, using high-quality piano parts and the efficient
and capable Chinese production facility that manufactures the Hailun brand. The Matchless Cunningham is
available in two smaller grand sizes for the home, two
larger grand sizes for concert work, and two studio uprights. Although the Matchless was originally intended
for only the Philadelphia market, Cunningham’s current
plan is to distribute it nationally.
The staff at Cunningham has also developed a studio
upright called the Cunningham Composer, based on
the Matchless. A touchscreen computer monitor is built
into the Composer’s front panel, a MIDI recording strip
is installed beneath the piano keys, and a Mac mini
computer is mounted under the keybed. The piano keystrokes of the Composer can be instantly recorded, and
the music notated on an onscreen musical staff, printed
out via a computer printer, and offered to the public via
the Internet before the proverbial ink is dry. With an
open-architecture approach that can interface with any
commercially available music-notation software, the
Cunningham Composer is a versatile instrument with as
many options as the computer age can offer.
Decades ago, Patrick Cunningham offered $10,000 to
anyone who presented conclusive evidence that they could
make a better piano than he could. Because no one ever
took him up on his offer, he named his piano Matchless.
It is bold concepts such as this that, even today, still echo
through the halls of the Cunningham Piano Company.
Tim Oliver and Rich Galassini are owners of Cunningham
Piano Company. Visit their website at www.cunningham
piano.com.
Excerpted from the Spring 2011 Edition of Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer
Copyright © 2011 by Brookside Press LLC. All rights reserved. www.pianobuyer.com
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