I greatly respect the things I have heard Jon Page having done, and
I nearly always agree with his views.  However, I must strenuously
disagree with his overly general characterization of all square grands
as not being worth rebuilding.

This is a very old myth to many or most piano technicians.  Does this
sound familiar?: "Square grands never were much of a piano."  "That
Square grand can't be restored."  "No one makes parts for those." Well,
I am here to tell you that yes, they were and can be very good quality
pianos.  They CAN be restored and I do make parts for them.  They are a
royal pain in the neck to restore.  Most technicians cannot do it.
Others do not want to bother.

While most pianos have their large soundboard glued to heavy timbers
all around its perimeter, the square grand soundboard on the other hand
is a triangular shape and is glued to heavy timbers on two of the legs
of the triangle.  The other long side is glued to a strip of wood only
about an inch or less thick.  This means the piano is at a distinct
disadvantage for holding the pressure against the strings.  Granted
they are not high tension scales but they were only able to resist the
pressure only so many years and then they begin to weaken.

The pianos are simply phenomenal.  They lasted over 100 years before
they reached their present condition.  Many of them are 120-150 years
old.  What piano would be playable at that age?

My shop has four or five of them that I am restoring.  I have had
hammer butts made that fit all square grands and I have enough for ten
pianos.  Often the old butts begin to shatter so I replace all of them.

Having restored 8-10 of these in my career, I can say that people who
expect the worst when they sit down to the piano reach an epiphany when
they play a restored square grand.  Concert pianists play one and they
immediately begin making mental lists of literature that would sound
good on the tone of the square grand.

Their tone is amazing.  They are not and never can be a modern piano.
They do sound like the missing link between the Mozart fortepiano and
the modern concert grand.  When I was restoring a Mathushek square a few
years ago, and a 7-foot Broadwood, I took the low A string over to the
Broadwood and found that it was several inches longer than the same
string on the Broadwood.  I discovered that same string on a square
I now have in the shop was 11 inches shorter than the same one on a
Steinway concert grand.

The tone of the American square grand has a huge Lisztian bass and
tinkly Mozart treble.  Most of them have only two strings per unison.
That and their relatively small soundboard make them a smaller overall
sound fit for chamber music and Victorian parlors for which they were
made.  The musicians especially like them for accompanying art songs:
Hugo Wolf and such.

The evolution of the square grand began with the virginal and clavichord
which were usually rectangular in shape.  When pianos were first built,
they began to build small rectangular pianos where there was no room
for a large wing shaped grand piano.  These instruments are referred to
now as square pianos.  Some of them are also known as pedestal pianos
when they have one large central leg like some dining tables of the
day.

With the advances made by Mr. Mathushek when he designed the hulking,
heavy duty square grand piano, the square piano became known as the
square grand.  Technically the term square grand only applies to the
models with the cast iron plate.  Go to Alfred Dolge's book "Pianos and
Their Makers" for more on Mathushek and his square grand designs.

Suffice it to say that square grands are a viable piano in many or most
cases.  I have seen a few that I would not restore, and I also have
junked one that was just too far gone to bother with.  I have four of
my restored instruments in historic museum houses.  I have two
Steinways, a Hallet and Cumston and an Emerson under restoration now.

When I restore square grands they have sold for $30K to $50K.  They are
not cheap.  They also take longer to restore.  When restoring such
pianos my shop fee minimum is $10,000.00 and if there is damage to
repair that goes up.

I have one here built by St. Louis Piano Manufacturing Co., who went
out of business in 1888.  It is fully restored, plays very well and is
for sale for $30,000.00 which is negotiable.

In St. Louis I find I can purchase unrestored squares for $200 to
$500.00.  I have sold Steinway square grands, working and unrestored,
for as much as $3,500.00.  This unrestored amount varies greatly from
other markets around the country.  I could never find a square in
Dallas for less than $1,500.00.  We have many more of them here in St.
Louis so they are cheaper.

It is fine for Mr. Page to turn his square grands into workbenches.
I knew a woodworker who built desks, dining tables, and buffets out of
the many he trashed.  I only know that every piano that is sent to the
dumpster increases the value of my historic, restored square grands by
several hundred dollars.

D.L. Bullock
www.thepianoworld.com
St. Louis