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Musical Courier 1896-12-02: Vol 33 Iss 874, 1896
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1sidered by its maker a superior achievement. This piano attracted great attention, and was said to have a larger and purer tone than other makers'. Needless to say, it soon found a purchaser; and now, as a natural sequence, followed what Mr. Steinway had so ardently desired—he was enabled to turn his abilities as a master workman in the direction of piano making and make it his sole business.
3Being untrammeled by guilds and constantly improving his productions, he gradually built up a thriving trade among the music loving inhabitants of the Hartz Mountains. As early as August, 1839, Mr. Henry Steinway exhibited one grand, one three-stringed and one two-stringed square pianos at the State Fair of Brunswick, Germany, with the celebrated composer, Albert Methfessel, as chairman of the jury, who, besides granting him a first prize medal, bestowed the highest encomiums upon the tone and workmanship of the instruments. As his sons Theodore, Charles and Henry grew up they became skillful piano makers under their father's direction, acquiring at the same time a thorough education.
5In time Mr. Steinway found himself the centre of a large and happy family, the owner of an extensive factory, with ample capital at his command; and with such a thriving trade that he was unable to meet the demand for his instruments, although he employed a number of workmen to assist him in their manufacture. His was indeed a happy home. All worked in perfect harmony, and in the evening the boys might have been seen playing, oftentimes four-handed, the immortal compositions of Mozart and Beethoven, while the sweet voices of the girls sang the beautiful songs of Schubert and Schumann. In 1843 a political event occurred which, though it eventuated in still better fortune, seemed to threaten ruin to Mr. Steinway.
7In that year through Prussia there was created in the German realm the Customs Union, known as the "Zollverein." The Duchy of Brunswick entered this union, but the Kingdom of Hanover did not. In consequence Seesen, which was encircled by Hanoverian territory, was completely cut off from the rest of the world by a cordon of custom house officers. The six-octave Steinway pianos of those days cost 120 Prussian thalers, being 20 thalers more than those of Hanoverian makers. The new duty was 10 thalers per 100 pounds, being 50 to 60 thalers on one piano. Thus with one blow the business was brought almost to a standstill, for it must be remembered there were no railroads in those days and no dealers in other cities to keep a stock on hand, only local trade.
9The Revolution of 1848 completely destroyed what little trade remained; and as the armies would soon need filling up, and as Charles (who was born in 1829) would shortly be liable to service, the outlook was most discouraging. The idea, which had been cherished for some time, of emigrating to America now took on new life, and one and all determined that a home in "the land of freedom" was a desideratum. In April, 1849, Charles Steinway sailed for the Western World and arrived in New York the following month. His reports home were so favorable that the whole family, with the exception of the oldest son, C. F. Theodore, who remained behind to complete the unfinished work, emigrated to the New World, leaving Hamburg on the steamer Helene Sloman in the beginning of May, 1850. This vessel was one of the first ocean propellers and it was her first trip. Instead of a direct-acting engine the vessel had a high cogwheel, which connected with the smaller cogwheel on the shaft.
11On the third day out, when opposite Deal and Ramsgate, England, the large cogwheel broke with a terrific crash and the vessel came to anchor. After a delay of nine days a new cogwheel was cast at Ramsgate and the vessel continued on its way to New York, which it reached on June 9, 1850, after a passage of twenty days from England. The trip was an unusually pleasant one, as the sea from the time of leaving Hamburg to the arrival in New York was as smooth as a mirror; not a wave nor a ripple was to be seen. As the sequel proved, this was extremely fortunate, for on her third trip the Helene Sloman, encountering stormy weather, foundered in mid-ocean, happily with little loss of life. On their arrival in New York the family consisted of Henry Steinway, the father, aged fifty-three years; his wife, Julia Steinway, aged forty-six years; Charles, aged twenty-one; Henry Steinway, Jr., aged nineteen; William, aged fourteen; Albert, aged ten, and three daughters, the eldest twenty-two, the next seventeen, and the youngest eight.
13The eldest son, C. F. Theodore, aged twenty-four years, remained in Germany. The Steinways, on arriving in America, set themselves to work to learn the habits and customs of the people, and to perfect themselves in the American way of piano making before beginning work on their own account. Accordingly the father and the three grown up sons worked for three years in different New York piano factories. In March, 1853, they concluded to unite and engage in business on their own account; and, employing the capital they had brought from Germany, they founded the house of "Steinway & Sons." That commencement was made with cautious modesty in Varick street, New York city, where they rented a rear building and manufactured square pianos at the rate of one a week.
