The Eighteenth-Century Fortepiano Grand and Its Patrons: From Scarlatti to Beethoven

Introduction

BETWEEN THE EIGHTEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES the meanings of harpsichord, clavecin, and cembalo underwent an evolution. Most musicians and many musicologists today are still not aware of the change. Proper perception of these terms, however, is important for a better understanding of how Bartolomeo Cristofori’s ingenious invention of a hammer action came to be accepted. Many believe that all eighteenth-century harpsichords had quills, not just the revived harpsichord of the twentieth century (which is indeed an instrument with quills); this, however, was not the case.

The change in perception is not my subjective opinion but recorded by numerous documents in various languages. I begin this book by quoting extensively from Charles Burney, whose understanding of harpsichord, as well as clavecin and cembalo, is illuminating.

A UNIQUE REPORTER IN HIS TIME: CHARLES BURNEY

In England in Burney’s time Cristofori’s piano was considered a member of the harpsichord family and, therefore, called a cembalo. Charles Burney wrote a short history for Rees’s Cyclopaedia of the two kinds of harpsichords:

HARPSICHORD, in Music, a keyed instrument of the string kind. It is in fact a horizontal harp, which instrument if strung with wire, and played with a quill like a mandoline, would have the same effect. Its tone is produced by jacks quilled with crow or raven quills…. A single harpsichord of two unisons and one set of keys, was in effect a double SPINET or VIRGINAL.

But a double harpsichord used to have two sets of keys and three strings, two unisons and an octave to each note. Merlin, we believe, was the first who changed the octave stop to a third unison, about the year 1770, which rendered the instrument equally powerful, and less subject to go out of tune; the octave stop being so much affected by the least change in the temperature of the air, that it almost instantly discovered when there was a change in the wind.

Besides arming the tongues of the jacks with crow or raven quills, several other means were tried by which to produce a softer tone, and to be more durable; as a quilling the harpsichord with three stops was nearly a day’s work: leather, ivory and other elastic substances were tried, but what they gained in sweetness, was lost in spirit.

The best harpsichords of the eighteenth century, were made by Ruckers of Antwerp, and his family; Geronimo of Florence, Coushette, Tabel, and Kirkman, and Shudi, Tabel’s foremen.

However, in the beginning of the last century, hammer harpsichords were invented at Florence, of which there is a description in the Giornale d’Italia, 1711. The invention made but a slow progress. The first that was brought to England was made by an English monk at Rome, Father Wood, for an English friend (the late Samuel Crisp, Esq., of Chesington, author of Virginia, A Tragedy, and) a man of learning, and of excellent taste in all the fine arts.¹

The tone of this instrument was so superior to that produced by quills, with the additional power of producing all the shades of piano and forte by the finger that though the touch and mechanism were so imperfect that nothing quick could be executed upon it, yet the Dead March in Saul, and other solemn and pathetic strains, when executed with taste and feeling by a master a little accustomed to the touch, excited equal wonder and delight to the hearers. Fulk Greville, esq., purchased this instrument of Mr. Crisp for 100 guineas, and it remained unique in this country for several years, till Plenius, the maker of the lyrichord, tuned by weights and the tone produced by wheels, made a piano-forte in imitation of that of Mr. Greville. Of this instrument the touch is better, but the tone very much inferior.

Backers, a harpsichord maker of the second rank, constructed several piano-fortes, and improved the mechanism in some particulars, but the tone, with all the delicacy of [the pianist Christoph Gottlieb] Schroeter’s touch, lost the spirit of the harpsichord and gained nothing in sweetness.

After the arrival of John Chr. Bach in this country, and the establishment of his concert series in conjunction with Abel, all the harpsichord makers tried their mechanical powers at piano-fortes; but the first attempts were always on the large size, till Zumpé, a German, who had long worked under Shudi, constructed small piano-fortes of the shape and size of the virginal, of which the tone was very sweet, and the touch, with a little use, equal to any degree of rapidity. These, from their low price, and the convenience of their form, as well as power of expression, suddenly grew into such favor, that there was scarcely a house in the kingdom where a keyed-instrument had ever had admission, but was supplied with one of Zumpé’s piano-fortes for which there was nearly as great a call in France as in England. In short, he could not make them fast enough to satisfy the craving of the public. Pohlman, whose instruments were very inferior in tone, fabricated an almost infinite number for such [purchasers] as Zumpé was unable to supply. Large piano-fortes afterwards receiving great improvement in the mechanism by Merlin, and in the tone by Broadwood and Stoddard, the harsh scratching of the quills of a harpsichord can now no longer be borne. During the last century, the eminent Italian performers on, and composers for the [hammer] harpsichord, were Domenico Scarlatti, Alberti, Paradies, and Clementi. Among our great organ players, Kelway, Dr. Worgan, and Mr. C. Burney acquired great reputation by their performance of the harpsichord, as did Mrs. Wynne, Miss Best, and Mrs. C. Burney. In France, Couperin, Jaig, Balbastre, Schobert at Strasbourg, and in Germany Emanuel Bach and innumerable others].

Burney’s article in Rees’s Cyclopaedia has been quoted here nearly in its entirety to demonstrate the extent to which Burney as a representative of his time understood the term harpsichord—not only in the early 1800s, when this article was compiled, but throughout his life. The German term piano-forte for the hammer-harpsichord had been known to Burney since the 1740s, as I show below, but in this article he preferred to speak of hammer harpsichords. And it seems quite clear that, for him, piano-forte continued to mean a harpsichord; to distinguish between the two types of harpsichords, although he occasionally used hammer harpsichord and common harpsichord, that was only if special circumstances required it. And—like his contemporaries—Burney apparently did not feel the need to always carefully distinguish harpsichords with quills from those with hammers but neither was he the only English musician who spoke of hammer-harpsichords. For instance, following a shipwreck in 1774, in New York City a set of hammer-harpsichords slightly damaged was sold at an auction.²

Other writing of Charles Burney bears out my claim that a harpsichord could have been a hammer-harpsichord and still be referred to only as a harpsichord. In Memoirs of Dr. Charles Burney, 1726–1769, compiled from Burney’s diary, are major parts of his Rees’s Cyclopaedia article in an entry from 1747, including hammer harpsichord.³ This 1747 entry proves that Burney used older manuscript notes when writing his article for Rees’s Cyclopaedia (printed in 1819). In 1747 Burney was twenty-one years old and employed by the household of Fulk Greville to make music every evening. The 1747 diary entry includes remarks about the large P.F. (piano-forte) that Greville possessed and Burney was often asked to play:

It had a magnificent and new effect in the Chiar’oscuro of which with a little use it was capable. Experience was necessary to the performer upon it—which by living in the house and trying effects and discovering the degree of force or delicacy of touch it was capable of, I gained considerable credit in showing it off. And afterwards, when Plinius had … constructed a Piano Piece, as he called it in imitation of Mr. Greville’s large P.F., he solicited me to display its powers to the public. But then I [soon] had other employments which I liked better than that of a shew [show]man.⁴

Notice that already in 1747 Burney abbreviated piano-forte, referring to the hammer-harpsichord, to P.F. He must have been one of the very few Englishmen who—perhaps through correspondence with partners in Germany—had learned this new German name. And how interesting is his statement that in these early days of his life he had already learned to play the hammer-harpsichord.

