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. Oil painting by Friedrich Gauermann, 1825 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)
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.
Fortepiano by Paul McNulty, based on a historical instrument by Walter & Sohn, 1805
References
- ↑ Latcham, Michael (2001). "Walter, (Gabriel) Anton". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.29863. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. Retrieved 2021-07-16.
- ↑ 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.