Why Us? | Testimonials

Dear Sara,
Now that our Mason Hamlin "Queen Anne" has had a few weeks to settle into her new home, I wanted to take a moment to thank you and your staff for your excellent work and service. The enthusiasm, pride, attention to details, as well as your accessibility and very personal business approach is refreshing and so unusual. As for the final product, our "Queen" has been beautifully restored and her warm sound and expression compliment her appearance. It is clear that your level of craftsmanship and selection of material are superior. You have delivered over and above what was promised and expected. Thank you so much and don't change a thing! Please pass this along also to your family, Jessica and Josh, who helped make this a success.

All the best, Dr Neal J. Warner
November 2011

Dear Sara and Jessica:
Attached is a photo of our Steinway M in its new home. The piano is "happy" and we are thrilled. The movers were wonderful.
We have loved working with Faust Harrison and have greatly appreciated your experience and guidance as we reached our decision.
A couple of quick questions. First, how long do you recommend we wait before making an appointment with one of your recommended tuners? Second, we will be contacting our home insurance agent to take out a rider for the piano. What advice do you have on the appropriate amount? Third, what recommendations do you have on a good source for a music cabinet?
We look forward to receiving information about your year-long "grand opening" of the White Plains showroom and to seeing you at many of the performances.

Kind regards,
Greg and Meg
September 2011

Good afternoon, Sara and Matt.
I would like to let you know that our piano was delivered today on time and without any problems. I also received the bench that was mailed to us. The sound of the piano is warm and great. It also looks very nice. I already played it, and what a pleasure it was. I am so thrilled.
Thank you, very, very much again for your advice, help and understanding. Our Administrator also sends his thanks.

Regards,
Irina Zapolskaya

Good afternoon, Matt.
Thank you, very much for your e-mail. You probably felt that I was thinking about you, because I was planning to send you e-mail since yesterday. I would like to let you know that I am using our new piano during music programs and residents really enjoy the sound and never fail to mention how nice it looks and sounds. Our entertainers were also thrilled to use it during the performance. And I would like again to express our deepest gratitude for your and Sara help and support. I ordered the cover and am waiting for it to arrive. Now I would like to schedule a piano tuning.

Give my warmest regards to Sara.
Sincerely,
Irina
August 2011

Hi Sara,

It has been a few weeks since you delivered the rebuilt vintage 1900 Victorian Ebony Steinway B to us and I felt I just had to email you about it.

As you know Ultra Sound Studios already owns many of the finest pianos from one of the oldest and most famous German builders including a 7'7" Semi Concert Grand and a 6' 11" Grand. In my business I must be very critical of both the tone of the piano and the build quality to be sure the pianos perform to very high levels that are required in a studio. That is why in the past I have always purchased German pianos from the finest builders and they have always served me well.

But I just have to tell you the Faust Harrison Rebuilt Steinway B is truly a work of art. This magnificent piano is on another level completely!! The full warm tone and harmonic complexity is staggeringly beautiful and yet there is detail and clear note articulation within the fullness. The responsiveness and dynamic range are truly wonderful with exquisite touch sensitivity and feel in the action. One of the most amazing things is the superb voicing of the piano where every note feels perfectly balance and weighted just right so that the individual notes blend into a seamless whole which is a very rare thing indeed. The final icing on the cake is the rich resonance and sustain that I have only heard when wood has aged and seasoned over many many years. This is what makes finding a properly rebuilt vintage piano so worth the effort over buying a new piano. With this Vintage Steinway you have gone far past proper and your craftsmen have done an impeccable job on everything.

We talked about sound and playability being my main goal but the beauty of the detail work and the quality of the Ebony finish is also exquisite. You have taken an old treasure and made it even more desirable through your careful, meticulous rebuilding and refinishing.

Lastly your staff including Sam and Eva did a great job of taking care of me and all the details including the delivery.

You should be very proud of what you have done at Faust Harrison and how perfectly you rebuild Vintage Steinways. You are truly fine builders and gifted artists in your own right, and you are creating what may very well be the finest sounding and playing instruments. You have proven to me that your Faust Harrison Rebuilt Steinways really are better and I want to thank you for the wonderful piano.

All the best,
Eugene Sinigalliano
Ultra Sound Studios - NYC
August 2011

Jessica,
Just wanted to send a note for you and your mom (I have lost her email address).
Craig had his recital last Sunday and let me just say that he could not have done it without that piano. Your mother's expertise and great advice led us to buy a piano, which I was not even sure I could or should afford. His playing has markedly improved over the last few weeks and he has built up more strength in his fingers. In addition, his attention to dynamics has grown tremendously.

I enclose a link to his recital herein because I just wanted you to know that you may think you are merely selling pianos, but you have helped make a 10 year old boy very VERY proud of himself. In his words ("I feel very accomplished") ... what you are doing is changing lives one piano at a time.

