Berdux
Berdux (also "V. Berdux", "V. Berdux Hof-Pianofabrik", Berdux AG) was a manufacturer of high-quality pianos and grand pianos from 1871 to 1971 . Since 1996 high quality instruments from German (Steinberg / Thuringia) and Czech (Klima) origin have been sold under the Berdux brand name.
history
Valentin Berdux (* 1841 in Pfungstadt , † 1922) began an apprenticeship at the age of 16 with his brother, who ran a timber trade in Paris and made piano parts. He learned how to tune pianos with piano maker Grabe. At the age of 21 he moved to the French piano factory Pleyel , Paris , as a piano maker . In 1870 he left Paris and initially worked for the piano manufacturer Pfeiffer in Leonberg. He then bought the square piano factory from Wilhelm Kulmbach (1833–1879) in Heilbronn and in 1871 opened a factory with Paul Lechleiter in this town under the name Berdux and Lechleiter, which initially produced straight-string pianinos. In 1872 Lechleiter left the company, which from then on 'V. Berdux in Heilbronn a. Neckar 'was called. At the end of the 1870s, 400 instruments were produced annually. In 1892 the production of grand pianos was started. In the same year the company moved to Munich. Berdux gained a high reputation as a manufacturer of pianos and grand pianos of excellent quality and received the privilege of " Royal Bavarian Court Supplier ". The manufactory produced instruments as well as the associated piano mechanics and is still one of the manufacturers with the most patents in the field of piano mechanics. Most of these can be traced back to Valentin Berdux, of whom it is said that he tirelessly developed ideas for improving piano technology. Many Berdux instruments are therefore characterized by technical innovations and special features. There were, for example, grand pianos with a double soundboard or particularly compact pianinos , whose sub- key mechanics , thanks to a well-thought-out structure, were much more maintenance-friendly than usual with this type of construction.
The piano factory in Munich Laim
The Berdux piano factory was located in Munich Laim (Landsberger Strasse 336) since 1898 . On March 16, 1922, the sole proprietorship "Valentin Berdux Pianofortefabrik" ("V. Berdux" for short) was converted into the "Berdux Aktiengesellschaft ". The company logo of the company showed a bear and the initials "VB". In 1928 the company was taken over by Karl Lang, the owner of the Munich piano business Piano-Lang founded in 1912. The headquarters of Piano-Lang was then relocated to the Berdux factory in Landsberger Straße. In 1949 production in Munich was stopped after a fire. The building continued to house the "Pianohaus Karl Lang". This was taken over in 2000 by the American piano maker Steinway and operated from 2001 to 2019 as "Steinway-Haus München". The Rubinstein Hall was set up as a small concert hall on the second floor . In April 2019 the concert hall was given up, the grand piano and piano sales rooms were relocated to the city center, thus ending the more than 120-year-old tradition. Only the piano workshops of the Steinway branch in Munich remained in the building.
Production in Langlau and Aalen
In 1952, a good two years after the fire, the Euterpe company in Langlau, Pfofeld municipality in Middle Franconia , revived the brand name and built Berdux instruments under license until 1966. At that time the Euterpe piano factory also enjoyed a reputation as a supplier of high-quality pianos and grand pianos. Between 1966 and 1971 the pianos and small pianos producing company Haegele ( piano factory H. Haegele , founded 1846) in Aalen took over the license production of instruments of the Berdux brand.
Numbers of items and names
In total, around 26,500 Berdux pianos and grand pianos were made between 1871 and 1971, of which around 21,800 were in Munich, around 4,000 in Langlau and around 700 in Aalen. Depending on the model and year of production, the instruments may include a. the words "BERDUX", "V. BERDUX", "BERDUX MÜNCHEN" and "V. BERDUX MÜNCHEN", whereby the last two variants can also be found in the period after 1952, when production was no longer in Munich.
The Berdux company today
Since 1996 instruments of Asian, Russian and Czech origin that have been reworked in Hohenpeissenberg in Bavaria have been sold under the brand name Berdux (or "BERDUX Munich") .
Others
Along with other renowned piano makers of the time, Berdux was one of the manufacturers who supplied the Freiburg company M. Welte & Sons . In the years from 1905 to around 1930 they converted pianinos and later also grand pianos into self-playing reproduction pianos ("Welte Piano" or "Berdux Welte Piano").
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jens-Uwe Witter: The piano lexicon. 1st edition, Schillingsfürst, 1998, ISBN 3929501031
- ↑ Erich Valentin : Handbuch der Musikinstrumentenkunde. Gustav Bosse, Regensburg 1954, p. 455 ff. ( Instrument maker ).