Anton Walter
Gabriel Anton Walter (5 February 1752 – 11 April 1826) was a Viennese piano builder. [1]
Born in Neuhausen auf den Fildern in Germany, Walter moved to Vienna in 1780.[2] In 1790 he obtained the status of Imperial Royal Chamber Organ Builder and Instrument Maker. His firm was employing about 20 craftsmen and was labeled "Anton Walter und Sohn" ("and son").[3] Walter improved the Viennese piano mechanic design that was created by Johann Andreas Stein in Augsburg.[3] The most famous composers of those times had pianos from Walter, among them were Ludwig van Beethoven,[4][5] Joseph Haydn[6] and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Last bought Walter's piano in 1782 and was using it in an important phase of his career.[7] Mozart's own piano that was built by Walter survived till the XXI century and now is kept in Salzburg.
Anton Walter Media
- Anton Walter by Friedrich Gauermann Wien SAM 501.jpg
Anton Walter. Oil painting by Friedrich Gauermann, 1825 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)
- Mozart's piano.JPG
Mozart's Walter, on display in the main hall of the Tanzmeisterhaus, where the Mozart family lived in Salzburg after 1773. The location (now a Mozart museum) is ahistorical; during his lifetime Mozart kept the instrument in his adopted city of Vienna.
- FortepianoByMcNultyAfterWalter1805.jpg
Fortepiano by Paul McNulty, based on a historical instrument by Walter & Sohn, 1805
References
- ↑ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers at line 630: attempt to index field 'known_free_doi_registrants_t' (a nil value).
- ↑ Latcham, Michael (1997) "Mozart and the pianos of Gabriel Anton Walter." Early Music 25(3):383–400.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Latcham, Michael (2009) "Anton Walter". Article in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, online edition. Oxford University Press.
- ↑ Carl Czerny, Über den richtigen Vertrag der sämtlichen Beethovenschen Klavierwerke (Vienna 1963), ed. Paul Badura-Skoda p.10
- ↑ Ludwig van Beethoven, Brief an Nikolaus Zmeskall, Wien, November 1802, Autograph
- ↑ Mozart and the Pianos of Gabriel Anton Walter. Author(s): Michael Latcham. Source: Early Music , Aug., 1997, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Aug., 1997), pp. 382-400 Published by: Oxford University Press
- ↑ Translated from the original German in Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ed. Wilhelm A. Bauer and Otto Erich Deutsch (Kassel, 1963), Vol. III.