I jumped into a piano dealers a couple days ago not realising that it was actually a mainly Steinway dealer and everything was way out of my price range. Luckily while chatting with the owner he offered to let me have a play on a Steinway D and a Steinway A in the shop. Very amazing fun.
That out the way we also chatted about Horowitz's piano. Apparently Steinways have very specific specs they're meant to be set up with in terms of hammer distance etc and Horowitz had his re-tooled (is that the word?) way out of spec to be much lighter a touch and a very smooth action. He toured with his personal piano. Made me wonder if that's part of how he did the straight fingers thing, it seems way hard if I try it myself.
Anyways, I thought that was cool. Owner of the shop works as a piano tuner and gave me some insight into how pianos work I didn't know. Def want to save for a baby grand now, although anything would beat my digital yamaha.
Topic: Vladomir Horowitz's Piano/I played a Steinway :D