Several other proofs exist of the interchangeability of the terms harpsichord and pianoforte in Burney’s writings. For instance, when visiting Farinelli in Bologna in 1770 he wrote in his diary (a passage he subsequently added to the second edition of his report of his European tours),

Signor Farinelli has long left off singing, but amuses himself still on the harpsichord and viol d’amour: he has a great number of harpsichords made in different countries, which he has named according to the place they hold in his favour, after the greatest of the Italian painters. His first favourite is a piano forte, made in Florence in the year 1730, on which is written in gold letters Rafael d’Urbino.⁵

This piano, by the way, was made by Giovanni Ferrini according to his teacher’s method, as Giovenale Sacchi remarked in his biography of Farinelli that appeared in 1784.⁶

Another proof is in Burney’s A General History of Music:

Kozeluch is an admirable young composer of Vienna, whose works were first made known in England by the neat and accurate execution of Mademoiselle Paradis, the blind performer on the harpsichord, in 1785.⁷

But when writing a newspaper article about Theresia Paradis’s concert, Burney titled it An Account of Mademoiselle Theresa Paradis of Vienna, the Celebrated Performer on the Piano Forte.

During the 1760s Burney spent the summer months with his family in Chesington at the house of Samuel Crisp, the first to bring a hammer-harpsichord to England. In 1764 he took care that his friend Crisp got a Zumpe piano.⁸ But Burney expressly said in his harpsichord article for Rees’s Cyclopaedia, All the harpsichord makers tried their mechanical powers at piano-fortes; but the first attempts were always on the large size. Did Crisp get from Johannes Zumpe a wing-shaped piano? Zumpe, upon arriving in England, trained as an instrument builder; working as journeyman for Burkat Shudi he probably at first built large pianos and only later the square ones the size of [a] virginal that made him famous. Few have asked whether Zumpe first made grand pianos before achieving great success with his ingeniously simple and cheaper-to-make square pianos.

Remember that Burney liked to play the large-sized pianoforte owned by his employer, Greville, in the 1740s and had a piano nearby in Crisp’s house while vacationing there during the 1760s. Were the harpsichord concertos that Burney composed in those years intended to be played on large hammer-harpsichords? Concertos were hardly suitable for square pianos, needing the larger pianofortes because of their orchestral accompaniment. Thus, we may assume that in 1768 Johann Christian Bach most likely played in public on a grand piano, because of the loudness of an orchestra, and not on a small and much quieter square piano as is often asserted in the literature. The concerts at court or in the relatively small halls and salons of the 1760s and 1770s do not compare to modern concert life and the size of today’s concert halls, but public concerts in London during that time were held increasingly in larger rooms and halls. In palaces the rooms and halls used for performances of music had always been larger than those in private circles. In English bourgeois circles after 1765 the famous square pianos of Zumpe and his German colleagues certainly were sufficiently loud to be heard with enjoyment by a small audience. In London’s public concert halls, however, such as the Large Room in the Thatched House Tavern in St. James Street or (slightly later) in the Hanover Square Rooms, the keyboard instruments used by J. C. Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel in their concerts were certainly wing-shaped grand pianos.

Burney bought from John Joseph Merlin, the ingenious mechanical inventor mentioned in his Rees’s Cyclopaedia article, two exceptionally large harpsichords—one in 1774 or 1775 probably a combined harpsichord-piano, and the other in 1777 a grand pianoforte with a six-octave range (see chap. 12). While in his Rees’s Cyclopaedia article (second paragraph) Burney refers to this piano as a harpsichord, he describes it in his will as my large Piano Forte with additional keys at the top and the bottom, originally made by Merlin, with a Compass of six Octaves, the first that was ever constructed expressly at my desire for duets à quatre mains in 1777. This description of the harpsichord as a pianoforte was certainly not a slip of the pen, because in 1812 Burney wrote to John Broadwood asking [for] a foreman to regulate the hammers and touch of his 6 octave pianoforte.⁹

These examples of Burney’s perceptions of the term harpsichord are probably sufficient to convince readers that Burney understood it in a widened sense that referred to the form only. In his time he was certainly not alone in his broader understanding of it. Likewise, clavecin and cembalo even after 1765 referred to the form and thus were merely terms for keyboard instruments in a wing, or flügel, form and were often still used for harpsichords with and without quills. Additional words such as à maillets, con martelli, or martellini were relatively seldom added; in Germany after 1765 we encounter the terms Hammerflügel and Kielflügel.

Only slowly did a clear distinction between harpsichords with quills and with hammers become desirable or necessary. On the European continent during the second half of the eighteenth century the term pianoforte was not readily accepted everywhere. Italy especially was slower than southern German-speaking countries, France, or England to accept pianoforte or fortepiano (see chap. 2). During the last quarter of the century, alongside with fortepiano, in Vienna flügel became standard.

LINGUISTIC PROBLEMS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Trained historians often have difficulty these days in elucidating and clarifying for the nonhistorians among musicians and musical instrument makers one of the most confusing problems of historical research: that of the constant alterations in the development of living languages, especially when it comes to local meanings of words, such as the widening or narrowing of meanings of specific terms. For instance, the German language was in use in many parts of Europe but word meanings and concepts differed among them. We find sizable language differences between the northern and southern regions of Germany and among the Netherlands, the Flemish region, Switzerland, and Austria. Several of these linguistic differences were not recognized until after 1800, when the language of the Netherlands and the Flemish part of Belgium were officially accepted as distinct from German rather than as mere dialects of it.

