![FortepianoJAStein](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/FortepianoJAStein.JPG)
Johann (Georg) Andreas Stein (16 May 1728 in
Heidelsheim – 29 February 1792 in
Augsburg
Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
) was an outstanding German maker of keyboard instruments, a central figure in the history of the
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
. He was primarily responsible for the design of the so-called German hammer action. Pianos with this hammer action, or its more developed form known as the Viennese action, may be said to be appropriate for the performance of the piano music of
Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...
,
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
, and the early
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
.
[Grove, "Stein"]
Life
Stein was born in 1728 in Heidelsheim in the Upper Palatinate. He died in Augsburg in 1792. He learned his trade as an organ builder from his father in Heidelsheim and from August 1748 to January 1749 as a journeyman at two workshops, those of
Johann Andreas Silbermann
Johann Andreas Silbermann, also known as Jean-André Silbermann (26 June 1712, in Strasbourg – 11 February 1783, in Strasbourg) was an 18th-century organ-builder, as were his father Andreas Silbermann and his paternal uncle Gottfried Silbermann ...
in Strasbourg and of
Frantz Jacob Spath in
Regensburg
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...
. Johann Andreas Silbermann was the eldest of the four sons of
Andreas Silbermann
Andreas Silbermann (16 May 1678 – 16 March 1734) was a German organ builder, who was involved in the construction of 35 organs, mostly in Alsace. Andreas also established the Silbermann family tradition of organ building, training his brother Go ...
, the elder brother of
Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – August 4, 1753) was a German builder of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.
Life
Very little is know ...
. Stein settled in
Augsburg
Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
, probably in 1750 and became a citizen in 1756 or 1757, the latter the year in which he completed his magnificent organ for the so-called Barfüßerkirche in Augsburg. In the same year he became organist at the church. According to a letter he wrote, he gave up organ building in the 1760s in order to devote himself to stringed keyboard instruments. His first contact with piano making may have occurred in the Spath workshop, not in the Silbermann workshop.
As a stringed keyboard instrument maker Stein built clavichords, harpsichords and pianos. He also built some more extraordinary keyboard instruments including the "Poli-Toni-Clavichordium" (described in the Augsburg Intelligenzblatt in 1769) that combined a large
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
having four choirs of strings (
registration
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), th ...
8', 8', 8', 16') with a piano. He also built (1772) the "Melodica," a small organ in which the player's touch could alter volume; this melody instrument could be used with a harpsichord or a piano or on a separate manual of an organ or simply as a solo instrument. The importance of the Melodica, of which Stein may only have made a few prototypes, lies in Stein's own 1772 description. In that published description he expressed his dissatisfaction with keyboard instruments in general because they did not allow of expressivity in the manner of the human voice, the violin and the trombone. The 1769 description of the expressive possibilities of the Poli-Tono-Clavichordium nonetheless shows Stein's confidence in stringed keyboard instruments that in the end led him to the invention of his so-called German hammer action shortly before 1780. He also built "vis-à-vis" instruments with a piano and a harpsichord facing one another in a single case. In both the surviving examples (Verona 1777, Naples 1783), the player of the harpsichord (8', 8', 8', 16' in Verona, 8' quill, 8' leather, 4' quill in Naples) can also couple the piano action at the other end on one of the harpsichord keyboards. The Verona instrument has hand stops for engaging and disengaging the stops, in the manner of an organ or a German harpsichord, whereas the Naples instrument has knee levers in the manner of French harpsichords. Stein travelled twice to Paris and once to Vienna. He also made trips to other cities in Germany and Switzerland to deliver instruments as evidenced in his notebook. The hammer action in the 1777 Vis-à-vis is unique in Stein's oeuvre, that in the 1783 Vis-à-vis is Stein's so-called German action. Two clavichords by Stein survive, one of them, now in the Budapest National Museum, was bought by Leopold Mozart for practising while travelling. One instrument combining a piano and a single rank of organ pipes survives in Gothenburg’s Historical Museum. About fifteen Hammerflügel (wing-shaped pianos) bearing Stein's label survive, ranging in date from 1780 to 1794 (sic). The making of those of after about 1790 would have been supervised by Nannette, Stein's daughter. Of the fifteen, two are privately owned (1782 and 1783). The instrument shown above is not by Stein but probably by Louis Dulcken. Apart from the music desk, typical of Dulcken's work, the instrument has the appearance of a piano by Stein. Many such instruments built after Stein, some with fake labels, exist.
His contributions to the piano
The ''Prellmechanik'' action
Stein's most important innovation, his piano action, was perfected around 1780. This is the so-called ''Prellzungenmechanik'' or German action with an escapement mechanism. In this arrangement, each hammer was mounted on top of the key, with the head on the end closer to the player, a traditional arrangement in German pianos of Stein's day. The hammers were like small, asymmetrical levers, with the hammer head far from the fulcrum, and a small upward-facing hook ("beak") on the other side of the lever, much closer to the fulcrum. When the player depressed the key, the whole hammer assembly would rise. The beak would engage an escapement hopper attached to the keyframe. The escapement hopper pulled down on the beak as it rose, in turn causing the hammer (the other end of the lever) to fly upward and strike the string. The escapement hopper was hinged and sprung; this permitted the beak to push past it as the key sank back to rest position.
