Ibach (company)

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RUD. IBACH SOHN GmbH & Co. KG

logo
legal form GmbH & Co. KG
founding 1794
Seat Dusseldorf , Germany
management Julia Sabine Falke (née Ibach)
Number of employees 5 (2007)
Website www.ibach.de

Rud. Ibach Sohn in Schwelm / Westphalia was the oldest piano manufacturer in the world still in production until 2007 . Founded in 1794, the company was one of the leading manufacturers of pianos and grand pianos . The company also produced organs until 1904 . Ibach was managed until the end by the founding family; At the beginning of the 21st century, the seventh generation had joined the company. In December 2007 piano production at the Schwelm location was discontinued. Today the company is engaged in supporting the pianos manufactured by Ibach.

history

The second piano factory in Schwelm around 1900
Poster “Ibach Pianos”, designed by Bruno Schmitz in 1898 ;
with the trademark R IS on the oak tree

Johann Adolph Ibach built his first square piano (pianoforte) in Beyenburg in 1794 (in Wuppertal since 1929 ). In 1795 he restored the organ of the Kreuzherren monastery in the town. Before the end of the 18th century, he relocated production to a rented workshop, first to Rittershausen (Oberbarmen), then to Wupperfeld in Barmen (from 1929 to Wuppertal). In 1817 Johann Adolph Ibach built a residential and factory building in which he produced pianos and organs, with the main focus being on piano construction. In 1839 the son Carl Rudolph Ibach and his brother Richard Ibach took over the company under the name Ad. Ibach sons . The first sales offices were set up in Düsseldorf, Bonn and Essen . Until the beginning of the 1850s, Ibach was one of the largest piano manufacturers in Prussia, along with the Cologne piano manufacturer Eck and Gebauhr in Königsberg . Ibach drove its export mainly to the Netherlands . In 1869 organ building was outsourced as an independent company. The company received an award at the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873. The company was expanded and a sales warehouse with an art carpentry shop in Cologne and a new factory in Schwelm were added.

Ibach Welte wing 1924

Furthermore, a public instrument museum and the first music library in Wuppertal were opened. In 1892 Hulda Ibach, the widow of Peter Adolph Rudolph, took over the company. She led the company, which now had several hundred employees, for twelve years. During this time, the third factory was built in Berlin. The company continued to expand and also sold to Central and South America, the Baltic States, Russia, Asia, Africa and Oceania. In this time were different inventions and innovations, the Transponierflügel , the rays keyboard , the Ibachord (concert harpsichord) , the conductor's stand-Piano, the Ibach Welte-wing and the Ibach Welte upright piano . The time after the First World War was a test for the company.

Partial view of the factory building in Schwelm
The Austrian singer Felix von Kraus on his Ibach transposing grand

In addition to the loss of export markets, the market for instruments became smaller with the invention of the radio and gramophone . The automobile replaced the wing as a status symbol. The small piano was developed due to the changed customer requirements, but above all because of the smaller apartments . The Second World War brought severe damage, including that of the parent company in Barmen. Therefore, the factory in Schwelm became the new headquarters in 1945. Production could not be resumed until 1950. The economic upswing in the 1960s and 1970s brought good times for the company again.

In the 1980s, instruments were manufactured in Korea as part of a joint venture with the South Korean company Daewoo , with all instruments manufactured there being accepted by Ibach. A K was added to products from Korea . According to outsiders, this “watering down” of the brand name resulted in serious economic problems. Julia Sabine Falke (née Ibach), who has been managing director since 2004, saw the competitor's campaign against Ibach as the main problem. In 2007 five piano makers were still working for Ibach. Production was stopped in December 2007. Since then, the world's oldest continuously producing piano manufacturer has been John Broadwood & Sons in Great Britain.

owner

  • Johannes Adolph Ibach (1766–1848), founder, 1794–1839.
  • Carl Rudolph Ibach (1804–1863, later spelled Carl Rudolf Ibach), temporarily together with his brothers Richard Ibach and Gustav Adolf Ibach, 1839–1863.
  • Temporarily: Richard Ibach (1813–1889), organ builder, together with Regine Emilie Ibach (née Bruckenhaus), widow of Carl Rudolph Ibach, 1863–1869.
  • Peter Adolph Rudolph Ibach (1843–1892, later spelling Peter Adolf Rudolf Ibach), from 1869 under the name Rud. Ibach son , 1869-1892.
  • Hulda Ibach (née Reyscher, 1845–1921), widow of Peter Adolph Rudolph Ibach , together with brother-in-law Walter Ibach, 1892–1904.
  • Albert Rudolf Ibach (1873–1940), temporarily together with his brothers Max Ibach and Hans Ibach, 1905–1940.
  • Johann Adolf Ibach (1911–1999), 1940–1980.
  • Rolf Ibach (born 1940), 1980–2006.
  • Julia Sabine Falke (born Ibach, 1972), since 2005.

Major products

Ibach organ in the Nicolai Church in Halver

Loaded world exhibitions

reception

The presence of Ibach instruments in the United States in the 19th century was recognized in the western parody Even a Sheriff Needs Help (1969). In order to show Jason McCullough ( James Garner ), who recently arrived in the fictional gold rush town of Calendar in Colorado on his way to Australia, the modern and cultivated character of the city and his own house, in which he - later appointed sheriff - will live and him to The mayor, Olly Perkins ( Harry Morgan ) , emphasizes that he has bought a harmonium for his beautiful and wealthy daughter Prudy Perkins ( Joan Hackett ), who Jason will ultimately marry: "It comes from afar, from Düsseldorf."

Suppliers to the court

British awards from:

literature

  • Walter Ibach: The Rud house. Ibach Sohn, Barmen - Cologne, 1794 - 1894. A look back when entering the second century of its existence. Fischer & Wittig in Leipzig, Barmen 1894 digitized
  • Gisela Beer: Organ builder Ibach Barmen (1794–1904). (= Contributions to Rhenish music history. Volume 107). Cologne 1975, DNB 750275189 .
  • Florian Speer : Pianos and grand pianos from the Wupperthale. Instrument making in the Wupper region and the Lower Rhine during the 19th century using the example of the organ and piano building family Ibach. Dissertation . Bergische Universität Wuppertal, 2000 (full text) . (= Bergischer Geschichtsverein, Wuppertal Department (Ed.): Ibach and the others. Rheinisch-Bergischer piano making in the 19th century. (= Contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal. Volume 39). Wuppertal 2002, ISBN 3-87707-587- 8 )
  • Florian Speer: Rud. Ibach son. World's oldest piano manufacturer since 1794. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2006, ISBN 3-89702-941-3 .
  • Ingrid Haslinger: Customer - Kaiser. The story of the former imperial and royal purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ RUD website. IBACH SOHN GmbH & Co. KG, Imprint ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , September 28, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ibach.de
  2. ↑ Victory of cheap goods - Ibach piano factory gives up. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 8, 2007.
  3. ↑ Andreas Fasel: Piano maker Ibach gives up after more than 200 years. In: Welt am Sonntag . January 13, 2008.
  4. ↑ Johannes Schmitz: A final chord with melancholy. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . December 28, 2007.
  5. ↑ Florian Speer : Ibach Museum - virtual exhibition of historical keyboard instruments , 1997–2002.
  6. ↑ Florian Speer: Ibach and the others. Rheinisch-Bergischer piano manufacturing in the 19th century. Wuppertal 2002, ISBN 3-87707-587-8 , p. 315.

Web links

Commons : Ibach (company)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 24.5 "  N , 7 ° 17 ′ 44.3"  E