Words and meanings change over centuries. Etymological dictionaries are filled with words employed only locally or during certain time spans. Just as Italian, Spanish, French, Czech, and Hungarian influenced the Viennese language in former times, today’s pervasive influence of the English language is why a new edition of a dictionary of Austrian terms (Österreichisches Wörterbuch) was needed in recent decades. The dictionary contains about seventy thousand words that are essentially unknown or only half understood in north and central Germany, and many more words in Viennese slang dialect are not yet listed in it.

Also in the nomenclature of musical instruments and concepts, historians observe changes in the meaning of terms. Some examples illustrate this: During the Middle Ages, cembalo designated a totally different instrument from that of the eighteenth or twentieth century. In the writings of Johannes de Muris it was the name for the organistrum (a kind of forerunner of the Baroque hurdy-gurdy). Likewise, during the Middle Ages cymbal referred to small bells. Even for Gioseffo Zarlino in the sixteenth century cembalo meant a Schellentrommel, or tambourine (in fact, Koch’s music dictionary of 1802 at the very beginning mentions that the term cembalo was also used for the Schellencymbal). It stands to reason that concepts often were also subject to various special connotations. Language specialists conclude that during the Enlightenment, especially in northern Germany, narrowing of meanings was more frequent than widening. Doubtless this was due to the north German tendency—during this period especially pronounced—of systematizing concepts and creating clear and distinguishable definitions. It was this tendency that led in Berlin to a new, precise but clearly narrowed use of Kielflügel instead of the broader Flügel, a meaning not generally known or accepted in the Catholic south of Germany. In the Wiener Diarium in 1725 the organ-builder Christoph Leo of Augsburg advertised a Flügel mit und ohne Kiele (flügel with and without quills). In the last decades of that century flügel was used as a common name for the fortepiano. Not in Salzburg, in Vienna, or elsewhere in the Catholic south was the north-German narrowing of the meaning of flügel to kielflügel that occurred around 1750 generally accepted.

THE CENTURY’S POLITICAL AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND

The eighteenth century encompassed many political, social, and cultural changes. A growing spirit of enlightenment produced great changes in the lifestyle of various parts of European society. The old guild system was everywhere criticized and if possible abolished or allowed to die out. Special permissions for manufacturers and an increase in merchandise consumption eventually allowed gifted craftsmen of the eighteenth century to work more freely and with greater financial success. New ideas about peoples’ health and the supply of sufficient food for all evolved in Europe. They resulted in developments such as improvements of cleanliness and medical care, mechanical and administrative innovations for increased productivity, the end of mercantilism, and the liberalization of trade rules. Gradual alterations of social conventions and the abolition of certain guild absurdities and restrictions were followed by a higher life expectancy and in many regions by population growth and wealth. All this and mechanical inventions made labor more productive, increasing the supply of all sorts of goods.

But the century was certainly not a peaceful one. Italy and Germany were split into several small kingdoms, dukedoms, republics, and even smaller independent cities. The wars of the seventeenth century had strengthened the power of France and England. Portugal and Spain became immensely rich through imports of goods and gold from Brazil and other parts of South America. The beginning of the century saw the war of the Spanish succession, which led to the House of Habsburg losing the Spanish throne to a French dynasty and also territory in the Netherlands. The French army fought against the Austrian army in Spain, Italy, and the old Burgundian territory in the north of France. The Habsburg monarchs’ loss of territory in the north of France was caused by clever French diplomatic activities and French agreements with the Turkish Empire: France initiated war in southeastern Europe. Austria’s army under Prince Eugene of Savoy was forced to give up ground in the north of France and race to southeast Europe to fight the Turks in Hungary and Serbia. During the whole eighteenth century, however, the Habsburgs continued as the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. But the emperor’s power when meeting dukes and kings or their ambassadors at the annual Reichstag in Regensburg became more and more limited. After the death of Emperor Charles VI in 1740, a German succession war in Bavaria endangered the Habsburg Empire, and around the middle of the century three Silesian wars between the Prussian king Frederick II and the Holy Roman empress Maria Theresa were fought on Saxon, Silesian, and Bohemian soil, bringing losses and suffering especially to the people of Saxony and Silesia. In 1778 a Bavarian succession war broke out, and toward the end of the 1780s Austria had once again to fight the Turks in Serbia. In 1789 peace in France came to an end with the French Revolution. A few years later the Napoleonic Wars brought destruction and famine to several European continental regions; the populations of these regions came under huge military and economic pressure.

Great changes were also taking place in Europe’s musical life in the course of the eighteenth century, foremost being the change from Baroque grandeur to the far more graceful but also usually simpler homophonic galant cantabile style of the Rococo period. One of these changes resulted vocally in the invention of simpler arias and airs for intermezzi, opere bernesche, and opere buffe. Instrumental music for ballets and dances became literally divertimenti. Keyboard music in a mostly two-part texture became fashionable, with shorter melodic phrases in often symmetrically built periods combined with a predilection for dance rhythms. All these style changes can be first seen in Italian music, but the trends spread to other countries as traveling Italian musicians helped their dissemination. We find traces of modern galant music in the compositions of lesser-known composers as well as in those of the great composers Domenico Scarlatti, Georg Friedrich Handel, and Johann Sebastian Bach, all three born in 1685. Even in the works of an older generation of musicians, such as Antonio Vivaldi, Antonio Caldara, or Johann Joseph Fux, we see evidence of these trends. By 1720 the old church modes were outdated, and the keyboard solo works renewed intense discussion of tuning problems with modulating into distant keys. Was meantone tuning the best or at least a passable and enduring system? Did it not hamper the harmonic fantasy and limit the possibilities of composers who liked to modulate into all possible keys when playing a keyboard instrument? J. S. Bach’s attitude is the best-known example of how a then modern composer reacted: he composed the Well-Tempered Clavier and wrote his preludes and fugues in all twenty-four keys. He did this because he obviously disliked the restrictions of the traditional tuning systems. Domenico Scarlatti also showed a preference for a tuning system allowing all harmonic modulations. For instance, he composed a sonata in F-sharp Major, an unusual key in his time, and sometimes he modulated within a sonata into distant keys, a parallel courageous move comparable to J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.

Tuning problems were naturally of lesser relevance and importance for Handel’s preferred domain of vocal music than for keyboard players. During most of the eighteenth century vocal music was still considered the most important kind of music and the voice the shining example of ideal sonority, to be imitated by all instrumental music, which increasingly was required to be cantabile. Successful opera composers and great singers were highly respected and earned more applause and more money than all other musicians. However, after 1750 or at the latest during the third quarter of the century, instrumental music gained status, especially in Germany.

