Johann August Tischner

Johann August Tischner (* 1774 in Zeisdorf ( Saxony ); † 1852 in Saint Petersburg ) ran one of the first piano factories in Saint Petersburg between 1800 and 1852 . His most famous customer was Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka . The pianos are usually labeled A. Tischner.

Live and act

Johann August Tischner came to Saint Petersburg from Zeisdorf in Saxony in 1800. There he was promoted by Alexander Tscherlitzky, who was the organist at the Lutheran St. Katharinen Church . Through the piano virtuoso and teacher Charles Mayer , Tischner received orders to build pianos. One of Meyer's piano students was the later most important Russian composer of the 19th century, Mikhail Iwanowitsch Glinka, who began his career on Tischner pianos.

Another 18 years passed from the small craft business to the first mention of the factory, where there was an advertisement in the St. Petersburgische Zeitung in 1819 . Archival documents show that he had already joined the first Saint Petersburg guild of craftsmen and merchants in 1811 . The guild regulated taxes and helped with patent rights.

When his factory buildings burned down in 1825, the 50th piano had just been completed. At the First Public Exhibition of Russian Manufactured Goods in Saint Petersburg in 1829, he received the great silver medal for a grand piano. Counterfeiters took advantage of this and sold lower quality pianos from Kiev under the name A. Tischner. Tischner published the report that bad counterfeits of his pianos had come into circulation. Nevertheless, Tischner's reputation suffered as a result.

“Up to now, Tischner of Petersburg was considered the best worker in his field; In recent times, however, we have unfortunately seen several instruments being acquired for Riga in quick succession , which neither corresponded to the earlier reputation of a fine workshop nor to the enormous prices (on average 1,500 rubles). He would do well, like Conrad Grass, to let a skilful man travel around who would remedy the shortcomings that had arisen within a short time and thus the decline of his well-founded reputation. "

- Heinrich Dorn

Due to competitors such as Karl Wirth and Hermann Lichtenthal , the demand for Tischner grand pianos declined, despite an ever-growing market. In 1842 there was a comparative concert by Liszt , who played first on a Tischner grand piano and then on one by Lichtenthal, which exceeded that of Tischner because of innovations in sonority and volume.

Tischner died in 1852 and was buried in the Smolensk cemetery in Petersburg . He left behind a son who was born in St. Petersburg in 1819.

At the end of the century, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik remembered the beginnings of piano manufacturing, to which Diederichs Schröders and von Tischner were one of the first piano factories in Russia.

“The first among the local piano manufacturers who managed to compete happily with foreign productions was Tischner, whose grand piano pianoforte were distinguished by their richness of sound and by their solid yet not too brittle style. Its flowering began in the early twenties and lasted until the middle of the third decade . He was especially supported by two of the best piano teachers of the time, both students of John Cramer, namely: Charles Mayer (currently also famous abroad as a brilliant virtuoso) and Alexander Tscherlitzky. "

- Jouryi from Arnold