Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

1
STEIN STEIN 689
engraving was by his own hands, 'Eioeroar
Tabulatura, Organis et Organoedis unice inservienset
maxime oonduoensadornataa J.U.S. . .
ejusdemque Autoris sumptibus et manibus propriis
Aeri Ciipreo insculpta et excusa. Anno
1624.' Although mentioned by Gerber, this
work was unknown to modern musicians, until
a copy sent from the Royal Library at Stuttgart
was shown at the Vienna Musical Exhibition
of 1892. The engi-aving is said to be rather
coarsely done. Some account of the music is
given in Seiffert, Geschichte der Klaviermimk,
Bd. I. p. 105. It consists of Ricercari of the
earlier Italian fugal type. The other published
work of Steigleder is entitled, 'Tabulatur-
Buch darinnen dass Vater Unser auf 2, 3 und
4 Stimmen -componirt und vierzig mal variirt
wiirdt . . . auf Orgeln und alien andern
Instrumenten ordentlich zu applicireu . . .
1627.' This work consists of forty Bearbeitungen
or Variations on the melody of the
'Vater Unser im Himmelreioh, ' which show
the influence of the newer technique of the
English -Dutch Variation School of Sweelinck,
as well as of the South German toccata style of
George Muffat. Two specimens are given in
Ritter, Geschichte des Orgelspiels, Nos. 87 and
88. J. R. M.
STEIN, a family of pianoforte -makers and
players.
1. JoHANN Andreas, the founder of German
pianoforte-making, was born at Heidesheim in
the Palatinate in 1728. Nothing is known of
his early life, but he appears to have been in
Paris in 1758, and to have remained there for
some years. We may conclude that he was
engaged in organ-building and harpsichordmaking,
since he was not only a good musician,
but a proficient in both handicrafts, before he
turned to pianoforte-making. After Paris we
find him at Augsburg, organist of the Barfiisserkirche,
the famous organ of which he built, as
well as that of the Kreuzkirche. When tl\e
article Pianoforte was written, special inquiries
were made in Vienna and elsewhere, to discover
any pianofortes remaining of Stein's make, but
without success. [Several examples of Stein's
pianoforte, exhibited at Vienna in 1892, are
now in the collection of Mr. Steinert of New
Haven, Conn., U.S.A.] These inquiries, however,
led to the discovery of a grand piano,
which was secured by M. Victor Mahillon, of
the Museum of the Conservatoire, Brussels. It
is inscribed
Jean Andr6 Stein
Faeteur d'orgues et des Clavecins
Organiste 4 1'Bglise des Minorites
AligsbourK 1780.
The action of this blchord grand piang is the
same as that in vol. iii. p. 725, Fig. 10 of this
Dictionary, which was copied from a scarce
pamphlet preserved in the Library of the
I The last figure is indistinct, and M. Mahillon thinks that it
might lie 5 or 6 instead of 0.
VOL. IV
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at Vienna. The
wedge damper is Cristofori's ;
the escapement
and other parts of the action differ entirely
from that maker's and from Gottfried Silbermann's
as preserved in three instruments at
Potsdam, in which the Florentine maker Cristofori
is closely followed. This instrument has
also the geTwuilliire or knee-pedal for raising
the dampers, which preceded the foot-pedal.
[See Sordino.] The genouilUere and Stein's
escapement are described by Mozart with gieat
gusto in a letter addressed to his mother, in
October 1777, only a very few years before M.
Mahillon's piano was made. What action was
used by Spaeth of Ratisbon, also referred to by
Mozart, we do not know, but M. Mahillon's
discovery at Brussels of a square piano, with
the rudiments of Stein's action—that is, the
same centred percussion without the hopper
escapement—leads directly to the conclusion
that this simple action, clumsy as Mozart found
it without the escapement, was in common use
before Stein brought his inventive genius to
bear upon its improvement.
Welcker von Gontershausen (Der Clavierbau,
Frankfort, 1870, p. 173) gives a drawing of this
action without hopper escapement, attributing
it to Silbermann ; but, as far as we can see,
without proof. Many of the early German
pianos have neither date nor inscription, which
makes the attribution to a maker difficult.
We are disposed to think that Silbei-mann
would not have abandoned the good action of
Cristofori, which he knew how to finish well,
for a crude tentative mechanism ; we therefore
conclude that the Seven Years' War having
entirely stamped out Saxon pianoforte-making,
a new era began with the restoration of peace,
and that the merit of founding that German
pianoforte-making which was so long identified
with the School of Vienna, belongs to Stein,
whose inventive talent and artistic devotion
were displayed in the good instruments he made,
which by 1790 at latest, were adopted as models
both in North and South Germany, as the two
gi-and pianos formerly belonging to Queen
Louise, made by Huhn, Organ ' -Imilder,' of
Berlin, 2 and preserved in memory of her at
Potsdam, unmistakably show.
Gerber, in his Lexicon, has preserved a, list
of numerous inventions by Stein [of one, the
Melodica,' the inventor published an account
'
in 1772], of which none are now of value save
the escapement and the keyboard shifting by
means of a pedal. He introduced the latter in
his Saitenharmonica ' ' in 1789, carrying the
hammers from three strings to one, which he
spaced rather away from the other two unisjins.
This 'una corda' he named 'Spinettchen.'
2 One of these instruniente, and apparently the older one, bears
DO name outside, but Internal examination sbowsithat the maker
was the same who made the 1790 one ; both closely resemble Mozart's
piano by Walther, at Salzburg, and the original model by Stein of
1780.
2 Y