Around 1700 and as late as 1750 Italy was still generally considered the leading country in musical matters. Because vocal music was believed to be more important than instrumental music, all instrumentalists were asked to imitate the singing style of the voice. Italian opera composers and singers, but also instrumental performers, were swarming over the courts of Europe and were paid more than local musicians. Germany’s many dukedoms, tiny regional courts, and independent cities competed with each other in their ambition to show off an impressive musical life, and efforts were made to hire Italian musicians not only in the Catholic part of Germany. The preference for Italian culture in general, for architects and painters as well as poets, opera librettists, and musicians, was evident; they were admired everywhere north of the Alps. In J. S. Bach’s and as late as in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s time, many Italian musicians traveled to countries as far away as England or Russia, and the language of opera performances remained Italian with only a few exceptions. As far away as Saint Petersburg, Italian architects were employed by Catherine the Great to give the city its marked Italian look, still visible today.

In Vienna, for more than a century during the Baroque period the Habsburg emperors had employed only Italian composers as their Hofkapellmeister. This came to a halt in 1715 with the appointment of Johann Joseph Fux as first Hofkapellmeister.¹⁰ But most of the employed musicians surrounding Fux were still Italians: his Vicekapellmeister, Antonio Caldara, and the court composers Carlo Agostino Badia, Francesco Conti, Giuseppe Porsile, and Giuseppe Bonno—none needed to learn German while employed in Vienna, since Italian was the court language until the death of Emperor Charles VI in 1740.¹¹ Around 1720, more than 10 percent of the Viennese population were Italians by birth and even more were second generation. Thus, many Italians did not find it necessary then or for some decades to learn German. Famous Italian literary celebrities such as Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Metastasio were employed by the emperor as court poets, and they supplied the Italian court composers with Italian libretti for the opere serie and for oratorie performed at court. The fight against the solmization system, started by Mattheson in his book Das beschützte Orchester, was rejected by Fux. It shows how much Italian practice and theory influenced musical decisions at the Viennese court: unlike northern and German composers (including Georg Philipp Telemann, Handel, and Bach), Fux defended the solmization syllables (supposedly invented seven centuries earlier by Guido of Arezzo), and they are indeed still in use in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France (though supplied with a seventh syllable to simplify the abolished hexachord system). In a letter written by Fux to Mattheson and quoted in volume 2 of the latter’s Critica Musica, Fux argued for the solmization syllables:

Als in diesen Landten wegen der Beschwärlichkeit der Aretinischen Sylben sich niemand beklaget, sondern im Gegenthaill deren gute Würkhung täglich zu Gehör kommet: indem allhir Knaben von 9 und 10 Jahren zu finden, welche die schwäreste stückhe all improviso wekh singen, welches ia nit sein kunte, wan die Aretinische Erfindung so voller iammer und ellend wäre: Auch bleibt man in Italien, allwo ohne Widerredt die vornehmsten Singer hervorkommen, noch immer bey dieser methode; und weillen ia Hamburg nit die gantze musikalische Welt ist, und nur aldorten so beschwärlich ist, die Singkunst auf solche weiß zu erlernen, so laß ichs gar gern geschehen, daß man alldorten das ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, zu Grabe tragen möge.¹²

(In these countries nobody protested against the difficulties of [using] the syllables of Guido of Arezzo, [on] the contrary: their good effect can be heard every day; boys nine or ten years old are found here who can sing the most difficult pieces by sight, which suggests that Arezzo’s invention could not be so wretched and deplorable. This method is still maintained in Italy, the country that unarguably produces the best singers. Since Hamburg, however, is not the whole musical world, and because there it seems to be so difficult to learn the art of singing in this manner, I would gladly see ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la laid to rest.)

Joseph Haydn and Franz Schubert received their musical training and learned solmization syllables at the Imperial Court Chapel, and Fux’s treatise Singfundament, which contains delightful little duets, was still considered worth reprinting in Vienna by Diabelli in 1832.

During the Baroque period Vienna had close political ties with the Iberian Peninsula and after 1711 with Italy, greatly influencing not only the musical scene but also the architecture of the imperial city of Vienna and affecting all facets of life. In the eighteenth century Pietro Metastasio, Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, and Lorenzo Da Ponte were writing in Italian their best libretti for the Viennese Court Theatre.

What is sometimes not properly perceived by musicologists (especially by those not steeped in the political history of the Continent) is that in Austria during the eighteenth century feelings of national pride played practically no role compared to later times; on the other hand, religious orientation was still highly important. German states and regions were more united by their religious and political connections and less by nationalistic sympathies. Therefore, Burney could observe,

It is difficult to reconcile it with the present religious tranquility of Germany, and progress of human reason; but there seems an unwillingness in the inhabitants of the Protestant states of Germany to allow due praise to the musical works and opinions of the Catholics. And, on the contrary, the Catholics appear equally unwilling to listen to the musical strains of the Protestants. Thus the compositions of the Bachs, Grauns, and Bendas, are little known at Vienna; and at Berlin or Hamburg, those of Wagenseil, Hofmann, Ditters, Gluck, Haydn, Vanhal, and Pleyel, are not only less played and approved than at Vienna or Munich, but infinitely less than in France, Spain, Italy, or England.¹³

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had lost most of his influence in the Protestant north of Germany. It took Emperor Carl Stephan of Lothringen (Lorraine), Maria Theresa’s husband, many years and a war against Bavaria to be crowned German emperor, and his decisions at the Reichstag in Regensburg became more and more a matter of the past. The three Silesian wars during the midcentury decades against the proud Prussian king Friedrich II renewed Austrian aversions against Prussia. They are witness to the true border through the German-speaking continent, a fault line between Catholic and Protestant countries, created after the cruel religious Thirty Years’ War of the seventeenth century. The Silesian wars of the eighteenth century firmly established certain feelings against Piefkes (Prussians) that can still be observed in today’s Vienna.

The musical life in Berlin and other Protestant parts of Germany differed in many respects from that of southern Germany. A cantor of a Protestant church was usually not only a well-trained organist and as such able to improvise preludes and compose church cantatas and choral works but often had university training if employed in a larger city. Thus, he could also easily serve as a teacher at the local Latin school, and theoretical discourses were often very much to their taste.

