Julius Blüthner Pianofortefabrik
| Julius Blüthner Pianofortefabrik GmbH
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | November 18, 1853 |
| Seat | Großpösna near Leipzig |
| management | Managing Director Christian Blüthner-Haessler Knut Blüthner-Haessler |
| sales | € 33 million (2006?) |
| Website | www.bluethnerworld.com |
The Pianofortefabrik Blüthner is a manufacturer of pianos and wings from Großpösna in Leipzig . The family company is one of the oldest piano manufacturers .
history
1853-1903
Along with Paris, London and Vienna, Leipzig was one of the main pillars of European musical culture. In addition to the city's cultural heritage, Leipzig was also an important trading center with supraregional contacts and a wealthy bourgeoisie. Julius Ferdinand Blüthner therefore founded his company on November 7, 1853 in the western part of Leipzig, at the corner of Plagwitzer Strasse and Weststrasse. This initially consisted of rented rooms and employed three workers. Blüthner sold his first grand piano in the spring of 1854. The instruments gained attention from pianists and institutions from 1855 onwards; the sales figures increased.
In the fourth year of operation he already employed 14 workers. In 1856, the "Blüthner patent mechanics ", a variety of jack mechanics without repeating legs, came onto the market under the name "English mechanics" in addition to the normal double repeater mechanics (jack mechanics with repeating legs) until around the end of the First World War. In 1858 Julius Blüthner acquired the rented rooms. In 1862 the instrument number 500 was completed. In 1863, pianos were first made in the factory. A particularly magnificent artcase piano has survived from this period. Blüthner later bought a piece of land in the same quarter and built a factory there for a hundred workers. In 1864 the piano factory with 37 workers moved into the new building. A short time later the company was fully occupied and industrial production began.
Blüthner's company gained further fame at world exhibitions . In total, Blüthner won numerous other prizes and awards at twelve world exhibitions by 1903. The increasing demand for instruments led to further expansion. A second factory was built in 1870 and equipped with steam engines. In 1872 he built a third factory following the first and employed 170 more workers.
Blüthner invented the aliquot grand piano in 1873 . The special peculiarity of this instrument is an additional muted string per tone, tuned an octave higher, resonates from the upper middle register and increases the audibility of the overtones ( aliquots ). Over the years Blüthner has tried out different variants of this system; there are also Blüthner wings without an aliquot system.
A sales office was established in London in 1876, selling instruments in England and the English colonies. Blüthner had already started building a global sales network. The factory was expanded further around 1877. The factory now encompassed an entire street district. After twenty years, Blüthner had over eight hundred employees. In 1878 an exhibition hall was set up for the public.
In 1881 a new factory building was built. In 1888 a sawmill was set up in Leutzsch to meet the growing demand for cut timber, and a timber warehouse was added, in which the required types of wood were stored.
In 1890 a new factory site was built, which offered space for 230 workers. The constant expansion of the factory facilities made Blüthner one of the largest piano manufacturers in Europe. Overall, there were structural extensions of up to 55,000 square meters. The annual production rose to 3,000 pieces by 1903. In addition to Blüthner, the piano factories Feurich , Hupfeld , Schimmel , Gebr. Zimmermann were located in Leipzig.
Blüthner supplied various noble courts. The composers Claude Debussy , Max Reger , Gustav Mahler , Franz Liszt , Richard Wagner , Pjotr Tchaikovsky , Carl Orff , Dmitri Shostakovich and Andrew Lloyd Webber also owned a grand piano of the company. The soloists Claudio Arrau , Ferruccio Busoni , Karlrobert Kreiten , Arthur Rubinstein , Wilhelm Kempff and Oleg Maisenberg were also among the customers. Udo Jürgens received a grand piano as a fee for appearances in the GDR .
1903 until today
For the company's 50th anniversary (1903), Blüthner offered particularly splendid anniversary grand pianos, which stood out for their very elaborately designed and partly gold-leaf cast frames. This anniversary grand piano was offered from 1895 to approx. 1912 in models 2 (length: 2.38 m), 4 (length: 2.10 m) and 6 (length: 1.90 m).
From 1903, the time followed for Blüthner in which the art pianos (e.g. Hupfeld Phonola) and the reproduction piano played an increasingly important role. Leipzig was the main location of the Hupfeld company , one of the largest producers of pneumatic systems in Germany. Blüthner instruments were equipped with the Phonola and the Tri-Phonola, which was a brand name for the Hupfeld system. Other systems such as Welte-Mignon from Freiburg im Breisgau by M. Welte & Söhne were also used. Around 40 Blüthner instruments were equipped with the Welte-Mignon system. Very few of these instruments have survived today. Probably the last Blüthner Welte instrument built, a Blüthner Welte T98 ('Welte green') grand piano, bears the Blüthner serial number 114669.
