Building bridges – Christian Friedrich Theodor Steinweg (1825–1889) | Partnerships

Thanks to new financial opportunities, Theodor Steinweg (1825–1889) and Friedrich Grotrian (1803–1860) bought a house in Braunschweig/Brunswick in 1859. Workshop and sales rooms moved to Bohlweg 48; where Theodor and his wife (*1834) also moved their household. Friedrich Grotrian never lived to see the upswing of the enterprise. He died shortly after the move. The company shares were inherited by his son Wilhelm (1843–1917), who was absolving a commercial apprenticeship in Bremen at the time. Due to the passing of his father, he moved back home and finished his apprenticeship with Theodor Steinweg.

Theodor was an inventor. He read everything he could get his hands on that was useful – directly or indirectly – in terms of piano making: Writings by Isaac Newton (1643–1727), Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), and others. He experimented a lot and was in intensive exchange with his family in New York, especially with his equally technically adept brother Henry jr. (1831–1865). Individual components and sometimes even entire instruments were regularly sent to the other side of the Atlantic for testing, or as samples for further use. 

The Braunschweig workshop flourished. Until 1865, the number of employees grew to 40. Square pianos, grand pianos and uprights were produced. Theodor wished to establish uprights also more for the American market. However, consumers were so unfamiliar with this type of piano that Theodor initially found it difficult to convince his family.

Upright
The first upright, also called pianino, was produced around 1800 by John Isaac Hawkins (1799–1845) in Philadelphia (USA) and Matthias Müller (1769–1844) in Vienna. The advantages of the instruments were space savings and the lower sales price compared to a grand piano: Even less affluent people with smaller apartments could afford such an instrument. In the second half of the 19th century, the upright increasingly replaced the square piano