Burney made another important observation during his visit to Berlin:

These [books by Quantz, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Marpurg, Kirnberger, Agricola] and innumerable other musical tracts and treatises, about this time, with endless controversies between the authors and severe treatment of each other, made musical people in the northern parts of Germany much more wise and fastidious, perhaps, than happy. Of late years the monthly and annual publications of musical critics, of different musical sects and principles, are carried on with great spirit.¹⁴

And in a footnote he added,

([North] Germany had in 1773, at least thirty reviews for different branches of literature, to which have been since added innumerable works of criticism on musical productions: as Reichardt’s Kunst-Magazin, or Magazine for the musical Art; Cramer’s Magazin der Musik; Forkel’s Musikalisch-Kritische Bibliothek, and Musical Almanach, with an Almanack for Musik and Painting, etc. etc. What Hudibras says of reformers and religious disputants, seems applicable to these tuneful discussions in [north] Germany:

"As if their Music were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.)

In southern Germany’s Catholic countries, however, church music was directed by a regens chori. Such Catholic musicians were certainly more interested in musica pratica than in theoretical discourses that usually were beyond their more modest education. Sometimes professional musicians were employed only as organists or choir directors. Occasionally, however, the music teacher of a German school had to take over one of these roles. In monasteries, trained musicians among the monks often carried out this task and the many musical duties connected with supervising desired church, chamber, and theater musical performances. In most Austrian and Bavarian monasteries during the eighteenth century, especially in Benedictine abbeys, music had an important place. Although copies or even originals of the best music of the day from these music libraries survive, the musical instruments that also must have existed in former times often had disappeared after 1820, perhaps because they had gone out of use and became unplayable. They probably would have needed costly repair for which there was neither money nor interest. This may be why (unfortunate for us) so few original hammer-harpsichords of the eighteenth century are preserved; they could tell us more about the development of pianofortes in German-speaking countries, Italy, or the Iberian Peninsula.

GUILDS ON THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT: A SERIOUS PROBLEM FOR INSTRUMENT BUILDERS

During most of the eighteenth century many talented musical instrument makers faced difficulties and obstacles due to the rules and restrictions of the dominant old guild system. In particular, intelligent young craftsmen with creative ideas who were eager to experiment independently confronted severe problems from guild restrictions.

Since the Middle Ages, all craftsmen in larger Continental cities were required to become members of a guild, not only craftsmen but also merchants, tradesmen, and shopkeepers. This organizational form, founded and legalized by medieval city administrations who sponsored and supervised the privileges, rights, and obligations of guilds, was still common throughout the whole Baroque period. By then, all guild-organized trade was subject to far too many regulations, traditions, and prohibitions, dominated as it was by old guild rituals. Every craftsman was expected to be a member of a guild and because the number of certain musical instrument makers was usually too small for a separate guild, organ builders and makers of stringed keyboard instruments often had to become members of a related larger guild, which in their case usually was the cabinetmaker or joiner guild. Similarly, woodwind instrument makers often became members of the guild of lathe workers. There was a practical reason for organ builders and other keyboard instrument makers forming usually one group in German-speaking countries: demand for church organs was limited, and the opportunity to build a chamber organ did not occur very often. But all kinds of stringed keyboard instruments were in more regular demand and could help organ makers survive times with no commission to build an organ. Besides, both groups needed keyboards. In larger German cities and sometimes also in the Habsburg crown countries, organ and instrument makers were numerous enough to form a separate guild—for instance, in Vienna during some decades.

In a few countries, regions, or independent cities, some organ builders escaped the obligation to join a guild. They argued that they should be considered artists, and by tradition artists such as composers and painters were allowed to work independently. But in other cities, organ and stringed-keyboard instrument builders often were harassed by guild masters. Many organ and instrument builders who tried to work independently usually lost their fight with the guild masters. For instance, in Leipzig in 1700 the carpenter guild started a lawsuit against the organ-builder Christoph Donati and in 1732 against the organ-builder Johann Scheibe.¹⁵

Nowadays, three centuries later and after the Enlightenment and the beginning of industrialization, it is difficult to imagine just how much the feudal elements in the social system of the Baroque period influenced and even determined the everyday life of the people. At the beginning of the eighteenth century serfdom was still considered part of the natural order. Slave markets in Africa, the Caribbean islands, and America were booming. In Europe a man was lucky if he was born a free citizen of a city or received citizenship through family ownership of a house or land; had a respectable occupation (e.g., notary, innkeeper, or tradesman); was a priest, cantor, schoolmaster, or organist; or was a craftsman employed by a court or a monastery and thus in the fortunate position of being more or less independent and free to build what he wanted. A free citizen and a legally working guild master could carry on an occupation but would have to remain within guild restrictions. Journeymen, apprentices, and domestic servants living in their master’s house, however, were not citizens but in bondage. For more than three-quarters of the eighteenth century they lived in extreme dependence and had no civil rights whatsoever.

To become a regular guild member in the Habsburg crown countries a boy had to start as an apprentice (Lehrbub) and serve his master a stipulated number of years, usually four or five yet sometimes as many as six years. To be accepted as an apprentice by a master a boy had to be born into a respectable (ehrliche) Catholic family.¹⁶ In larger cities, the boy needed the recommendation of two persons known to the guild, and all boys had to pay a certain amount of money (Aufdinggebühr), usually thirty-five gulden. If accepted to the guild, he then became a junior guild member. Only after completing his training and passing an examination (Freisprechung or Lossprechung) was the apprentice allowed to leave his master. He was now a Geselle (journeyman). As such he needed to pay a fee to become a member of a Gesellen-Bruderschaft, a kind of journeymen’s union, and he was supposed to start an itinerant tour (Wanderschaft) of two, three, or more years. In Germany, during their Wanderschaft years the Gesellen were expected to gain additional skills, and ambitious young journeymen endeavored to find work with guild masters famous for their skill. A journeyman could seek out a master of his choice, and if he wanted he also could leave one employer for another. But journeymen in certain parts of the German Reich could not leave without special imperial permission.

Empress Maria Theresa during her reign (1740–1780) several times declared Wanderjahre (itinerant years) as not necessary for young craftsmen, but guilds and city authorities nevertheless continued to demand that journeymen applying to become guild masters prove they had worked for several years with competent masters in different cities or regions. Later, in E. T. A. Hoffmann and Schubert’s time, these years of compulsory Wanderschaft were sometimes idealized as years of freedom, but in reality they probably were often years of want and hardship. It often was a matter of luck whether a journeyman obtained a decent job where he could learn something new in his craft.

