480 kg1,060 lb
A Steinway Model D concert grand weighs about 480 kg (1,058 lb). Steinway lists its New York D at 483 kg (1,064 lb) and the Hamburg D-274 at 500 kg (1,102 lb). Some rival concert grands are heavier: the Bösendorfer Imperial is 552 kg (1,217 lb). Roughly a third of the weight is the cast-iron plate.
| Fazioli F308308 cm long, the longest piano on the general market | 570 kg1,260 lb |
|---|---|
| Bösendorfer Imperial 290290 cm long, 97 keys | 552 kg1,220 lb |
| Steinway D-274, HamburgSteinway’s European spec | 500 kg1,100 lb |
| Steinway Model D, New YorkSteinway’s US spec, 1,064 lb net | 483 kg1,060 lb |
The Model D, sold in Europe as the D-274, is the standard concert grand: a 2003 estimate put it at more than 90% of the concert grands in use worldwide. The usual figure is 480 kg (1,058 lb). Steinway’s own spec for the New York D says 1,064 lb (483 kg) net, and its Hamburg factory lists the D-274 at 500 kg (1,102 lb). Both are 274 cm (8 ft 11¾ in) long and about 156 cm (5 ft 1 in) wide.
Net weight means the piano alone, without the bench, the moving board or packing. The small differences come from the two factories and their finishes: New York pianos get a satin lacquer, Hamburg ones a high-gloss polyester. Some venue spec sheets print “990 pounds (480 kg)”, but those two numbers do not match, since 990 lb is only 449 kg.
The single heaviest part is the cast-iron plate, the frame the strings are stretched across. Piano designer Harold Conklin wrote that plates of concert grand size weigh 160 to 180 kg (353 to 397 lb), so the plate is roughly a third of the whole instrument, not most of it.
The plate has to be that heavy because of the strings. Each one pulls with about 830 N (190 lbf) on average, and together they load the frame with roughly 210,000 N (47,000 lbf), the same force as about 21 tonnes resting on it. Steinway itself says up to 20 tons of string tension is always at work inside a piano.
The rest is mostly wood and mechanism. The Model D’s rim is bent from 17 layers of hard rock maple, the soundboard is Sitka spruce 9 mm thick in the middle and 6 mm at the edges, and the action behind the 88 keys adds thousands of small parts. Playbill puts a Steinway grand at twelve thousand parts and about a year to build.
Concert grands are the longest grands, built to fill a large hall, and the Steinway is not the heaviest of them. Bösendorfer’s Imperial is 290 cm long and weighs 552 kg (1,217 lb). It has 97 keys instead of 88, with the extra notes at the bass end. Fazioli’s F308 is 3.08 m (10.1 ft) long and is listed by a dealer at 570 kg (1,257 lb). It also has a fourth pedal that moves the hammers closer to the strings to play softer without changing the tone.
A Steinway Model D weighs about 1,058 lb (480 kg), and Steinway’s US spec gives 1,064 lb. Longer concert grands such as the Fazioli F308 reach about 1,257 lb (570 kg).
In a concert grand the plate weighs 160 to 180 kg (353 to 397 lb), which makes it the heaviest single part.
In a modern concert grand each string pulls with about 830 N (190 lbf) on average. All together that is roughly 210,000 N (47,000 lbf), more than 20 tonnes of force on the frame.
It is 274 cm (8 ft 11¾ in) long and about 156 cm (5 ft 1 in) wide. Steinway’s Hamburg factory gives the width as 157 cm.
In 2017 a D-274 in polished ebony had a list price of US$175,700.
Last checked October 3, 2026.
