People and Pianos: A Pictorial History of Steinway & Sons (Amadeus)
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This is the story of how the Steinway piano came to be ...)
This is the story of how the Steinway piano came to be the instrument of choice for the world's greatest pianists. In 1953, Theodore Steinway wrote this narrative in longhand on yellow legal pads as a tribute to his father and to commemorate the first 100
(New York, Steinway (1961) 2nd Edition. Fine hardcover, cl...)
New York, Steinway (1961) 2nd Edition. Fine hardcover, clean, tight and straight. Dustjacket has a bit of edgewear, a couple of small closed tears, tiny chip at head of spine, else fine in archival mylar cover. No remainder marks. WOM
Christian Friedrich Theodore Steinway was a piano maker. He joined his father's firm of Steinway & Sons in 1865 and earned that company 41 patents in the development of the modern piano.
Background
Christian was born on November 6, 1825 in Seesen, Germany, the eldest child of Henry Engelhard Steinway and Juliane (Thiemer) Steinway.
As a youth he was musically talented, and in 1839 sufficiently accomplished as a pianist to be given the task of demonstrating his father's pianos at a fair in Brunswick. He was 25 years old in 1850 when his parents, brothers and sisters emigrated to New York City.
Education
He was educated at Jacobsohn College in Seesen, where he became interested in the study of acoustics and was commissioned by his instructor, who took a particular interest in his brilliant pupil, to make the models needed for the lectures.
Career
When Steinway completed his college course and went to work at a bench in his father's piano factory, he brought his scientific training to bear on the design and construction of pianofortes. In 1851, when his father and brothers left Germany for America, he stayed in Seesen, ostensibly to close the family business affairs and later to follow his kin to New York. He remained in Germany, however, for fourteen years after the departure of his family.
Following the death of two of his brothers in 1865, he received an appeal from his father to come to New York to assist in the conduct of the Steinway business in America (the family name, originally Steinweg, had been legally changed to Steinway in 1864).
He accordingly sold his business at Brunswick to his partners, Grotrian, Helfferich, and Schulz, and departed for New York. He immediately took charge of the construction department of the factory of Steinway & Sons, by this time a flourishing enterprise, and while his brother William devoted himself to the business management and sales department of the firm, he applied modern science to the problems of piano building.
He investigated and tested the relative qualities of various woods; he continued his study of chemistry to determine the best ingredients of glue, varnish, and oils; and he experimented in metallurgy to find a proper alloy for casting iron plates strong enough to bear the strain of 75, 000 pounds from the strings of the concert grand piano he wished to build. He remained in America for only five years.
In 1866, C. F. Theodore Steinway began a cooperative venture with the Mangeot brothers in Nancy, France, who for several years in the late 1860s imported harps and soundboards from Steinway & Sons in New York City, which they installed in their own piano cabinets and sold under the brand name "Mangeot-Steinway", mostly in France and England. This collaboration is not documented in the Steinway archives.
He never enjoyed his surroundings in New York and sincerely wished to return to Germany. Moreover, he was anxious to be near Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, the distinguished physicist who had established a sure physical foundation for the phenomena manifested by musical tones. After leaving America in 1870, however, he was continuously in the employ of the American firm until his death in Brunswick.
He continued his research and experiments, traveled extensively in Europe to meet and confer with eminent scientists, and made frequent trips to New York. Utilizing the discoveries of Helmholtz and of John Tyndall, the author of Sound (1867), he demonstrated that scientific study and research are as necessary to piano design and manufacture as empirical methods.
Upon the death of their father, Henry E. Steinway, in 1871, C. F. Theodore Steinway and his younger brother William Steinway took over the management of Steinway & Sons.
After the Steinway pianos had won gold medals at the world expositions in London, Paris (1867), and Philadelphia (1876), C. F. Theodore Steinway and William Steinway began planning a European factory, in order to save costs in customs and transportation expenses as well as to maintain connections with the highly sophisticated German piano-making industry.
For shipping convenience, they decided upon a location in the major port city of Hamburg in Germany, where they opened a new Steinway & Sons factory in 1880. The Hamburg plant was a separate business unit solely owned by C. F. Theodore Steinway and William Steinway, apart from the other partners of the New York-based Steinway & Sons company.
C. F. Theodore Steinway followed the wish of his father, that he would support the family's business after the two younger brothers had died. He was chief technician of Steinway & Sons until his death and was CEO of the company from 1865 until 1889, but he never liked living in the United States, preferring to live in Germany.
In 1880, he returned to Germany, first to start the new Hamburg plant, then to live again in Brunswick. He died in 1889.