Ambitious young craftsmen, therefore, tried to work for famous masters; they were even willing to travel very far, from one end of Germany to another, hoping to perhaps get employment in a famous workshop. Many young journeymen applied to work for one of the famous brothers Silbermann. The successful ones could claim to have learned their art from a famous member of the Silbermann family—a claim that would certainly help a young organ builder get a valuable organ-building contract. Andreas Silbermann’s oldest son, Johann Andreas Silbermann, collected and preserved some letters from journeymen that his father or he had received. A gifted and diligent organ builder, he built fifty-seven in his life and was also an author. He wrote a history of Strasbourg (Local-Geschichte der Stadt Straßburg) and Beschreibung von Hohenburg oder dem St. Odilienberg. In addition, he left behind a diary and a considerable number of valuable notes, mostly professional descriptions of organs, but also comments on 192 mainly southern German or Swiss organ builders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries listed in alphabetical order (in part collected from other books such as Burney’s travel reports). In many cases he had inspected and evaluated the church organs of a great number of cities and monasteries and had made inquiries regarding their builders. Interesting for historians also are his notes about his father and his uncle Gottfried. These family history reports and occasional correspondence are illuminating.

After the death of Johann Andreas Silbermann, his children sold some of these papers to the city of Strasbourg. In 1870 the archive where they were stored was destroyed in a fire. Other of his papers, however, were kept by his children and grandchildren and were published by Marc Schaefer.¹⁷ Among the typical inquiries that Johann Andreas Silbermann received is the following letter of May 8, 1760, written by a merchant, Grundler from Nuremberg:

Ich habe schon vor einiger Zeit von einem alhiesigen Schreiners Sohn, Nahmens Potechtel Erwehnung getan, daß er gerne in Dero Diensten seyn mögte. Dieser nun hat seine Lehr Zeit bey einem hiesigen Orgelmacher Nahmens Kittelmann absolvieret, siehet aber gar recht ein, daß ihm noch vieles verborgen, und wünschet nichts mehr als in Straßburg zu seyn. Da ich nun seiner guten Conduite mehr als wohl versichert und da er zimlich passabel das Clavier selber spielet, so nehme mir auf sein sehnliches Verlangen, abermals die Freyheit für ihme bey [Mein hochgeehrter] Herrn zu introcediren.¹⁸

(Some time ago I mentioned to you that the son of a local carpenter named Potechtel would love to work for you. This man has now finished his apprentice years with the local organ maker Kittelmann but understands that he needs more training. Since I can assure you of his decent behavior, I take on myself the liberty to his passionate longing and recommend him once again to you, highly esteemed master.)

Johann Andreas Silbermann added a note saying that Potechtel indeed came in June 1760 to Strasbourg and worked there a year for the Silbermann brothers.

Andreas Silbermann’s observations and judgments about many organs that he had seen and heard on his travels, his befriending of organ makers, and his preserved correspondence tell us that he and his were regularly contacted with requests. Gottfried Silbermann, who also had many organ contracts to fulfill, was apparently very often visited by young journeymen in Freiberg, in Saxony; he employed many trained Gesellen who wanted to learn from him. Sometimes he had as many as fourteen journeymen, joiners, and apprentices working for him. Other organ builders corresponded with the elder Silbermann brothers and later with Gottfried’s nephews, often asking whether they could recommend to them a former pupil and thus a well-trained journeyman for a special organ-building task.

Three years of working as a journeyman for a master were officially mandated before a journeyman could apply to present a masterpiece to guild masters and himself become a master. When the organ-builder Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost in 1734 needed professional helpers for building an organ in Altenburg, he asked Gottfried Silbermann if he could send him trained journeymen. Silbermann sent him Christian Ernst Friederici and another pupil named Graichen.¹⁹ Friederici stayed three years in Altenburg with Trost before he opened his own workshop in Gera in 1737.

A journeyman usually lived in his master’s house. If he wanted to marry, he first had to become a master; on the other hand, a guild master was expected to be married. The journeyman Zacharias Hildebrandt apparently apprenticed at first as cabinetmaker. In 1713 he requested training from Gottfried Silbermann as organ and instrument maker. But because he was unable to pay the usual sum for the required training period, a Lehrgeld, he had to sign a contract that contained conditions that complicated his later life as a master and provided only a small payment for his work. Other journeymen already trained in the art of organ and instrument making, however, received larger payment for their work and could leave whenever they wanted.

In most large cities an applicant for acceptance as guild master had to submit a masterpiece. All other local guild masters had to approve it, but established guild masters did not always welcome additional competition and regularly voted against newcomers. City authorities demanding tax payments could be another obstacle for a young journeyman in his quest to become a master because usually guild masters had to be citizens, which often required owning a house or otherwise required money that a Geselle normally did not have. Thus, guild rules and regulations obstructed healthy economic development in all trades—not only in Austria but also in other European countries. They had many licensing regulations to navigate, most designed to hinder foreign competition. Foreign applicants had considerable financial burdens, including an immigration tax (Dispense von der auswärtigen Geburt) and a special license tax, on top of which came guild membership fees. Altogether these payments could keep competition away from the established guild masters. A journeyman serving a master and living in his house had few chances to earn enough money to become independent because he usually was forbidden to construct and sell products by working after hours. If the journeyman was ambitious and eager to invent something extraordinary, wanted to marry, or had his own ideas about a successful career, all the restrictions were often too hard to overcome. Finding a patron or illegal work were the only alternatives.

Musicians employed by noblemen or bishops or otherwise in the service of a lord or master sometimes suffered a similar fate.²⁰ Town musicians employed by the city—the German Stadtpfeifer or even street musicians—also had to join a guild.²¹ As the number of guild-approved masters in a trade or craft remained limited in many cities until far into the eighteenth century, most journeymen could not become guild masters in the city of their apprenticeship. Their main option was usually to start their Wanderschaft years and serve another master for at least three years. There were only two exceptions to this rule: First, when a guild master died and his trained son—after having already worked as a journeyman—was destined to take over his late father’s workshop, the son was usually allowed to immediately become himself a guild master, sometimes even without demonstrating his skills with a masterpiece. Second, a competent journeyman was sometimes willing to marry the widow of his deceased master, thus keeping the workshop alive and supporting the widow and possibly her children. (In this manner Conrad Graf, for example, came early into possession of a workshop in 1804.)

