The Piano That Went to Vienna

A century ago, pianos traveled from Europe to China. One summer evening in Vienna, a Hailun grand made the trip the other way.

There are concert halls, and then there is the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. Musicians speak about it the way painters speak about certain kinds of light. The room is gilded and shoebox-shaped, and its sound has been the reference point for generations of orchestras and pianists.

For most of the history of the piano, the instruments on stages like this one came from a small circle of old European and American makers. That is why one evening in 2005 still matters to Hailun.

A grand piano marked "Ningbo"

On August 16, 2005, the European Chinese Association held a peace celebration in the Golden Hall. The piano on stage was a Hailun grand, the HG178, carrying the name of its maker and the name of its city, Ningbo.

According to Hailun, it was the first time a Chinese-made piano had been featured in the hall. Chinese press went further and called it the first Asian piano to appear there. For a company that had started out making parts for other piano builders, it was a long way from the workshop.

Chinese coverage of the moment framed it as a reversal of history. A century earlier, pianos had been shipped from Europe to China. Now a Chinese piano had arrived in the city that set the standard.

Why Vienna, of all places

Hailun did not reach Vienna by accident. The city runs through the company's story.

One of the people who shaped Hailun's early pianos was Peter Veletzky, born into the fourth generation of owners of the Viennese piano maker Wendl & Lung. At 22 he became Austria's youngest piano master builder, and in 2003 he was sworn in as a legal piano expert for the Republic of Austria. His work with Hailun brought a Viennese idea of what a piano should be into a factory in Ningbo.

The sound itself has a Viennese teacher too. Sibin Zlakovic, who worked at the Viennese firm Bösendorfer, built and runs the program that trains Hailun's tuners. The warmth people hear in a well-prepared Hailun grand owes something to that training.

Recognition from Austria

In November 2016, Vienna returned the compliment. Hailun Chen and Jin Haifen, the couple who founded Hailun, received Austria's Schumpeter Prize. The award honors innovation in business, politics and economics, and is named for the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter. Chinese reports at the time described them as the first Chinese entrepreneurs to receive it.

The name on the door

There is one more Vienna connection, and it is close to home. The company that brings Hailun pianos to American players is called Vienna International.

The name is a reminder of where the idea came from. A piano can be built anywhere. What makes it worth playing is the standard it is built to, and for Hailun that standard has always been measured against the sound of a room in Vienna.

To hear that standard for yourself, sit down at a Hailun grand at an authorized dealer near you.