Schröder (piano factory)

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The piano factory CM Schröder (Russian manufacturer name also К.М.КрШдер) in Saint Petersburg is a former manufacturer of concert pianos and grand pianos from Saint Petersburg. The factory was founded by Johann Friedrich Schröder from Stralsund in 1816-1818. This makes it the second oldest of a total of around sixty factories for pianos in Saint Petersburg alone after the factory of RA Diederichs.The Schröderische Fabrik was one of the few Russian piano manufacturers in the then capital that was also internationally successful and supplied the courts of Austria, Germany and Denmark . At the end of the 19th century, Schröder became the largest producer of pianos in pre-revolutionary Russia.

history

CM Schröder piano factory in Saint Petersburg at 15 Chapayeva Street

At first Johann Friedrich Schröder only produced table-shaped pianos, later also in grand piano shape. His son Carl Michael Schröder learned the trade from his father and later worked for Messrs Pape and Henry Herz in Paris and Erard in London. After the death of his father, CM Schröder took over the management of the piano factory in 1852 and improved the instruments considerably.

He moved to a new area in southern Saint Petersburg on Mayorovi Prospect, where he also opened a shop. In 1862 he was the first in Russia to start casting cast iron frames in pianos. For some of the models he used the "American construction". The Schröder piano factory produced around 350 pieces around 1872, mostly grand piano, but also pianinos and employed 118 workers and 43 dealers and distributors. Due to the rapid development on the international markets, the workforce doubled around 1900 and the number of instruments produced rose to around 1000 per year.

At the Vienna World Exhibition, a cross-string concert grand with a repeater mechanism was exhibited.

“This grand piano was undoubtedly one of the most excellent that the exhibition in the Pianofortebau had to offer and it surpassed all other Russian makes by far. In addition to the fullness of the sound, the equality of the tone and the easy variety are to be emphasized. "

- Oscar Paul : Musical instruments. Expo catalog Vienna 1874, pp. 76–77

Around 1876, CM Schröder bought a house on 52 Nevsky Prospect , the most important shopping street in Saint Petersburg, where he opened a new shop. After the death of CM Schroeder in 1889, the sons Karl, Johann and Oscar became owners of the company. The eldest of the brothers, Karl Karlowitsch, worked for a long time in the largest foreign piano factories. He took over the continuation of production and the technical management of the company.

In 1900 the brothers founded the KM Schröder trading company to run the factories and trading companies that had branches in Warsaw and Odessa. In the spring of 1903 Karl Karlovich left the company and bought the factory of Jakob Becker's longstanding main competitor in Saint Petersburg. In 1918 the piano factory CM Schröder was nationalized by the National Economic Council of the Northern District (Сове́ты наро́дного хозя́йства). The owners left the country. From 1926 the factory bore the name of Lunacharsky , a People's Commissar for Education in the Soviet Union (Фабрика музыкальных инструментов имени А. В. Луначарского).

A special testimony to the Schröder pianos can be found in the film Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein . A Schröder piano can be seen there in the officers ' mess, shortly before the end of the second act.

Serial numbers and cover designations

CM Schröder piano with serial number 18988 manufactured around 1900

1852 - 3000. There is evidence that in 1898 a detailed painted royal Schröder grand piano with the number 17003, donated by Nicholas II (Russia), was delivered to his wife Alexandra Feodorovna . The entire surface of this wing was covered by paintings of the Orpheus myth, painted by the artist Ernst Friedrich von Liphart , later chief curator of the Hermitage . From 1875 the pianos and grand pianos counted with the numbers of the 3000 series. The 6,000th piano was manufactured from 1880, the 9,000th from 1890, the 17,000th from 1898, the 19,000th from 1901, the 29,000th from 1910, the 34,000th from 1915. Despite the Russification in the Tsarist Empire, the names in the lid above the keyboard were always kept in German spelling until production was discontinued. That is why many pianos from that time in Petersburg bear German names such as Diderichs, Mühlbach , Becker, Tresselt or Lichtenthal .

Awards

  • 1839: the silver medal at the Petersburg industrial exhibition.
  • Since 1867: purveyor to the court of the tsars, appointment as a supplier to the imperial fräuleininstitut.
  • 1865: a silver medal at the Petersburg industrial exhibition
  • 1861: the honorary diploma
  • 1865: the silver medal at the Moscow Industrial Exhibition
  • 1870: the highest award at the General Russian Exhibition, the wings were allowed to bear the tsarist imperial coat of arms.
  • 1870: a medal for meritorious achievement at the international exhibition in Kassel.
  • 1872: the large gold medal at the Moscow polytechnic exhibition
  • 1872: The only award given at the International Exhibition in London, the Honorary Diploma of Competitive Authority
  • 1878: A Schröder piano won the Grand Prix at the World Industrial Exhibition in Paris, and Schröder himself was accepted into the Legion of Honor
  • June 1880: Knight of the Legion of Honor, title "Supplier to His Majesty's Court."

swell

  • Martha Novak Clinkscale: Makers of the piano. Vol. 2: 1820-1860. Clarendon, Oxford 1999, ISBN 0-19-816625-7 , p. 335.
  • Anne Swartz: Piano Makers in Russia in the Nineteenth Century. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, ISBN 978-1-61146-158-9 , p. 28.
  • Sergeev MV Fortepiannyy master Johann Friedrich Schröder (1785-1852): K 200-letiyu osnovaniya firmy "CM Schröder" [Piano Maker Johann Friedrich Schröder (1785-1852): 200th Anniversary of The Piano Company "CM Schröder"]. Muzykovedenie [Musicology]. 2016. № 9. P. 43-49.
  • Sergeev MV Fortepiannaya firma "CM Schröder" v 1852-1889 gg. V poiskakh sovershennogo instrumenta i vseobshchego priznaniya ["CM Schröder" Piano Company to Seek The Perfect Piano and Generally Recognition During 1852-1889]. Muzykovedenie [Musicology]. 2017. № 3. P. 22-33.
  • Sergeev MV Utrachennaya zhemchuzhina russkoy muzykalnoy kultury: firma "CM Schröder" v poslednie gody deyatelnosti (1885-1918) [A Lost Pearl of The Russian Musical Culture: The "CM Schröder" Piano Building Company in Its Later Years (1885-1918)] . Muzykovedenie [Musicology]. 2019. № 4. P. 10-20.
  1. ^ Sergeev MV Fortepiannyy master Johann Friedrich Schröder (1785-1852): K 200-letiyu osnovaniya firmy "CM Schröder" [Piano Maker Johann Friedrich Schröder (1785-1852): 200th Anniversary of The Piano Company "CM Schröder"]. Muzykovedenie [Musicology]. 2016. № 9. P. 43-49.
  2. ^ A b Sergeev MV Fortepiannaya firma "CM Schröder" v 1852-1889 gg. V poiskakh sovershennogo instrumenta i vseobshchego priznaniya ["CM Schröder" Piano Company to Seek The Perfect Piano and Generally Recognition During 1852-1889]. Muzykovedenie [Musicology]. 2017. № 3. P. 22-33.
  3. ↑ a b Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: Handbook of the highest court and the court of his K. and K. Apostolic Majesty ... KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei., 1903 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  4. ↑ Sergeev MV Utrachennaya zhemchuzhina russkoy muzykalnoy kultury: company "CM Schröder" v poslednie gody deyatelnosti (1885-1918) [A Lost Pearl of The Russian Musical Culture: The "CM Schröder" Piano Building Company in Its Later Years (1885-1918) ]. Muzykovedenie [Musicology]. 2019. № 4. P. 10-20.