on a modern piano and the descent of the key was only about one half as much. Thus
playing the Viennese fortepiano involved nothing like the athleticism exercised by
modern piano virtuosos but did require exquisite sensitivity of touch.
Stein put the wood used in his instruments through a very severe weathering process.
This included making cracks in the wood into which he would then insert wedges. This
gave his instruments a long life, on which Mozart commented, and there are several
instruments still surviving today.
Another important Viennese builder was Anton Walter, a friend of Mozart, who built
instruments with a more powerful sound than Stein’s. Mozart admired the Stein
fortepianos, as his 1777 letter makes clear, but his own piano was by Walter. The
fortepianos of Stein and Walter are widely used today as models for the construction of
new fortepianos.
Stein’s fortepiano business was carried on in Vienna by his daughter Nannette Streicher,
along with her husband Johann Andreas Streicher. The two were friends of Beethoven
and one of Beethoven’s pianos was a Streicher.
Later on in the early nineteenth century more robust instruments with greater range were
built in Vienna. The Streicher firm, for example, continued through two more
generations of Streichers. Another important builder in this period was Conrad Graf who
made Beethoven’s last piano. Graf was one of the first Viennese makers to build pianos
in quantity as a large business enterprise.
The English fortepiano had a humble origin in the work of Johann Cristoph Zumpe, a
maker who had emigrated from Germany and worked for a while in the workshop of the
great harpsichord maker Burkat Shudi. Starting in the middle to late 1760s, Zumpe made
inexpensive square pianos that had a very simple action, lacking an escapement,
sometimes known as the ‘old man’s head’. Although hardly a technological
advancement in the fortepiano, Zumpe’s instruments proved very popular (they were
imitated outside of England) and played a major role in the displacement of the
harpsichord by the piano. These square pianos were also the medium of the first public
performances on the instrument, notably by Johann Christian Bach.
Americus Backers, with John Broadwood and Robert Stodart, two of Shudi’s workmen,
produced a more advanced action than Zumpe’s. This ‘English Grand action’ with an
escapement and check enabled a louder, more robust sound than the Viennese one,
though it required a deeper touch and was less sensitive. The early English grand pianos
by these builders physically resembled Shudi harpsichords which were very imposing,
with elegant, restrained veneer work on the exterior. Unlike contemporary Viennese
instruments, English grand fortepianos had three strings per note rather then two.
John Broadwood married the master’s daughter, Barbara Shudi, in 1769 and ultimately
took over and renamed the Shudi firm. The Broadwood company, which survives to this