Company founder Julius Blüthner died on April 13, 1910. The business was taken over by the three sons Robert , Max and Bruno Blüthner . The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 brought tremors to factory operations; Employees were called up for military service. Important connections were lost, especially contacts abroad. Exports stalled and there was little interest in piano purchases in their own country. As part of the "patriotic service", the company made deliveries to the army.
Reconstruction finally began in 1919. The company again received orders from abroad. The company tried to regain old sales markets that had been lost in the war. This task was made more difficult by the customs laws. Demand increased quickly, so that the annual production of 3,600 pieces was no longer sufficient. In 1928 the instrument number 113,000 was completed. In 1932 Rudolph Blüthner-Haessler took over the company management.
In the Second World War , the company burned to the ground after a bombing raid in 1943, and with it almost all the traditions and the special instruments. After the war, production began to be rebuilt . The first grand pianos came on the market in 1948. However, the ability of the Blüthner family to exert influence was severely restricted by the nationalization.
In 1953 the demand was so great again that the capacities of the various grand piano and pianino . Models in the Leipzig Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 69 were no longer sufficient. A new building for 100 workers was built and inaugurated in 1970. The company now traded under the name VEB Blüthner Pianos. In 1978 the production figure reached 144,000. After the end of the GDR , the company returned to the Blüthner family.
In 1990 the company began to revive old contacts and establish new relationships. Sales companies in the USA and other countries were founded. With the better market position and growing demand, a new production hall was built in 1996 in the Störmthal industrial park near Leipzig. In 2003 the Blüthner family celebrated the 150th anniversary with a ceremony in Leipzig . Since production began in 1853, more than 150,000 instruments bearing the Blüthner name had been made.
In 2005 the piano manufacturer held its own piano competition in Leipzig for the third time . So far, the participants have primarily come from the local music academies. The 2005 winners are Ha-Sun Park (Leipzig), Ying Zhou ( Weimar ) and Tomoko Takeshito (Leipzig).
In October 2007 the Julius Blüthner pianoforte factory opened one in Vienna in addition to centers in London, Moscow, Tokyo and Shanghai. Two years later, Blüthner took over the insolvent Pianofortefabrik Leipzig GmbH & Co. KG, the old Pianounion .
Today the company generates around 90% of its sales abroad. It has an equity ratio of 85%.
Trivia
The Beatles recorded their song Let It Be on a Blüthner grand piano. In the film Let It Be you can see how this is played by Paul McCartney . The song The Long and Winding Road is also recorded on a Blüthner grand piano. A Blüthner grand piano can also be seen in the film Iron Man .
An extra-light aluminum wing was made for the Zeppelin Hindenburg .
literature
- Julius Blüthner in Leipzig - Royal Saxon. Hofpianofortefabrik: Festschrift to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the business on November 7th; 1853-1903 . Leipzig 1903.
- Paul Daehne: Julius Blüthner, Leipzig: grand pianos and pianos; For 75 years Jubilee on November 7, 1928 . Leipzig 1928.
- Julius Blüthner, Heinrich Gretschel: Textbook of Pianofortebaues . Weimar 1872. Reprint Frankfurt a. M. 1992, ISBN 3-923639-94-5 .
- Ingbert Blüthner-Haessler: 150 years of Pianofortebau Blüthner . Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-910143-81-4 .
- Blüthner 1853–1953 - A century of piano making . Leipzig Nov. 1953 Management of the company.
- The Blüthner Friend ; Messages from the company (informal consequences)
- Ingbert Blüthner-Haessler: From Leipzig to London - Blüthner and the Pianoforte . Franz Steiner Verlag 2012
Web links
- Pianofortefabrik Blüthner
- Blüthner at mdr.de
- Blüthner Center Vienna - Austria
- Blüthner grand piano made of aluminum in the Hindenburg airship
- How old is my instrument - serial numbers and years of construction
- Last built Blüthner-Welte instrument
- Examples of preserved Blüthner Artcase instruments
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bert Fröndhoff: Here the family sets the tone . In: Handelsblatt , August 13, 2007, p. 18
Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 15.8 ″ N , 12 ° 27 ′ 34.6 ″ E