Gerene Rose
June 2011

Hi Sara,
see below for a picture of the O in its new home. It looks fantastic! I never imagined that you would be able to spruce up the case to that extent. The window to the left of the shot is a northern exposure, so there won’t be direct sunlight on the piano from this point forward. It sounds great in the room --- which would have been the formal dining room of the house as designed in 1820. Please accept my thanks for the entire transaction going back to the arrival of our dusty and bedraggled pianos over a year ago.

Sincerely,
Jim Hanson
May 2011

Sara,
Thanks for the rapid response! Yes I want to move ahead with the project. I like the work you do which far exceeds any of the piano rebuilders I have visited and tested. I also feel confident and at ease dealing with you; you are knowledgeable and honest. I will mail the deposit and contract tomorrow.

Looking forward to the restoration,
Les
April 2011

Faust Harrison is a company dedicated to helping people find the best pianos available. They specialize in Mason & Hamlin and Steinway but offer other Asian and European piano makers as well. They have done quite well and are expanding into Westchester and Long Island locations. As I stepped into their Manhattan store, I heard what one should expect to hear in any high end piano store; the sounds of great piano music played by aspiring pianists on excellent pianos, sort of what some of us might imagine pianist heaven to be like.
She was quite a talented young lady.
Yes, and Sara Faust was showing her around asking her to play something on various pianos, beginning with a couple Mason & Hamlin pianos. She was playing a Chopin ballade and the finale to Beethoven's 7th sonata (Op. 10 #3), a piece formerly played by a member of the Piano World Piano Forum who had recently passed away rather suddenly. I recalled his performance as I was hearing hers. What moving ironies there are in life!
Yes.
Sara Faust was doing far more than showing a customer pianos. In this case she was concerned to get the attention of this young lady (who was accompanied by her mother all the way from central Pennsylvania) to the challenges and rigours of concert pianism. There are all sorts of people who for whatever reason need a piano, but of these there are relatively few committed pianists with any real talent. This young lady was clearly one of these. Sara asked her questions like “do you really want to be a pianist?” or “if you really want to become a pianist?” Because the truth of it is that there are far fewer who can, and ultimately will become concert pianists, and that once one decides one is committed there will be ups and downs, moments when one would willingly give it all up, but where there are certainly plenty who would be there to pick up the mantle should you wish to drop it (unsaid: because for many of them it's their only way out of a life of grinding poverty, misery or obscurity), and for these aspiring pianists something else is required in terms of a piano. Sara Faust was acquainting this aspiring young lady with the facts of life concerning concert pianism, and should there be a piano upgrade for this young lady, just what that piano must be.
A Steinway piano?
Yes, a Steinway piano with the typically warmer sound than the crisp and clear Mason & Hamlin, that is more difficult to bring out because the action is weighted to be slightly heavier than many others. As the young lady played these Steinway pianos, Sara would occasionally stop her, have her repeat the phrase with a little more emphasis and to assess just what the pianist needs to know to learn how to control, contour and develop all those extra rich nuances that Steinway pianos are capable of. Sara pointed out something I never hear from anyone but which happens to be true; the bass end of a piano will always project, it is the upper registers that require extra attention. (Sara mentioned, attributed to Vladimir Horowitz, that we all play with our little fingers. All pianists should immediately recognize the importance of their right hand little finger, but also of their left hand little finger for those big bass leaps.) Sara had the young lady play many Steinway pianos and as I watched and listened, I was hearing all the incredibly subtle differences between these instruments, like distinguishing between fine wines, fine chocolates or fine teas. We were, as it were, getting a “master class” lesson, a very detailed, profound and for me timely piano lesson. There were but five of us there, Sara Faust, the young lady and her mother, myself and Mr. Sam Varon who would be managing Faust Harrison's new Long Island showrooms. Through Sara's demonstration, we were encouraged to think differently about pianos, to consider the merits of a “practice” piano as well as of “performance” piano. The former are what one learns music on, all the way from identifying the notes and phrases to play, as well as getting through the “sculpting phase” where after perhaps 150 times through the same piece, one is able to play it as an inspired and incandescent masterpiece, to bring all it contains to an audience of other people, which is really the final goal of the art form itself. A good practice piano should make you more confident to play on any performance piano you come across as many will be in worse repair and tuning than yours at home, nevertheless a performance must go on. Maybe for the first time I realistically considered the merits of the smaller Steinway models as practice pianos; the O's, M's, L's and even S's, that are often neglected by those seeking their A's or killer B's.
So Sara Faust was trying to get the young lady to understand the merits of a piano that was perhaps a bit harder to play but which promised greater musical rewards?
From a concert pianist standpoint, yes. It was really quite wonderful actually, like getting an insightful look from an experienced insider.
You told me before that Sara Faust was herself a considerable talent.
Once she played a few passages in Debussy's L'isle Joyeuse to demonstrate a piano. Her confidence in that performance blew me away. She knows what she's talking about. Let's just say that I left Faust Harrison having certainly been given a terrific piano lesson, one I'll probably never forget and one likely to colour my perceptions of kinds of pianos for the foreseeable future.

