The Salzburg Festival received a new Steinway Grand Piano D-274. At a concert at the Haus für Mozart, pianist Daniil Trifonov inaugurated the new instrument in the presence of approximately one hundred invited guests. The piano is a personal gift from John Paulson, the owner of Steinway & Sons and a patron of the Salzburg Festival. It was selected at the Steinway factory in Hamburg by the Festival’s Artistic Director, pianist Markus Hinterhäuser, together with Anna Vinnitskaya, who makes her Salzburg Festival debut in 2021 with the Berlin Philharmonic. The instrument will be part of the new Festival Centre which is currently in planning.
Built by hand in Hamburg, the concert grand is fitted with the Harmonic Damper setting. This technique, developed only in 2019, enables pianists to employ an extremely nuanced articulation and thus deliver outstanding artistic performance on stage.