15The first pianos made by the new firm attracted widespread attention among professional musicians, and soon the productions of the house made great headway with the musical public. The Steinways finding their original quarters too small for them removed to more spacious ones at No. 88 Walker street, a few doors east of Broadway. When but one year in operation they scored their first success by being awarded the first premium at the Metropolitan Fair held at Washington, D. C., in March, 1854, for both three and two stringed instruments; and in the fall of the same year the Steinway pianos carried off the first prize—a gold medal—at the American Institute Fair, held at the Crystal Palace, New York.
17In the following year they exhibited at the latter place a square piano constructed on a new system, which received the unanimous verdict of the jury, and was awarded a gold medal in competition with all the principal piano manufacturers of the country. This new invention may be described as an overstrung square piano, in which the newly constructed iron frame was so applied as to secure its benefits to the durability and capacity of standing in tune, while the nasal thin tone which had heretofore characterized pianos with the iron frame was done away with and a lasting tone, of full harmonious quality produced.
19This new system of construction achieved so great a success that Steinway & Sons invariably received the first prize at every art exhibition in which they participated, and the new method soon became and has since remained the standard for square pianos, and is now used by all manufacturers. The business of the firm increased to such an extent that in 1858 they purchased almost all the entire block of ground bounded by Fourth and Lexington avenues, Fifty-second and Fifty-third streets, on which a model factory was erected during 1859 and occupied in April, 1860.
21In 1863 it was found necessary to add the southern wing, by which the building was brought to its present colossal proportions. The architecture of the building is of the modern Italian style; it is built in the most solidly substantial manner, of the best brick, with lintel arches of the same, and brick dental cornices. The side wings are separated from the main front building by solid walls, extending from basement to roof, passageways running through them, each of which is provided with double iron doors on either side, so that in the event of a fire occurring only that portion of the building in which it originated can be destroyed.
23The factory buildings proper cover twenty city lots, the whole property consisting of twenty-six lots, with a street frontage of 892 feet. The floors of the New York factory buildings have a surface of 175,140 square feet. Beneath the yard there are fireproof vaults for the storage of coal, and here are also placed four steam boilers, aggregating 340 horse power, by which the necessary amount of steam is generated for the 76,000 feet of pipe used in heating the workshops and driving a large steam engine, this in turn putting in motion the different labor saving machines.
25It would require the extent of a goodly sized volume to describe the 165 different planing, sawing, jointing, drilling, mortising, turning and other machines used in this and the Astoria factory, and to elucidate their various objects; it therefore must suffice to state that, from a careful and moderate estimate, they replace the hand labor of at least nine hundred workmen, added to which they do all the hard and difficult work which formerly, to so great an extent, endangered the health, and even the lives, of the workmen employed in this description of labor.
27In the meantime the warerooms had remained in Nos. 82 and 84 Walker street, these having been brought into connection with the factory, 3 1/2 miles distant, by a magnetic telegraph built expressly for the purpose. The improvements which had been made in such continuous succession since 1855 by Messrs. Steinway & Sons, and for which they had obtained patents, extended also to the manufacture of grand pianos. In these latter instruments an entirely new system of construction was introduced, with such unqualified success that they were very extensively used in the concert room and by musical people generally.
29Theodore Steinway, in Brunswick, at the same time made pianos of the newly invented construction, on the model of those manufactured by his father and brothers in New York, and as early as the season of 1860-61 many renowned pianists performed on these new grand pianos at their concerts in Germany. Messrs. Steinway & Sons have received for their pianos, from the year 1855 to 1862, at the leading industrial exhibitions in the United States, no less than thirty-five first prize medals; and at the World's Fair, in London, in 1862, the pianos there exhibited by them received the highest recognition and were honored by the award of a first prize medal.
31The New York warerooms of the firm had become the rendezvous of leading artists and connoisseurs, and were soon found totally insufficient in accommodation for the large dimensions the business had reached. In 1863 Messrs. Steinway & Sons resolved to erect new warerooms in that part of the city which promised to become the centre of New York art life; hence they selected a locality in East Fourteenth street, between Union square and the Academy of Music (Italian opera house), on which their present magnificent marble palace was erected, and in which the pianos made by the firm are now sold.
