Mühlbach (piano factory)
The Pianofortefabrik Mühlbach is a former manufacturer of pianos and concert grand pianos from Saint Petersburg in Russia . It existed between 1850 and 1917. In the 1880s, Mühlbach was the Russian market leader in the concert grand piano or grand piano segment.
History of the company
The Baltic German craftsman Theodor Franz Adolf Mühlbach (1826 Reval - 1901 Saint Petersburg) came to Saint Petersburg in 1856. He first built three simple pianos in his workshop in Dekabristov Uliza, at the same time he was still a journeyman in the sales branches of the Austrian piano factory von Wirth. His master was called Jakob Becker . When he had saved enough funds, he decided to build wings under his own name. He ordered all the materials from abroad and then installed the mechanics. The first self-made instruments were very similar to those of his master Jakob Becker. Soon he was able to employ three workers. Gradually the production was expanded. Before the 1870s, his pianos were little known until an All-Russian fair in Saint Petersburg where his instruments were shown to a wide audience.
The magazine “Muzykalniy Svet” wrote about Mühlbach's production: “The sound of the Mühlbach grand is bright, the cast frame (the most important requirement for a concert grand), the perfect flatness during the seven-octave keyboard; Basses have the timbre of the organ. The raising and lowering of the pedals is not accompanied by an unpleasant noise. Instruments of this type meet all the requirements that one can have on a good concert grand piano. In addition, the price is quite cheap ”(Issue 2, 1870).
The factory was already building 50 instruments a year in 1871. The palette ranged from large concert grand pianos, salon and cabinet pianos to small, inexpensive grandma pianos. The sale took place directly from a building in the factory. In 1878 Franz Adolf Mühlbach's son, Friedrich Hermann Ernst Mühlbach (1824–1901) became co-owner and director of the factory. He had got to know the piano production in Leipzig at Blüthner, Schimmel and the Heyl (Pianofortefabrik) and brought along a whole series of valuable improvements in the design of the instruments, for example the idea of the compact little "Minion". This baby grand piano enjoyed great demand in the following years and made Mühlbach the Russian market leader. It wasn't a simple piano, but it wasn't a great concert grand either. The table pianos that had come into fashion were in demand because Richard Wagner or Clara Schumann composed and performed on these pianos.
At the beginning of 1880 the Mühlbachs expanded their factory premises. Now they worked in three shifts and bought a steam engine with 10 hp .
After moving to the new work shop, the factory's productivity began to grow rapidly. The high acoustic quality, stability and durability of Mühlbach's instruments allowed the number of buyers to grow significantly by the end of the century. The factory's annual turnover in 1900 was 200,000 rubles. The number of employees also grew and in 1898 was 150 people.
The Mühlbachs were repeatedly awarded the highest awards at international exhibitions: The company received 16 medals at various trade fairs and exhibitions, 10 of which were gold. In 1893 they received the Grand Prix in Chicago. In 1896 the Mühlbachs in Nizhny Novgorod were granted the right to depict the Russian double-headed eagle, the coat of arms of the tsarist empire, on their pianos. In addition to this high esteem for the Mühlbachs, it was also effective in advertising that the Russian pianist Anna Nikolajewna Jessipowa and the Polish pianists Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Józef Hofmann went on tour with a Mühlbach grand piano.
After the death of Friedrich Mühlbach in 1901, Mühlbach's daughter Adele and her husband Adolf Ivanovich Nating, who was a councilor and engineer, took over the managerial tasks in the factory. Nating was an expert in piano making and continued production. In 1905 the factory was expanded considerably, adding large five-story buildings. The annual production rate was now 270,000 rubles. The company had distribution centers in all provincial cities of the Russian Empire.
In the spring of 1914, the factory produced a new advanced model of a cabinet grand piano with curved integral sides so that the high notes sounded like bells, produced by a double repetition mechanism. Steinway is said to have produced a similar model. Unfortunately only four of these instruments were built. On December 28, 1913 there was a major fire in the plant. The loss of vehicles and deliverable goods amounted to 26,000 rubles.
Due to protracted strikes and in the course of the First World War, production in the factory continued to decline. At the end of December 1916 there were only 12 workers left. The company closed on December 22, 1917. Later the existing systems were nationalized and were part of the large state piano factory "Red October"
literature
- Robert Palmieri: The Piano. An Encyclopedia (Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments) New York 2003. ISBN 978-0-4159-3796-2
- Google Books. In: Friedrich Matthäi: The industry of Russia in its previous development ... Industrial handbook for the entire territory of the Russian Empire, Volume 1-2, Verlag Griesbach. Gera 1872. p. 135
- CO Cech: Russia's Industry at the National Exhibition in Moscow 1882: Critical Considerations on the Major Industries in Russia. Grossmann & Knöbel, 1885 - page 314
- Denis Lomtev: Germans in Russia's musical infrastructure. Lage (Westf.): BMV, 2012. S. 17, 109–111. ISBN 978-3935000833 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.oldpiano.ru/index.php/history-eng.html
- ↑ http://www.blazonguitars.ru/music_instruments/piano/muhlbach.shtml
- ↑ МЮЛЬБАХ Ф. ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
- ^ Robert Palmieri: The Piano. Routledge, 2004, ISBN 978-1-135-94963-1 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).