![Britannica Pianoforte Stein Action](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Britannica_Pianoforte_Stein_Action.png)
Latcham (see Grove reference below) calls this invention "a breakthrough in the piano's history;" it "offer
dthe player a remarkable control of the hammers, especially when playing softly, and
a astonishingly responsive to the player’s touch."
Damper control
Stein may have been the first to produce a knee lever for the dampers, the forerunner of the
damper pedal
A sustain pedal or sustaining pedal (also called damper pedal, loud pedal, or open pedal) is the most commonly used pedal in a modern piano. It is typically the rightmost of two or three pedals. When pressed, the sustain pedal "sustains" all ...
using which the player can disengage all the dampers from the strings. Such a device had been devised by
Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – August 4, 1753) was a German builder of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.
Life
Very little is know ...
in the 1740s for his wing-shaped pianos but it was operated by two hand levers and required the use of the player's hands to work them, and thus could only be deployed during pauses in the music. Stein's device was controlled by a knee lever. Stein's device is mentioned in the 1769 description of his Poly-Toni-Clavichordium. It is clear from the description however that Stein's 1769 knee lever, when pressed in, engaged the dampers; it did not disengage them. Playing pianos without the dampers, using a knee lever to engage the dampers when required was not unusual at the time. Stein's later pianos, starting with the one described by Mozart in 1777, had a knee lever for disengaging all the dampers at once, permitting the equivalent of modern piano pedaling
Stein's acquaintance with Mozart
Mozart visited and befriended Stein in Augsburg in 1777, during the (unsuccessful) job-hunting tour that took him also to
Mannheim
Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. The enthusiastic letter that Mozart wrote to his father
Leopold
Leopold may refer to:
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* Leopold (given name)
* Leopold (surname)
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* Leopold (''The Simpsons''), Superintendent Chalmers' assistant on ''The Simpsons''
* Leopold Bloom, the protagonist o ...
is informative concerning Stein and Mozart's own preferences in pianos.
The letter is very widely quoted. The following translation, by
Emily Anderson
Emily Anderson, OBE (March 1891 – October 1962) was an Irish scholar of German and a music historian who worked in the British Foreign Office during WWII.
She was born in Galway, Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an ...
, is taken from Broder 1941:
This time I shall begin at once with Stein's pianofortes. Before I had seen any of his make, Späth's claviers had always been my favourites. But now I much prefer Stein's, for they damp ever so much better than the Regensburg
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...
instruments. ... In whatever way I touch the keys, the tone is always even. It never jars, it is never stronger or weaker or entirely absent; in a word, it is always even. It is true that he does not sell a pianoforte of this kind for less than three hundred gulden, but the trouble and the labour which Stein puts into the making of it cannot be paid for. His instruments have this special advantage over others that they are made with escape action. Only one maker in a hundred bothers about this. But without an escapement it is impossible to avoid jangling and vibration after the note is struck. When you touch the keys, the hammers fall back again the moment after they have struck the strings, whether you hold down the keys or release them ... He guarantees that the sounding-board will neither break nor split. When he has finished making one for a clavier, he places it in the open air, exposing it to rain, snow, the heat of the sun and all the devils in order that it may crack. Then he inserts wedges and glues them in to make the instrument very strong and firm. He is delighted when it cracks, for he can then be sure that nothing more can happen to it. Indeed he often cuts into it himself and then glues it together again and strengthens it in this way ... The device too which you work with your knee is better on his than on other instruments. I have only to touch it and it works; and when you shift your knee the slightest bit, you do not hear the least reverberation.'
This letter dates from before the oldest-known piano (1780) by Stein with his German action. The only piano by Stein of before 1780 is the piano in the 1777 Vis-à-vis in Verona. That piano has a different type of hammer action, but also one with an escapement mechanism for the hammers. It may have been this earlier action that impressed Mozart.
During the years following his move to Vienna (1781), Mozart bought a piano, not from Stein, but from
Anton Walter
Gabriel Anton Walter (5 February 1752 – 11 April 1826) was a builder of pianos. The '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' describes him as "the most famous Viennese piano maker of his time".Latcham (2009)
Life
Walter was born in Neuha ...
, a Viennese builder who followed Stein's design principles but may be said to have improved them. It is not known whether Mozart actually preferred Walter's pianos to Stein's. Mozart probably bought his piano by Walter in 1782. The instrument still exists but with a hammer action that has almost certainly been changed by Walter after Mozart's death, perhaps in about 1805. The type of hammer action the Mozart piano had when Mozart owned it is not known. Walter probably first made his developed form of Stein's hammer action in about 1789.
