Grotrian-Steinweg

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Grotrian, Helfferich, Schulz, Th. Steinweg Nachf. GmbH & Co

logo
legal form GmbH & Co. KG
founding 1835
Seat Braunschweig
management Terence Ng
Number of employees 50
Branch Piano construction
Website www.grotrian.de

Grotrian-Steinweg parent company at Bohlweg 48 (1880)
Interior view of a grand piano from the Grotrian-Steinweg company with the coat of arms on the soundboard
Interior view of the former Grotrian-Steinweg concert hall in Braunschweig
Art Nouveau lettering on a Model III / 135 from 1914

The Grotrian-Steinweg Pianofortefabrik is a manufacturer of pianos and grand pianos with headquarters in Braunschweig . The company was founded by Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg in Seesen in 1835 . It is one of the oldest piano factory in the world and was owned by the Grotrian-Steinweg family until it was taken over by the Parsons Music Group in 2015.

history

Company foundation and developments until 1931

Friedrich Grotrian , born 1803 in Schöningen near Braunschweig, was the founder of the piano-making tradition of the Grotrian-Steinweg family. In 1830 he opened a music store in Moscow, where pianos from his own production were also offered for sale. When an uncle left him an important inheritance that had to be administered, he returned home in 1856 after 25 years as a wealthy businessman.

Here he met Theodor Steinweg . He ran a piano manufacture in Wolfenbüttel . It was founded in Seesen in 1835 by his father Heinrich Steinweg . Heinrich Steinweg emigrated to the USA in 1851 and founded the company Steinway & Sons in New York in 1853 as Henry E. Steinway . Grotrian joined the Wolfenbüttler company in 1858 as a partner. Shortly afterwards, the two new partners acquired a patrician house at Bohlweg 48 in Braunschweig and relocated the company there. The workforce quickly increased to 25 masters and journeymen.

Friedrich Grotrian died in 1860. His son Wilhelm, at that time still underage, could only join the company when Theodor Steinweg also sold his shares in 1865 and also moved to New York . The company was entered in the commercial register for Grotrian, Helfferich and Schulz under the name "CF Th. Steinweg Nachf." And initially continued to build the Steinwegschen Pianoforte. More than half a century later - in the meantime there had been many legal disputes with the Steinways - the name Grotrian-Steinweg was adopted. At the beginning of the 20th century, the notation Grotrian, Steinweg was also in use; on the instruments in a typical Art Nouveau font.

When Wilhelm Grotrian took his two sons Kurt and Willi into the company as partners in 1895, he coined the company's principle: "Boys, build good pianos, then everything else comes naturally". At this time, many royal and princely houses appointed the House of Grotrian-Steinweg as their purveyor to the court and allowed the piano manufacturers to use their coat of arms as a reputation. Some of these coats of arms can still be found today as decorations on the soundboard of the newly produced instruments by Grotrian-Steinweg. By 1913 the workforce increased to 550 and after the First World War to 1000. The annual production in the period mentioned was 1,600 instruments. In-house branches were opened in Hanover , Berlin , Königsberg , Düsseldorf and Leipzig and were staffed with representatives. At that time there was also a Grotrian Steinweg Orchestra in Leipzig, which gained great importance under the direction of Hermann Scherchen .

The First World War interrupted the company's rise, Kurt Grotrian immediately went into the field and was soon taken prisoner. Willi Grotrian tried to continue the business on a modest scale, but orders could not be obtained, and there was also a lack of employees and raw materials. The company was able to resume production immediately after the end of the war and then set up the “Grotrian-Steinweg Limited” in London in 1920 and the “Grotrian-Steinweg Company” in Delaware ( USA ) in 1925 . Kurt Grotrian died as a result of a persistent war suffering on February 25, 1929 and his brother Willi on May 2, 1931.

Since 1931

Grotrian-Steinweg wing in the rubble after a factory fire on April 29, 1926

Kurt and Willi Grotrian's legacy took over the sons Erwin and Helmut Grotrian-Steinweg, who had been partners in the company since 1928. They had to convert their factory to aircraft construction during the Second World War . During the bombing raid on October 15, 1944 , the entire complex and the house on Bohlweg were victims of the air war. Production could not be resumed until 1948.

Grotrian-Steinweg today

In 1974 the company moved into a new production facility for the third time in Grotrian-Steinweg-Straße in the north of Braunschweig, directly on the A2 towards Berlin . The planning of this new production facility was carried out by Knut Grotrian-Steinweg, shareholder and managing director in the 5th generation until 1999.

From 2000 to 2016 the piano maker and businessman Burkhard Stein headed the family company Grotrian-Steinweg as managing director. Even his grandfather and father were piano builders. In 1984 he started working for Grotrian-Steinweg, initially to train as a piano maker. In the years in which he was responsible for the traditional company, he successfully expanded the distribution of Grotrian-Steinweg instruments in Asia and the USA and internationalized, among other things, the Grotrian-Steinweg piano competition founded in 1954.

