Herman Zedwitz
German (implied by the honorific 'Herr' used for him in the text)
Biography
Herman Zedwitz was described in a 1773 New York Journal notice as a violin teacher 'just from Europe,' who advertised a concert at Hull's Assembly Rooms, at the sign of the Golden Spade. A subsequent review in the same paper praised the pianoforte accompaniment of a Mr. Hulett as 'very chaste and always appropriate to the variations of Mr. Zedwitz's playing,' which Spillane cites as evidence that pianofortes and musically sophisticated audiences were already present in New York at that early date. In 1774 Zedwitz, addressed in the text as 'Herr Zedwitz,' unexpectedly pivoted to establish what Spillane calls a 'trust' in chimney cleaning, advertising through the Journal that he would take contracts by the year or quarter and assuring patrons that 'none but competent boys' would be employed. Spillane remarks dryly that New Yorkers scarcely appreciated the genius of Herr Zedwitz.
Highlights
- Advertised a 1773 concert at Hull's Assembly Rooms, New York, accompanied on the pianoforte by a Mr. Hulett.
- In 1774 pivoted to running a chimney-cleaning contracting business advertised in the New York Journal.
Source
Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), p. 62.
Public domain.