Helmuth Kranich
1833-1902 · German (Thuringian), later American
Biography
Helmuth Kranich was born August 22, 1833, in Gross-Breitenbach, Thuringia, Germany, the son of a church organist skilled with tools. Apprenticed to a piano maker as a boy, he emigrated to New York in 1851 with his younger brother Alvin. He worked at Bacon and Raven, then Schomacker of Philadelphia, and from 1859 at Steinway and Sons, specializing in tone regulating. In 1864 he joined sixteen other piano makers in forming the co-operative New York Pianoforte Company, but in July 1866 led six members in withdrawing to found Kranich, Bach and Company with Jacques Bach. Sentimental and modest, Kranich handled the musical/artistic side of the business (tone creation) while Bach managed sales and woodworking, a partnership the author calls ideal. Frugal and careful, the two men built a fortune and a firm noted for loyal representatives. Kranich died in 1902, eight years after his partner Bach, having built the firm from a struggling breakaway into a major manufacturer. From Spillane (1890): H. Kranich was born in Germany and was a practical piano-maker skilled in a special department of the trade. In 1864 he co-founded Kranich & Bach with J. Bach; the firm's unpretentious beginnings had, by around 1875, grown into a steadily established manufacturing business that continued to progress uniformly thereafter.
Highlights
- Co-founded Kranich, Bach and Company in 1866 after breaking away from the co-operative New York Pianoforte Company
- Worked in the higher branches, especially tone regulating, at Steinway and Sons before starting his own firm
- His son Frederick later invented the 'Isotonic' pedal and the 'Violyn' plate
- Co-founded Kranich & Bach in 1864 with J. Bach.
Sources
Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. II (1913), pp. 123, 124, 125.
Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), p. 250.
Public domain.