M. Welte & Sons
M. Welte & Sons in New York was the US subsidiary of M. Welte & Sons . It was founded by Emil Welte in 1866 and led by him until 1912. The company's first office was on 1236 Broadway .
The branch in New York initially served primarily to sell the orchestras produced in Germany and to support the numerous customers in the USA.
In 1912 the company became part of the newly founded M. Welte & Sons, Inc. , a public company based in New York. In this society, the 1906 sales went Welte-Mignon - reproduction pianos of Edwin Welte and Karl Bockisch founded Welte Artistic Player Company on. In the same year a dedicated manufacturing building was built in Poughkeepsie , NY. The new building was conveniently located on the New York Central Railroad line . In addition to the reproduction pianos, parts of the Welte Philharmonic organs that came onto the market in 1911 were also produced . The high tariff for the import of complete instruments from Germany could be significantly reduced by the mixed production from German and US production. By 1914, around 30 philharmonic organs had been installed in the USA, mostly in the private homes of the super-rich.
From 1916, Welte's “Auto Pneumatic Action Company” received a license to build its own piano models using the Welte Mignon technique. This company now used the more modern 11 ¼-inch format for the piano rolls after the Buffalo Convention . The roles were initially given by “M. Welte & Sons, Inc. ”. The playback equipment was completely manufactured under license by the "Auto Pneumatic Action Company" and sold to other piano manufacturers who also wanted to sell reproduction pianos.
In total, there were almost 130 different piano brands in the USA that built and sold this Welte-Mignon mechanism in their instruments under the name of Welte-Mignon Licensee . From 1916 to 1919 M. Welte & Sons, Inc. manufactured the reels for these Licensee instruments in Poughkeepsie. After 1920, Auto Pneumatic had to supply itself with piano rolls. For this purpose, a new department called “De Luxe Reproducing Roll Corporation” was founded for the production of so-called Licensee rolls . The last new Welte-Mignon Licensee rolls came out in May 1932. This ended the new releases in the USA and the Welte Mignon recordings stopped. From October 1933, "QRS Music Inc." in Buffalo, NY took over the trade with the remaining Licensee rolls and sold them as required.
When the USA entered the war in April 1917, the German-owned shares in M. Welte & Sons., Inc. were confiscated under the Alien Property Custodian Act and auctioned off to the public in March 1919. The company was sold by the new owners to George W. Gittins in May 1919. This in turn sold the plant in Poughkeepsie, transferred the remaining company property to the " Welte Mignon Corporation " and relocated the headquarters to New York in the Bronx district .
The instruments built now had a different technology than the original ones , and the piano rolls were no longer compatible. The instruments were sold as " Welte-Mignon Original Pianos ".
With the introduction of new technologies such as radio and electric record players around 1926, the business with the complex instruments almost came to a standstill; the entire industry collapsed worldwide. In 1928 the “Welte Mignon Corporation” was also in serious financial difficulties.
As a result, the entire reproduction pianos department was sold and the manufacture of instruments stopped; only a service operation remained. This Welte Mignon Piano Service Co. under the former Welte employee Otto Kremp from Freiburg existed until the 1940s.
The organ division was acquired by Donald Tripp, who later sold it to the WW Kimball Company , an organ builder from Chicago, Illinois.
See also
- List of Philharmonic Organs by M. Welte & Sons
- List of M. Welte & Sons cinema organs , also includes list of organs built by M. Welte & Sons Inc for cinemas in the USA
literature
- Gerhard Dangel and Hans-W. Schmitz: Welte Mignon Reproductions / Welte Mignon Reproductions. Complete catalog of recordings for the Welte-Mignon Reproducing Piano 1905–1932 / Complete Library Of Recordings For The Welte-Mignon Reproducing Piano 1905–1932 . Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-00-017110-X
- Automatic musical instruments from Freiburg into the world - 100 years of Welte-Mignon : Augustinermuseum, exhibition from September 17, 2005 to January 8, 2006 / publisher: Augustinermuseum. With contributions from Durward R. Center, Gerhard Dangel, ... (Red .: Gerhard Dangel). Freiburg: Augustinermuseum, 2005.
- Herbert Jüttemann: Orchestras from the Black Forest : Instruments, companies and production programs. Bergkirchen: PVMedien, Ed. Bochinsky 2004. (Book series "Das Musikinstrument", Volume 88) ISBN 3-932275-84-5