Sohmer & Co.

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Trademark of Sohmer & Co.

Sohmer & Co . was a piano manufacturer founded in New York in 1872 by Hugo Sohmer and Joseph Kuder. Sohmer & Co. built the first modern baby grand piano and built pianos aliquot and clasps in the webs, and the automatic pianos of Cecilian brand and under license from Welte-Mignon - reproduction pianos . The US President Calvin Coolidge and the composers Victor Herbert and Irving Berlin owned Sohmer instruments. Today Sohmer is a product line from the South Korean manufacturer Samick .

history

Hugo Sohmer (1845–1913) came from Dunningen , a place near Rottweil at the foot of the Black Forest . He received training in literature and science as well as in music and piano making. In 1863 he emigrated to New York , where he worked for the piano maker Schuetze & Ludolff's. He then spent two years in Europe to further his training as a piano maker and returned to New York in 1870.

In 1872 he founded Sohmer & Company in partnership with Joseph Kuder (April 26, 1831 - July 24, 1913), a piano maker from Vienna who had worked in New York since 1853, first for Steinway & Sons and later as a foreman at Lighte, Newton & Bradburys, then at Marschall & Mittauer and also for their successor JH Boernhoeft.

Sohmer factory in Long Island City

Sohmer & Co. made and sold pianos at Marschall & Mittauer's former address at 149 East 14th Street. The company expanded to 155 East 14th Street and from 1879 occupied sales rooms in Brooklyn . In 1883 the company moved to 143 East 23rd Street , with everything but the storefront , in a building that had previously been used to manufacture Carhart & Needham reed organs. In 1885 the factory was opened on the corner of 14th St. and 3rd Ave. rebuilt according to plans by Berger & Baylies. In 1886 a large waterfront property on Jamaica Avenue, Long Island, near the new Steinway & Sons factory was purchased. A six-story factory was built there, also based on plans by Berger & Baylies. The factory was increased by a further six floors in 1907. In 1919, a six-story office building and retail space was built at 31 West 57th Street, New York's “Piano Row”.

Sohmer advertised his pianinos and table pianos at the 1876 ​​World's Fair in Philadelphia , the Centennial International Exhibition . Sohmers instruments received a 1st prize and an honorary diploma there. Sohmer then showed these medals on the instruments, although the award system led to considerable public discussion, the so-called "piano wars" on the east coast of the USA. Sohmer also advertised First Prizes, which were achieved in Montreal in 1881 and 1882.

Hugo Sohmer marketed the first modern Bijou or Baby Grand grand pianos ( baby grand pianos, or more specifically bell pianos), which he patented with a symmetrical housing design in 1884. “Only five feet long, these grand pianos!” Were advertised as “the smallest grand pianos ever produced”, but should “have great power and a great volume of sound, along with long-lasting sound quality and elastic touch that are otherwise only found on concert grand pianos . “In 1882, the company also patented improvements to the clasp fastenings and the keyboard. In 1887 an agraffe for quadruple strings according to a "reverbation scale" and a pianissimo pedal were patented by pianinos, as well as in 1890 bridge agraffes.

Harry J. Sohmer succeeded his father as President in 1913. In 1940 he renamed the company into a corporation. In 1971 he was followed by his sons Harry J. Sohmer Jr. as President and Robert H. Sohmer as Commercial and Finance Director. The Sohmer brothers sold the company in 1982 to Pratt, Read & Co., the largest American manufacturer of piano action and keyboards in Ivoryton, Connecticut . The Sohmer brothers initially stayed with the company, but were then replaced as managers by Dave Campbell.

Changes after the sale by the Sohmer family

In 1985 Sohmer & Co. bought Mason & Hamlin and the trademark rights to Wm. Knabe & Co. and the equipment of the bankrupt Aeolian Corporation. In 1986 Pratt, Read & Co. sold Sohmer Holding Co. to a group of investors led by Robert MacNeil. Production moved to a new factory in Elysburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1989 MacNeil sold Sohmer & Co., which now included Mason & Hamlin, Knabe and George Steck, to Bernard G. Greer, who held a significant stake in Falcone Piano Co. Lloyd W. Meyer, a former CEO of Steinway & Sons, was responsible for reorganizing both companies.

In 1996, Kirk and Mark Burgett for Music Systems Research of Sacramento , California , manufacturers of the PianoDisc game system, bought Sohmer as part of the bankruptcy of Mason & Hamlin's assets.

Sohmer pianos are now manufactured in Korea by the Samick Music Corporation, which manufactures the brands Samick and also Wm. Knabe & Co., Kohler & Campbell and the Remington pianos.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sohmer & Co. Records, 1872-1989
  2. ↑ obituary New York Times July 26, 1913, p.7
  3. ^ Daniel Spillane: History of the American Pianoforte. D. Spillane, New York, 1890. p. 255
  4. ^ Daniel Spillane: History of the American Pianoforte. D. Spillane, New York, 1890. p. 254
  5. ↑ estimated at $ 10,000. The American Architect and Building News, vol. XVII. no.283, March 21, 1885
  6. ↑ estimated $ 100,000. The Manufacturer and Builder, 1886
  7. ^ International Exhibition, 1876. Official Catalog, John Nagle & Co., Philadelphia, 1876. p262
  8. ^ Richard K. Lieberman: Steinway & Sons. Yale University Press, 1995. Steinway & Sons in America's Centennial Year. Pp. 60-73
  9. ^ H. Sohmer: Piano Case. United States Design Patent D15,250, August 12, 1884
  10. ↑ advertisement, John Frost, ed. History of the State of California . Hurst & Co., New York, n. D. (around 1885)
  11. ^ "Merit and Enterprise," New York Times , Jan. 1, 1886
  12. ^ H. Sohmer: Agraffe Bar for Pianos. United States Patent 268,562 December 5, 1882; H. Sohmer: Piano Action. United States Patent 268,563. December 5, 1882; H. Sohmer: Piano-forte. United States Patent 358,946, March 8, 1887; Peter Weber: Pianissimo Pedal for Piano. United States Patent 357,436, February 8, 1887; P. Weber: Stringing pianos. United States Patent 438,393, October 14, 1890.
  13. ^ Larry Fine: The Piano Book. Brookside Press, Boston. 1987 p. 100
  14. ^ Leslie Brokaw: Sour Notes. Inc. Jan 1990

literature

  • Larry Fine: The Piano Book, 4th edition. Brookside Press, Massachusetts, 2001. ISBN 1-929145-02-0
  • Christopher Gray: The Sohmer Piano Factory. The New York Times, October 28, 1990
  • Arthur Loesser: Men, Women and Pianos. Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1954 ISBN 0-486-26543-9
  • George von Skal: History of German Immigration in the United States and Successful German-Americans and their Descendants. Frederick T. Smiley, New York, 1908, pp. 127, 164 (Hugo Sohmer).

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