Albert Weber

Biography

Albert Weber built a leading New York piano manufacturing business, expanding aggressively; in 1869 he opened warerooms at Fifth Avenue and Sixteenth Street, a bold move that helped establish the area as a center of fashionable trade. Though not an inventor, Weber was a skilled pianist and demanding craftsman who insisted on the best workmen and materials, producing pianos noted for their 'Weber tone' and favored by many virtuosos and opera singers for their sympathetic quality. A gifted entertainer with a quick wit, he was remembered for anecdotes such as defusing a workmen's strike with a joke about demanding free Saturday afternoons for tenpins, the bosses to pay for the beer. His refusal to delegate the mounting responsibilities of his growing factory, wholesale and retail departments, and finances, combined with a taste for New York's nightlife, wore on his health. He died on June 25, 1879, at age 50. His name and business were carried on by the Weber Piano Company, later affiliated with the Aeolian Company, which built a factory in London to meet growing foreign demand. Albert Weber was born in Bavaria on July 8, 1828, and landed in New York at age 16 with a liberal education and a good knowledge of music, playing the organ efficiently. Attracted to piano making, he apprenticed with Master Holden of New York and later worked in the celebrated shop of Van Winkle, paying his board by giving evening music lessons and playing organ at church on Sundays. At 23 he started his own piano business with very small capital. A fire destroyed his shop in the third year of the venture, but undaunted, he rented much larger quarters and continued building the business, which Dolge treats as an example of genius rising from the lowest rung of the ladder to become a prominent manufacturer, accomplished musician, and figure of social influence. Albert Weber was a piano maker referenced twice in this text. Early in his career he took a 'post-graduate' course in the same workshop where Myron A. Decker served his apprenticeship, around the time Decker began his own training. Later, following Weber's death, his piano business was acquired in 1892 by William E. Wheelock and his partners, Charles B. Lawson and John W. Mason, who used it as the foundation for the newly organized Weber Piano Company, one of several merchantable piano grades their combined enterprise then offered. Albert Weber is named by Dolge, alongside William Steinway, as one of the exceptions among the piano makers of the pre-1870 era. Dolge states that while most piano makers of that time were far better craftsmen than businessmen, valuing the glory of piano construction above financial success, Weber and Steinway stood apart. No further biographical detail is given in this passage. Albert Weber is credited with coining the term "baby grand" for the short grand piano, a name Dolge notes in discussing the short grand as likely "the instrument of the future," filling demand among music lovers who neither require nor desire the bulky concert grand. Albert Weber took on J. Frank Conover as an apprentice for three years, for which Conover paid $300, training him directly in the piano trade. Conover subsequently spent five years selling Weber and other pianos throughout the Southern states before founding his own firm. From Spillane (1890): Albert Weber, Sr. was born in Bavaria in 1829 and landed in the United States at age sixteen. He learned piano-making in the shop of Holder and later worked for Van Winkle, meanwhile mastering English and becoming a good musician in his spare time. He founded the house of Weber in 1852, beginning on White Street before moving to West Broadway; burned out two years into the business, he rebuilt and established a five-story marble-faced factory at Broome and Crosby streets. Working almost entirely alone, without partner or relative (his son being still a schoolboy), Weber built the firm through liberal advertising and an aggressive but strictly honorable business policy. In 1869 he opened Weber's Fifth Avenue and Sixteenth Street warerooms, correctly anticipating that the retail piano trade would move uptown; Chickering Hall and other houses followed his lead. He personally coined the term 'Baby Grand.' He died June 25, 1879, leaving the business to his son, Albert Weber, Jr. A portrait of Weber appears on a plate page in this section. Albert Weber, Sr., founder of the piano firm bearing his name, worked as a fellow craftsman alongside Myron A. Decker in Van Winkle's New York shop. In 1849 he went to Albany to work for Boardman & Gray, where he built a reputation as a skilled piano maker, before leaving to establish his own business.

Highlights

• Baptized the short grand piano the "baby grand"
• Named by Dolge, along with William Steinway, as one of the rare piano makers of the era who combined craftsmanship with strong business sense
• Born in Bavaria July 8, 1828; arrived in New York at 16, worked as a musician (organ) to support himself while apprenticing under Master Holden and later Van Winkle.
• Started his own piano business at age 23 with very small capital; fire destroyed his shop in its third year, but he rented larger quarters and rebuilt.
• Dolge frames his career as an example of genius rising from humble beginnings to a prominent, socially influential manufacturing career.
• In 1869 opened warerooms at Fifth Avenue and Sixteenth Street, a bold move that helped establish the area as a fashionable trade center
• Renowned for the distinctive 'Weber tone,' achieved through master workmen and his own musically trained ear
• Defused a workmen's strike over wages and hours with a joke about demanding free Saturday afternoons for tenpins
• Took a 'post-graduate' course in the same shop where Myron A. Decker served his apprenticeship
• After his death, his piano business was acquired in 1892 and used to form the Weber Piano Company
• Trained J. Frank Conover as a paying apprentice ($300 for three years) in piano building.
• His pianos were subsequently sold by Conover across the Southern United States.
• Personally trained J. Frank Conover in the art of piano-making at the request of Garret Conover
• Founded the house of Weber in 1852 and built it into a leading New York piano manufacturer
• Opened the Fifth Avenue and Sixteenth Street warerooms in 1869, anticipating the uptown shift of the retail piano trade (Chickering Hall followed soon after)
• Coined the term 'Baby Grand,' which became standard trade nomenclature
• Fellow-workman of Myron A. Decker in Van Winkle's shop
• Worked for Boardman & Gray in Albany from 1849 before founding his own firm

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), pp. 296, 297, 299, 317, 326; Vol. II (1913), p. 59.

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 238.

Public domain.