The German Gotha Steck piano
By Dan Wilson
I've just had a long-standing question answered. Some time after the Aeolian Co. acquired the George Steck piano company in the United States, they started making Stecks not only in England (mainly run-of-the-mill but solid pianos with, maybe one in six very good by accident) but in Germany, at Gotha. These German Stecks were nearly always quite outstanding pianos, having a subtlety to their tone worthy of much more famous makes. They were supplied in England by the bigger Orchestrelle Co. dealers along with the English Steck (but not the American) up until the Great War when we can assume the works were sequestrated as for German assets in England. The bigger grands are like Bluthners crossed with Steinways.
It was quite obvious that no one could make a piano like the Gotha Steck without having been at it many years, so evidently Aeolian had simply bought up another piano firm. The question is, which, and when ? Denis Hall here has a gorgeous 1915 Gotha grand (we think bought by mail order direct from the Choralion Co. in Berlin by German South Africans), and when I raised this question, he referred me silently to the (London) Player-Piano Group's Bulletin for June 1995, which has a run of seminal Pianola ads 1905-1908 reproduced in it. In the Nov. 1905 ad we find:
> The Pianola Piano (Broadwood Piano). The Broadwood Piano needs no
> eulogy from us. It is the representative English piano and has ever
> held a high place in piano art.
> The Pianola Piano (Munck Piano). Many people prefer the tone of German
> Pianos to any other, and for that reason we have secured control of the
> whole output of Ernst Munck, Gotha. These pianos rank with the best
> instruments of any firm, and are fully guaranteed.
> The Pianola Piano (Weber Piano). The interests of the celebrated Weber
> Piano Company, of America, have now been secured by the manufacturers of
> the Pianola. The Weber Piano ranks as one of the finest products of
> American genius, and is one of the very highest grade. It is the
> leading American piano.
(So much for Steinway, Knabe, Chickering, Mason & Hamlin, etc., etc. !)
I have seen Feuerich, Kapp, Ibach, Lammermann and Schiedmayer pianos in England but never a Munck, and I wonder:
a) After acquisition by Aeolian, did the Gotha factory sell its pianos in Germany as Muncks or Stecks or both ?
b) What happened in Gotha after 1914 ?
As a footnote, Themodist-Metrostyle rolls were made in Germany for Choralion during WW1 by SM (the EMP subsidiary). The labels are typical SM labels but with the appropriate Aeolian stock number. Choralion originally imported rolls from London (there was a magnificent tutorial series numbered B500 up - B for Berlin - with all the markings from the sheet music replicated in detail on the roll) but had been cutting local-interest rolls from around 1908 on. Presumably they didn't have the capacity to do all the London titles as well when WW1 started. Maybe they imported from America between 1914 and 1917 ?
Dan Wilson
[ Editor's note:
[
[ Thanks for the fine report, Dan. My new map of Germany shows that
[ there is a nice museum in Gotha, the Schloss Friedenstein Museen, and
[ which may hold a history of the industry of the city. Perhaps our
[ member Gerhard Dangel-Reese, at Augustiner Museum, Freiburg, could
[ inquire about the Ernst Munck piano company of Gotha.
[
[ Robbie
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