In this piano manufacturer, technical progress has been combined with a craft piano manufacturing tradition that goes back over 180 years. On a total of 10,000 m², around 520 instruments are manufactured per year from a range of 5 grand and 7 piano models with 55 employees and exported to over 70 countries around the world.

The company is involved in various cultural areas. Many regional events, such as the Braunschweig Classix Festival and the concerts as part of the keyboard tumble, are supported directly or through the temporary provision of instruments from the Braunschweig manufacturer. The most important support for culture, however, is the federal competition for practical school piano playing in Grotrian-Steinweg and the Grotrian-Steinweg piano competition .

With economic effect from April 1, 2015, the Parsons Music Group (a company founded in 1986 with headquarters in Hong Kong and approx. 5000 employees) initially took over the majority of the company shares in the piano manufacturer Grotrian-Steinweg and all company shares on April 1, 2017.

A second line built by the company since 2017 is named after Friedrich Grotrian. The case, frame and strings are made in China (Parsons Music Group), the final assembly in Germany. Other sources place the stringing in Braunschweig; the mechanics are largely from Renner .

The Wilhelm Grotrian and Wilhelm Grotrian Studio lines , which are completely manufactured in China, have existed since 2018 . The former come as pianinos in four heights between 46 and 52 inches, the grand pianos in three lengths between 5 feet 7 inches and 6 feet 11 inches. For the Studio line, the values ​​are between 45½ and 48 inches (three models) and 5 feet or 5 feet 5 inches (two models).

Grotrian-Steinweg piano competition

Foundation and development

In 1954, after the major post-war damage had been repaired, a competition in the Hertie department store in Braunschweig gave the final impetus for the Grotrian-Steinweg piano competition. At that time the audience was able to determine the ranking and award of the prizes based on the length and intensity of the applause. It was therefore decided to design a piano competition from an artistic and educational point of view and to carry it out with knowledgeable and competent representatives from music schools , private music educators, school musicians and universities . At that time, the competition took place in the Zimmerstrasse factory building and the final concerts in the auditorium of the New High School .

The aim was to arouse joy in making music, to offer incentives and finally to recognize and promote top talents from the increasing number of participants. In 1968 there were the first preliminary talks between Eberhard Schmidt, long-time chairman of the main youth music committee in the German Music Council and Honorary President of the Lower Saxony State Music Council , Reimar Dahlgrün from the Hanover University of Music and the House of Grotrian-Steinweg, in order to also use the piano as a pilot project with the longstanding experience of this competition to be included in the annual change of instrument genre in the Jugend musiziert competition.

From this time on, the cooperation between the State Music Council and the piano manufacturer has proven to be the most important instrument for the piano. While Grotrian in the "even" years with Young Musicians regional and state competition aligns in Braunschweig, is in the "odd" years of Grotrian piano competition in Braunschweig as a national competition with international participation, according to the criteria of Young Musicians performed . The final concerts will take place in the State Theater.

Personalities who shaped the competition

In the more than 50 years of its existence, leading personalities of musical life in Lower Saxony have shaped this competition. Names from the very beginning included Karl-Heinz Kämmerling , Hilde Kramm-Walter, Ernst-Lothar von Knorr and Karl Bergemann as jurors and educators. Successful award winners include Bernd Goetzke , Konstanze Eickhorst, Wolfgang Manz, Julia Goldstein, Martin Dörrie , Hans Wilhelm Plate, Kristin Merscher , who today, in addition to their concert activities, primarily pass on their experiences as lecturers, professors, composers and university rectors and in the original sense of the Competition for a further timely expansion of music-making. In the years that followed, other young pianists such as Ragna Schirmer , Ilka Schibilak, Steffi Danschacher, Konrad Maria Engel and Lars Vogt were prizewinners, opening doors to podiums on which they can perform with the major orchestras and renowned conductors.

Impulses

The homogeneous soundboard , the often-imitated star raced , the first small piano model 120 and finally the so-called duo grand piano, which was designed for the pianists Elif and Bedii Aran: A common cover and a specially manufactured soundboard bridge develop a harmonious sound radiation.

See also

Other piano manufacturers from Braunschweig:

literature

  • Grotrian-Steinweg (Ed.): Guys, build good pianos - then everything else comes by itself. Braunschweig 1986 DNB 901235377 .
  • Ingrid Haslinger: Customer - Kaiser. The story of the former imperial and royal purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

Web links

Commons : Grotrian-Steinweg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Martin Möller: German piano manufacturers who are responsible for themselves are becoming rare. In: www.pianonews.de. Retrieved January 19, 2017 .
  2. ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Braunschweig Classix Festival )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.classixfestival.de
  3. Key frenzy
  4. ^ Federal competition for practical school piano playing at Grotrian-Steinweg
  5. pianopricepoint.com
  6. a b Grotrian on www.pianobuyer.com