In Vienna, the number of masters and the size of their workshops were jealously supervised by the guilds, and the number of journeymen and apprentices a guild master was allowed to employ was limited and just as prescribed as the tools to be used. Furthermore, employing women or using any uncertified labor was banned, and the allowed quantity of production also was specified. The number of helpers (in Vienna, usually one journeyman and two apprentices) was strictly limited, and this was an additional obstacle for ambitious and diligent craftsmen among the guild masters. Price-fixing agreements among guild masters in a given city would often needlessly increase the prices of their products and inhibit competition and production growth. Also restricted was where certain guild masters were allowed to sell their products. For instance, in Vienna, guild masters who worked and lived outside the inner city in one of the thirty-five suburbs (Vorstädte) were not allowed to offer their wares in the inner city but only within specified suburban areas. Moreover, these Vorstadtmeister were required to pay extra fees to the inner-city guild.²² All these and sometimes additional abstruse restrictions established by guilds were a considerable hindrance to economic development, often lowering both the quality and the quantity of products.

The Habsburg emperors, like other kings and dukes, princes, bishops, and abbots of powerful monasteries, had always been interested in the temporary employment of carefully selected competent craftsmen and artists (often famous Italians and Spaniards as well as tradesmen and craftsmen from the German Reich). If already famous, these persons were invited to work for the imperial court, and the emperor granted these talented craftsmen the title Hofbefreite. This meant independence and freedom from guild restrictions and afforded the privilege of founding independent workshops and earning their living through their craft without having to belong to a guild. The nearer the hofbefreite craftsmen lived to the relevant court or monastery, the less they had to fear from guild masters—not a small advantage over journeymen unable to find work at a court. Bartolomeo Cristofori enjoyed such a privilege at the Medici court in Florence; he never was forced to bother about guild membership.

The Habsburg emperors enviously observed the constantly growing economic wealth in those western European countries that owned busy merchant fleets. These countries had established a freedom of production and trade unknown to German-speaking regions. In the seventeenth century Emperor Leopold I had tried to introduce a more liberal production and trade system that would have limited the power of the guilds and their work restrictions, not only in Vienna but also elsewhere in the Reich. In 1699 and 1700 he asked his imperial advisers to discuss the question of

ob und wie die Handwerkszünfte, ad imitationem anderer Königreiche, Republiken und Länder, wo die Commercien im besten Flor sind, die Zünfte aber gar nicht üblich, oder doch nicht wie im römischen Reich privilegieret sind, abzuschaffen, oder doch so zu restringieren wären, dass sie keinen welcher sich in einer Stadt oder Markt bürgerlich niederlassen und ein Handwerk treiben wollte, hindern, oder in ihr Gremium einzutreten nöthigen könnten.²³

(whether and how the craftsman guilds could be abolished in imitation of other kingdoms, republics, and countries, where commercial development is in excellent shape and the guilds are not commonplace or are at least less privileged than in the [Holy] Roman Empire [of the German Nation], and whether the power of the guilds could be restricted to such an extent that anyone who wants to settle in a city or marketplace and work as a craftsman would not be hindered from doing so or forced to join a guild.)

But these discussions between Leopold and his advisers did not lead anywhere. The guild masters protested as forcefully as unions of today announce their objections and threaten strikes.

Under Leopold’s younger son, Emperor Charles VI, who ruled between 1711 and 1740, nearly identical questions were discussed in the Staatsrat (state council), which at first resulted in only slightly more successful efforts. Charles eventually succeeded: In 1725 he created Schutzbefugnis, an imperial protection and privilege that allowed talented journeymen liberties comparable to those of hofbefreite craftsmen despite their not working for the imperial court. This allowed schutzbefugte and hofbefreite craftsmen to work legally in Vienna without having to become members of a guild. This new privilege became a law and part of the emperor’s famous Reichszunftordnung of 1731–1732, applying to the whole Reich (the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) and not only to Habsburg crown countries. It was indeed an important first step toward restricting the power of the guilds in German countries. However, only mostly Austrian countries followed the law. Many cities’ authorities, especially such free Reichsstädte as Augsburg, Nuremberg, Regensburg, and Frankfurt am Main, decided to follow their own rules, and even more so the liberal Hansestädte (Hanseatic League cities) Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck. In Hamburg, for example, the brothers Fleischer, who were trained instrument builders, finally succeeded in defending their independence from local guild masters. In Nuremberg the rules of the Nürnberger Handwerksordnung²⁴ differed from those of other cities but seemed to be followed more strictly than in Hamburg or Lübeck.

In Vienna not every craftsman could readily—and certainly not automatically—obtain a protection license, or Schutzbefugnis, from the emperor. Every journeyman wanting to get a Schutzbefugnis had to apply at the Viennese court and had to prove his special talents. Many applications for this permission were soon submitted, and the scribes at court were busy writing commentaries and decisions before and after receiving such applications, many of which were denied. Unfortunately, in the course of the century these procedures became time consuming and difficult because the flood of journeymen applying overwhelmed the bureaucracy, which delayed resolution. It sometimes took years to get an answer. After about 1765, and especially after 1770, however, most requests for independence from guilds were speedily granted by Emperor Joseph II, as we learn from the archival material in the Hofkammerarchiv and other imperial archives.

In addition to hofbefreite and schutzverwandte craftsmen, another group of craftsmen lived in Vienna: the Störer (disturbers). This group of journeymen worked illegally as scabs. With no government permission or license to work, they came under heavy pressure from the guild masters. During most of the eighteenth century a large and growing number of Störer worked in and around Vienna and probably in other large cities of Austria in every discipline, trade, and craft, so many that the Störer outnumbered the Hofbefreite and Schutzbefugte combined. But since even the most competent journeymen seldom could become self-employed under guild authority in the cities, journeymen who, for instance, wanted to marry against guild and city rules had practically no other choice than to become Störer opening workshops usually outside cities to avoid the imperial police. In Vienna and in some other cities, many city magistrates supported guild masters who harassed the Störer to get rid of the competition.

In independent German cities organ and instrument builders could sometimes found a workshop: If a local organ maker died without heir, a vacancy was open for a successor. Church organs regularly needed repairs, and sometimes a new organ had to be commissioned. Such circumstances made it relatively easy for Gottfried Silbermann to settle in Freiberg, in the district of Meissen, a city near his birth village. Likewise, Johann Andreas Stein moved to Augsburg and succeeded the organ- and instrument-maker Johann Christoph Leo after his death because Augsburg’s church organs needed tuning and repairs and the city was in need of a new organ in the Barfüßerkirche. In spite of his young age—in 1750 Stein was only twenty-two—he was allowed to repair an organ and to show his abilities this way. He then built a new organ in the Barfüßerkirche that met with such approval in 1755 that city officials made him a citizen, and he settled there as a master. As such he became a much honored citizen in this famous Reichsstadt. Other organ makers were less lucky; for example, Zacharias Hildebrandt, who after finishing his training was forced to work for six more years as journeyman for Gottfried Silbermann, saving money while unmarried.

