Franz Xaver Kerschensteiner

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Franz Xaver Kerschensteiner (born May 7, 1839 in Parsberg (Upper Palatinate); † December 22, 1915 in Regensburg ) was a violin maker, but above all a zither maker, and for many years a member of the city council, councilor and member of the city of Regensburg in the Upper Palatinate district administrator. With the help of his employees, more than 5000 numbered instruments have been created in his workshop.

life and work

Nothing is known about his parents today. Kerschensteiner last attended the royal study and music seminar at St. Emmeram Castle in Regensburg for four years , before he decided in 1858 to study with the violin maker Petrus Schulz , with whom he stayed for four years. He is described as extremely talented and hardworking. Until 1865 he went on the usual wanderings, including to the then famous violin makers Tiefenbrunner and Echinger in Munich , to Strotzinger in Linz , to Bittner in Vienna and to Meindl in Würzburg . In that year he married the daughter of his former teacher, Euphrosina Schulz, and became a partner in his company. For this purpose, the city council had to approve the request made on July 18, 1865 for “acceptance as a protective relative and for a permit to marry Euphrosina Schulz, a citizen and instrument maker”, which he did with a resolution of August 1, 1865. On March 4, 1870, Kerschensteiner received citizenship.

After Schulz's death in 1871, Kerschensteiner continued to run the business at Pfarrergasse 10 alone. In it both easy use instruments and skilfully with were inlaid technology made violins , violas , cellos , harps , guitars and counterpoint guitars made.

In particular, Kerschensteiner's zithers became increasingly popular because he knew how to improve both the sound and the design. This also meant that he achieved a freer vibration of the soundboard . He had this patented on September 21, 1883 by the newly founded Imperial Patent Office in Munich. Instead of a rigid connection from the soundboard cover to the soundboard using a bridge under the fingerboard, the construction consisted of a strip that was not directly connected to the floor. He apparently had the inspiration for this from the zither virtuoso Curt Schulz, who demanded in a publication that the instrument makers should take on the problem of the small volume of sound, especially for concert events.

Another innovation was the so-called piano back zithers, which had a second bottom in the body to improve the resonance. He probably got the suggestion for this from his colleague Franz Schwarzer from Missouri , who is considered to be the inventor of the piano back and whom he met at the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 . In Kerschensteiner's price list from 1898 it says: “After a lot of effort and many attempts, I have succeeded in producing a direct sound generation with these zithers by connecting a free-standing bridge with the soundboard, which the latter is modeled on the piano. ... The vibrations of the struck strings are transmitted directly to the actual soundboard through a bridge that goes through the ceiling without touching it, causing it to vibrate as much as possible. This creates a specific, clear tone, which has the same strength and tone color in all registers, as is only characteristic of perfectly perfect instruments. ”This catalog contains numerous letters of thanks from all over the world, which helped to prove the popularity of the piano back zithers.

Kerschensteiner received many awards for his achievements as an instrument maker, and he was also allowed to call himself "Royal Bavarian Court Supplier". Lütgendorff writes: “In Kerschensteiner, violin making reached its most beautiful development in Regensburg, and Kerschensteiner's violins, which are valued far and wide and even in England, are works of art in the true sense of the word. His zithers are no less valued and are paid for with prices like no other. "

His son Franz Seraph Peter, (born November 9, 1869 in Regensburg; † February 2, 1935 of pneumonia in Berlin ), had been co-owner of the instrument manufacturing company since 1908 at the latest and continued the business after his father's death. Various external influences led to the decline in business success, which the son continued with the same range. From over 200 zithers annually in the years 1890–1895, production fell to around 100 at the beginning of the First World War in 1914 due to lower demand, and to around 15 instruments in the early 1920s.

On April 1, 1935, the carpenter and music company Konrad Weidlich bought the business, part of the workshop equipment went to the Regensburg City Museum. The last instruments, which were so highly valued at the time, were sold in 1951, and the last remaining instruments were also transferred to the Regensburg Museum in 1955.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Willibald Leo von Lütgendorff-Leinburg : The violin and lute makers from the Middle Ages to the present. 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1913, Volume I, p. 161 and Volume II, p. 421 f., And supplementary volume, created by Thomas Drescher, Tutzing 1990, p. 31
  2. ^ Andreas Michel et al .: Zithern: Musical instruments between folk culture and bourgeoisie . University of Leipzig, Museum for Musical Instruments, 1995, ISBN 3-9804574-0-0
  3. ↑ Patent No. 24075
  4. ↑ Curt Schulz. In: Centralblatt deutscher Zithervereine , No. 12, 1879, p. 142
personal data
SURNAME Kerschensteiner, Franz Xaver
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German violin maker
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Parsberg
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1915
Place of death regensburg