33A plot of ground in the rear of this building extending through to Fifteenth street, 100 feet in width by 125 feet in depth, was also purchased by them. While the rapid growth of the business of the firm continued unabated, great private misfortunes fell upon them, two members of the firm dying in quick succession. Henry, the third son, who had been in delicate health for several years, died on March 11, 1865, and Charles, the second son, while on a European tour, died in Brunswick on the 31st of the same month and year of typhoid fever. In consequence of those misfortunes, Theodore, the eldest son, gave up his manufacturing business in Brunswick and became a partner in the New York firm; thus the business was continued by Henry Steinway, the father, and his three sons, William, Theodore and Albert, the success of their efforts being even greater than that previously achieved.
35In order to satisfy a long-felt and oft-proclaimed want, and to meet the demands of the art interests of the American metropolis, the firm erected, in the rear of their marble palace on Fourteenth street (on the plot of ground previously alluded to as purchased by them), a grand concert hall, 128 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 42 feet high, with convenient seating capacity for 2,000 persons, and in addition thereto a smaller hall, seating 400 persons, separated from the large hall by sliding doors, thus allowing the two halls to be thrown as it were into one. This spacious temple of music and art, known as Steinway Hall, was built in 1866, and received its final interior decoration in 1868.
37On October 31 in the former year it was formally inaugurated by a grand concert in which Parepa-Rosa, S. B. Mills and other artists, together with a fine orchestra, participated. Steinway Hall was planned and erected by the members of the firm without the aid of a professional architect. The acoustical proportions were so nicely calculated that the result has been pronounced alike admirable and unsurpassed by any other hall in existence, by the many world famed artists, lecturers and speakers who have personally tested them.
39During the years 1865-6 Messrs. Steinway & Sons had paid special attention to the manufacture of upright pianos, culminating in an entirely new construction, secured by United States Letters Patent No. 55,385, dated June 5, 1866. The noble, sonorous and singing tone of these instruments, their capacity of standing in tune like the grand and square pianos, at once rendered them very popular, and from that time may be dated the growing taste for upright pianos. An immense triumph for Steinway & Sons resulted through their participation in the universal exposition at Paris in 1867. They were awarded by the unanimous verdict of the jury the first of the grand gold medals of honor for all three styles, grand, square and upright pianos.
41The world's greatest composers and artists, such as Hector Berlioz, Rossini and others, pronounced these instruments unequaled, and the Steinway or American system of piano manufacture henceforth became the standard one for Europe. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin, Prussia, elected Theodore and William Steinway academic members; the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Sweden, bestowed academic honors upon Mr. Theodore Steinway, and the King of Sweden awarded Steinway & Sons the Grand Honorary Medal, which Prince Oscar (now king) of Sweden accompanied by an autograph letter, all of which the Swedish Minister to the United States duly delivered to Steinway & Sons. The Sultan of Turkey, the Queen of Spain and other illustrious personages are among the purchasers of the Steinway piano.
43The Société des Beaux Arts, Paris, bestowed a grand testimonial medal and honorary membership upon Steinway & Sons; and a whole volume might be filled with the description of similar honors and testimonials. Henry Steinway, the father, who, for several years past had retired from active business, leaving its management exclusively to his sons, though he superintended the erection of Steinway Hall, died, after a short illness, February 7, 1871, aged seventy-four years.
45By virtue of his abilities and his inborn strength of character, he, an orphan boy, became one of the greatest manufacturers in his special industry, not only of his own country, but of the world; and died universally regretted and lovingly remembered by all who had known him, as was evidenced by the many kindly obituaries which appeared at the time of his death. His remains were interred by the side of his sons Charles and Henry, Jr., and his youngest daughter Anna, in the family vault on Chapel Hill, Greenwood Cemetery, which the deceased had caused to be erected during 1869-70 at a cost of $80,000. This mausoleum, built of granite, is one of the most imposing structures of Greenwood Cemetery.
47Following the example of their revered father, the surviving sons industriously toiled on in their several spheres, as is shown by a number of letters patent which bear their names and proclaim their industry; and also by the further
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