In the 1750s under Empress Maria Theresa all crafts and trades in Vienna were divided in two major groups. One group, Polizei-Gewerbe, concerned local necessities such as food and daily provisions; the other group, Commerzial-Gewerbe, referred to those crafts producing longer-lasting goods that were also exported. Support of the and its products was especially in the state’s interest, and this was one of the major reasons the empress repeatedly tried to limit the power of the guilds in her crown countries, fighting restrictions of local guild masters and trying to interest talented foreign journeymen into immigrating to Vienna and settling there under her protection. In 1755, Empress Maria Theresa ordered her officials to compile a list of all the guilds. The alphabetically arranged list contains 160 trades, 4 with special privileges. Among the unprivileged guilds the following crafts of musical instrument makers are listed:

Nr. 70 Glockengiesser (bell founder)

Nr. 71 Geigen und Lautenmacher (violin and lute makers)

Nr. 107 Orgel- und Instrumentenbauer (organ and instrument builders)

Nr. 116 Saitenmacher (string makers)

Nr. 144 Waldhorn-, Trompeten- und hölzerne Blasinstrumentenmacher (horn-, trumpet-, and woodwind-instrument makers)

In a similar list of 1768 many crafts are split (e.g., the watchmakers guild was separated from the clock-makers guild), and the number of Commerzial-Gewerbe guilds therefore increased. Organ and instrument makers, however, are not listed, nor are they in another one from 1774.²⁵ Why not? Their guild still existed in 1768 and in 1774—at least in the minds of guild members and city authorities—but Maria Theresa’s son Emperor Joseph II had declared that the makers of musical instruments should be regarded as artists. After Maria Theresa’s husband Emperor Francis I had died in 1765, their oldest son became Emperor Joseph II and coruler (Mitregent) with Maria Theresa.

In 1755, 1763, 1768, and 1774–1776 Empress Maria Theresa tried to increase commercial production through decrees to invite and admit talented immigrant craftsmen and commercial entrepreneurs. Such measures made it easier for journeymen and ambitious businessmen and encouraged them to apply for the protection privilege (Schutzbefugnis) or a waiver of taxes such as a dispensation of foreign birth. In 1774 she and her son again established a committee to ease the immigration of competent foreign workers and to help newcomers with tax reductions. She was decidedly against compulsory Wanderjahre as a prerequisite for becoming a guild master. The guild masters objected loudly to many of her new decrees and forcefully defended their rights. They insisted that the title Meister was a privilege reserved only for guild masters and should be denied to schutzbefugte journeymen. They also repeatedly requested that no protection privileges (Schutzbefugnisse) be issued by the court and that Störer be prosecuted and expelled. But Joseph II had made it a personal concern to protect gifted craftsmen, especially musical instrument makers. Between 1765 and 1780, Joseph overruled decisions favoring guild masters. He furthermore wanted to abolish the requirement that craftsmen must be in a guild, believing that the making of good organs and piano instruments was an art, and artists should be free of guilds. His mother, however, feared this would cause social uproar and thus refused to allow this certainly unpopular and dangerous change. She compromised and agreed that from 1768 on no hofbefreite titles should be awarded²⁶ and instead many more protection licenses (Schutzbefugnisse) should be given. But in 1774 she decreed that in the future these protection privileges should be issued by local authorities and only in exceptional cases should be decided by the imperial court. By then, Emperor Joseph also considered Schutzbefugnisse as superfluous, but his decision to abolish them did not become an official decree because his mother, following her advice, did not allow his decision to be printed. As long as the empress was alive, people believed, therefore, that for Gesellen to work independently they would need Schutzbefugnisse. This was a typical Austrian solution of a political problem: if an application came to Joseph II, he always granted permission, but his mother insisted that applications for Schutzbefugnisse should be awarded by local governments such as, for example, the Lower Austrian government (Niederösterreichische Landesregierung).²⁷ The following example explains, on the one hand, how attitudes of the city authorities of Vienna and their guild masters and, on the other, that of Joseph.

During his independent reign (1780–1790) Joseph II abolished most of the hated restrictions of the guilds. In 1784 he eliminated all guild restrictions for musical instrument builders, and many former Gesellen working as Störer could now work legally as independent pianoforte makers. This freedom lasted only for a time, however.

THE INSTRUMENT BUILDER JOHANN GEORG VOLKERT

Johann Georg Volkert, an immigrant to Vienna from Altdorf, near Nuremberg in Oberfranken in southern Germany, was born February 8, 1747 (not 1739),²⁸ to a beer brewer. Whether Volkert was already a trained organ and instrument maker when he arrived in Vienna is not known, but considering his birth date this is possible. He was mainly or solely interested in the manufacture of pianofortes. For an unknown number of years he worked as a gifted journeyman and fortepiano maker in the Viennese Vorstadt Josephstadt for an instrument builder named Weissmann. In connection with the sale of fortepianos in Vienna an agent described Volkert’s instruments as gut gearbeitet und mit gutem Ton (reliable craftsmanship and with a good sound) and placed them side by side with the fortepianos of Anton Walter.

Weissmann did not belong to the organ- and instrument-maker guild but had opened his workshop legally with the help of a Schutzbefugnis. When he died, Volkert married his daughter and took over the workshop with all the tools. But almost at once he also inherited the opposition of the Viennese guilds, with the guild masters claiming that his father-in-law had received a Schutzbefugnis and not he himself. In April 1778 Volkert applied to the emperor for a Schutzbefugnis that would include also permission to employ a journeyman. Court officials forwarded the application to the Lower Austrian government, who forwarded it to the mayor of Vienna with the request for an opinion.

Vienna’s mayor and his advisers answered on April 29, 1778:

Hochlöbl: N: Ö: Regierung / Gnädige Herren!

Bey S[eine]r röm[ischen] kays[erlichen] könig[lichen] May[estä]t hat Johann Georg Volckert Instrumentmacher in der Josephstadt No. 91 mit A [Anlage A] allerunterthänigst vorgestellt: Er hätte bey seinem Schwiegervater einem Schutzverwandten Orglmacher durch lange Jahre als Tischlergesell gearbeitet, und Mittelst Vereheligung mit dessen Tochter, nach seinem Tod