Albert Weber (piano maker)

Albert Weber (1828–1879) on an anonymous and undated illustration from New York

Albert Weber (born July 8, 1828 in Heiligenstadt in Upper Franconia , Bavaria , † June 25, 1879 in New York City ) was a German-American piano manufacturer.

Life

Albert Weber was a child prodigy at the piano and also later an excellent piano player. He emigrated to New York City in the USA in 1844 .

In 1852, a year before Heinrich Steinweg , he founded a piano shop in Manhattan on White Street. He sold high quality square and concert grand pianos there . He later built a piano manufacturing facility at 362 Fifth Avenue (corner of 16th Street). This company worked from the 1870s on a par with its competitor Steinway and Sons . In 1874, the price of a Rococo- style Weber grand piano was $ 1,400, the price of a large exclusive house in the Victorian era.

Albert Weber, together with Steinway and Chickering & Sons from Boston, was involved in the "piano wars" which had become noticeable in the USA and which dragged on for years, in which well-known manufacturers fought in the media and in court over questions of who was at the world exhibition of Paris in 1867 and at the "Centennial" world exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 had exhibited the best pianos.

Albert Weber died of overwork in 1879, aged only 51.

Companies

Weber pianos became the official pianos of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which opened in October 1883. The Weber company received gold medals at the London World Exhibition in 1887 and at the Paris World Exhibition in 1889 and developed into an internationally successful company.

King Alfonso XIII of Spain chose a Weber wing, also the Popes Pius X. and Pius XI. owned Weber wings. A Weber grand piano was delivered to the Elysée Palace in Paris. Weber wings were found in the royal houses of England, Wales, France, Italy and Sweden. Weber customers were the English tea merchant Sir Thomas Lipton and the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini . Moritz Rosenthal , one of the best students of Franz Liszt , Ignacy Jan Paderewski and James Mapleston chose Weber pianos for their concerts.

In 1903 the Aeolian Company , a manufacturer of pianolas , bought the Weber company. Around this time Weber pianos were manufactured in Hayes , England . In 1985 the Aeolian factory closed. The rights to the brand name Weber were sold to the Korean piano manufacturer Young Chang in 1986/87 . Weber was to become the top brand in the Korean manufacturer's group. In 1992 new models were launched. In December 2003, Young Chang stopped making Weber pianos.

There was a piano manufacturer in Berlin called Weber, but it had no connections whatsoever with the US company.

source

• History of the Weber company on their website.