The Stein piano dynasty
Stein was the founder of an important piano-making dynasty. His daughter
Nannette (Augsburg, 1769 - Vienna 1833) appears to have taken on the leadership of her father's firm in about 1790 when her father had become too ill to continue. In 1794, Nannette, together with her husband Andreas Streicher (1761–1833), who she married in the same year, and her brother Matthäus Stein (1776–1842), moved her family’s piano-making firm from Augsburg, where it was founded by her father, to Vienna, and continued the family business under her husband's name, Streicher. In the Autumn of 1802 the siblings, who inscribed their instruments with the name Frère et Sœur Stein in Wien, separated; Nannette then inscribed her instruments Nannette Streicher née Stein in Wien. Some innovations were made in about 1805 but by 1807 she had developed her father’s small five-octave piano, shaped like a harpsichord, into an impressive grand piano of six-and-a-half octaves. Some more improvements were made by 1811, but after that date her design was maintained largely unchanged until Johann Baptist Streicher (1796–1871), her son, became joint owner of the firm with his mother in 1823. The firm continued after Nannette’s death under her son and after his death in 1871, under his son Emil. Emil’s son, the composer Theodor Streicher, owned the Hammerflügel of 1808 by Nannette Streicher in the collection of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (inv. no. MIR 1117). In 1896 the firm ceased production, just over one hundred years after the move to Vienna. Meanwhile, after the separation of the siblings, Nannette's brother, known as André Stein, also continued to build pianos. In 1796 André married Maria Theresia Dischler (1769–1855), an event marked by a letter from Beethoven including his congratulations. The letter mentions a piano by Nannette Streicher that he had on loan for an Accademie. The letter suggests that the sound of the instrument was too weak for Beethoven's needs. André Stein obtained his citizenship of Vienna and became a master piano maker there in 1803. Despite Andreas Streicher’s adverse comments (mostly of a personal nature to do with André Stein’s reputedly difficult character), André Stein made fine instruments and developed an individual style thought by some to exceed that of his sister Nannette; he flourished in the 1820s. In 1828 Friedrich Wieck (1785–1873) acquired a Hammerflügel by André Stein for his daughter Clara (1819–1896); she later married Robert Schumann; her instrument by Stein is preserved today in the Robert Schumann House in Zwickau, and is pictured on the German DM 100 banknote issued in 1989. From Beethoven’s conversation books it is clear that André Stein was well known to Beethoven and helped him not only by tuning and maintaining instruments but also by making a large horn to amplify the sound of the piano. Matthäus Andreas died in May 1842 in the Mondscheinhaus, the building bought by his only son Carl Andreas Stein (1797–1863) from the renowned piano maker Conrad Graf (1782–1851) in 1841. Carl Andreas continued in his father’s footsteps as a piano maker but also made a name as a composer and as a pianist. Numerous instruments by André Stein survive; these include more than twenty Hammerflügel dating from about 1803 to at least 1838, at least 26 square pianos, probably all after 1815, and two upright Hammerflügel. Most of these pianos are in public collections.
[See: Michael Latcham, Verzeichnis der Europäischen Musikinstrumente im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg; volume 7; the pianos of Johann Andreas Stein and his descendants and the pianos of the firm of Anton Walter, Wilhelmshaven 2016]
Recordings made with replicas of instruments by Stein
*
Ronald Brautigam
Ronald Brautigam (born 1954) is a Dutch concert pianist, best known for his performances of Beethoven's piano works on the fortepiano.
Born in Amsterdam, Brautigam studied there with Jan Wijn (1971-79), then he left to study in London with John B ...
. Ludwig van Beethoven. ''Complete works for solo piano, Vol.9.'' Played on a replica of Stein piano made by Paul McNulty. Label: BIS
*
Alexei Lubimov
Alexei Lubimov (born 1944 as Алексе́й Бори́сович Люби́мов, Alexey Borisovich Lyubimov) is a Russian pianist, fortepianist and harpsichordist.
Lubimov studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Heinrich Neuhaus and Lev Nau ...
and his colleagues. Ludwig van Beethoven. ''Complete piano sonatas.'' Played on copies of Stein,
Walter
Walter may refer to:
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* Walter (name), both a surname and a given name
* Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968)
* Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...
,
Graf
(feminine: ) is a historical title of the German nobility, usually translated as "count". Considered to be intermediate among noble ranks, the title is often treated as equivalent to the British title of "earl" (whose female version is "coun ...
,
Buchholtz instruments made by Paul McNulty. Label: Moscow Conservatory Records
See also
*
Timeline of harpsichord makers
Notes
References
*Broder, Nathan (1941) "Mozart and the clavier," ''The Musical Quarterly'' 27:422.
*Good, Edwin M. (2001) ''Giraffes, black dragons, and other pianos: a technological history from Cristofori to the modern concert grand'' Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
*The ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', online version, article "Johann Andreas Stein". Copyright 2007 by Oxford University Press. The article is written by Michael Latcham. See also the same work, article "Pianoforte", section 3.
External links
Hungarian National Museum. Mozart’s clavichord made by Stein.Mozart's pianos. BBC.Stein fortepiano copy by fortepiano builder Paul McNulty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stein, Johann Andreas
1728 births
1792 deaths
German male musicians
German musical instrument makers
Piano makers
18th-century composers
18th-century German male musicians