Fred Mathushek

Biography

Fred Mathushek was a piano maker who, as a pupil of Henri Pape, carried on the pursuit of a workable downward-striking piano action after Pape's death or retirement from the effort. According to a footnote by the author, while employed by Mathushek from 1867 to 1869, Dolge himself was instructed to try to put twelve square pianos with a downward-striking action into salable condition; these instruments had been built by Mathushek and had rested in the factory attic for years. After about a week of effort, Dolge concluded the pianos were unsalvageable and suggested they be burned in the factory's steam boiler furnace, a suggestion Mathushek adopted. The anecdote is used by Dolge to illustrate the futility of the downward-striking action as a design pursued across a generation of makers. Fred Mathushek, of New Haven, is mentioned as the piano maker who employed Otto Wissner after Wissner's time with George Steck. Under Mathushek, Wissner completed his studies in scale drawing and tone regulating, experience that later informed his own piano-making business in Brooklyn.

Highlights

• Employed the author, Alfred Dolge, from 1867 to 1869
• Built twelve square pianos with a downward-striking action that could not be sold and sat in the factory attic for years
• Continued Henri Pape's pursuit of the downward-striking action as one of his pupils
• Employed Otto Wissner in New Haven, where Wissner rounded out his studies in scale drawing and tone regulating.

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), p. 85; Vol. II (1913), p. 204.

Public domain.