George Steck

Background

George was born on July 19, 1829 in Cassel, Germany.

Education

In his youth and early manhood he studied piano making with Carl Scheel of Cassel, who had worked for Erard, the Paris piano manufacturer, from 1837 to 1846.

Career

Steck emigrated to America in 1853, and after a period of employment by other piano makers in New York City founded his own business in 1857. The firm of George Steck & Company prospered almost immediately, and in 1865 retail warerooms were opened on Clinton Place, New York, under the name of Steck Hall. A larger establishment was opened on East Fourteenth Street in 1871. Steck was particularly interested in designing scales for pianos, and it is said that his scales for both grand and upright pianos were often copied and imitated by other manufacturers.

In 1884 he incorporated his business and alloted shares of stock to the men who worked for him. He retired from active participation in the firm in 1887, and devoted the last ten years of his life to experimentation in constructing a piano which would stay permanently in tune.

In 1904 George Steck & Company was consolidated with the Aeolian Company of New York.

He died in 1897.

Achievements

• George Steck was awarded the first prize of merit for pianofortes at the Great Vienna Exposition. He presented one of his grand pianos to Richard Wagner in 1876, and the manufacturers of the Steck piano exhibited this instrument in the United States, stating that it was the piano Wagner used at Villa Wahnfried, in Bayreuth, when he composed Parsifal. Steck was something of a philanthropist, concerned with the welfare of his employees.

Connections

He had a wife and two daughters.

associate:

Carl Scheel