David Burton's Blog
THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2011
Seventh Interview – A Day in New York's Piano Row

Hi Josh,

Just wanted to pass on my thanks to you and all at Faust Harrison for this instrument.  We finished the record with Matt Herskowitz (doing final mix adjustments), and despite needing to keep a tuner here for the sessions, it came out great, and he is very happy.  As a side benefit, the piano was pretty well settled in by the time he was done with 3 12 hours days on it.  It has been very stable since, with our only challenges relating to the humidification system (as you predicted).  I think we have pretty much overcome that, and it is easy
to fix, because we always know what it is.

Everyone who has come in to test the piano has booked time.  Old clients who have returned have really liked the upgrade.

Thanks again, and I hope we can work together again at some point.

All Best,

Randy Crafton
February 09, 2010

Hi Sara,

We can’t begin to thank you for the absolutely wonderful time we had with you on Monday afternoon. To reconnect after all these years and to have the privilege of seeing your incredible business at such leisure was just a very special treat for us! THANK YOU, THANK YOU for taking the time to spend with us. We realize that you are one very busy lady trying to juggle a multitude of balls in the air under a great deal of pressure; so we are even more grateful that you would take the time as you did to show us around.

As you know, we are passionate about pianos and are forever grateful for what you have taught us about these “soulful” instruments. And to have that knowledge updated as you did on Monday was extremely enlightening. It is something that I shall continue to use in my teaching as well as to share with colleagues and friends. And of course when there is the opportunity to guide someone buying a piano.....my first recommendation will be to your business. We were simply blown away with the beauty of what we saw......the gorgeous cases, the perfect actions, and lastly but most importantly, the exquisite sound. You are indeed the custodian of a rarefied Art, and it is so heartening to experience that first hand. I actually think your story should be the subject of a documentary....have you ever considered that? It is important to tell these kinds of stories and to draw people into this aesthetic world which reflects the most joyous and hopeful part of the human being—the SOUL!

This idea of a documentary which just occurred spontaneously as I am writing, may not be so farfetched and challenging as it sounds. (When my parents died two years ago, I made a 43 minute documentary about them for the memorial service my brother and I planned; my Dad was a unique American icon whose story needed to be told.) Perhaps when you and I have some more time, we should talk about this. Your story is obviously unique and continues to play an important role in the Piano World.

At any rate, good luck with all of your endeavors, especially caring for your Dad. We know only too well the challenges that presents, but he is lucky to have you and Irv as his caretakers.

Again, many thanks for your friendship, and we shall look forward to staying in touch. It was also such a pleasure to meet Josh and Jessie. It must feel good to have such terrific kids!

As always, warmest thoughts from both Ken and Stephen

Internet Postings

Q: As someone in the market for a completely restored A or B model Steinway, I'd be interested to know about people's experiences with restorers in general across the country. I have seen the work of only two firms to date, Faust Harrison in New York and Dumont in San Jose, both of whose work I found to be excellent. I would be particularly interested to hear from anyone who has actually purchased the type of instrument I'm considering.
- Greg K.

A: Dear Greg K., I spent the last 8 or 9 months working with Irving and Sarah Faust on the 1907 Steinway Model A-2 that is now in my home. After shopping at Steinway & Sons, NY, AC Pianocraft, Maximillian's, etc., I fell in love with both the sound and finish of the Faust instruments. I spent a couple of hours with Michael Harrison in the NY showroom. He is a charming gentleman and a pleasure to deal with. Later, my dealings were with Sarah, Irving and their son, Josh Faust, who, for all intents and purposes, is the foreman of the shop in Dobbs Ferry. We spent a lot of time with Sarah and Irving, touring the factory, listening to Sarah play the pianos (she is a wonderful player..), seeing various instruments in different phases of restoration.

I am a stickler for detail (some say "anal retentive"), so I guess I come across as a bit of a pain in the ass. (I try to be nice about it, though..;-)

The entire Faust family dealt with me regularly, without any complaints. I made multiple trips to the factory to check on the progress of my instrument, and was welcomed warmly every time. They included me in decisions about voicing, key weight/touch, stain colors, finish, nickel or brass fittings, etc. It was a real team effort. They included me every step of the way, because they knew that's how I wanted it.

I received my instrument about 10 weeks ago. It is spectacular. Serial #124889, it was originally a Sketch Piano, according to Michael Mohr at Steinway. Steinway shipped it to Lyon & Healy in Chicago back in 1907, and then I lost track of it. If anyone reading this knows who may have owned it along the way, I'd love to hear about it.

Today, the African Mahogany, Victorian (Lotus leg, scrolled music desk) Model A-2 is without a doubt, my pride and joy. Original ivory keys, Renner action, voiced by Tolly. It has a hand-rubbed satin lacquer finish. It is not only an incredible sounding instrument, bit it is drop-dead-gorgeous, to boot.