Instrument Craftswoman Continues Legacy Inspired by Woman Who Made Beethoven’s Pianos

During those same years, when I was mostly home raising my children, I belonged to a group of talented amateurs and professional players who got together socially once a month to play for each other. At one home, there was a harpsichord, and I sat down to play Bach's “Italian Concerto.” The owner, Jack, said to me, ‘Anne, you should take the harpsichord home.’ After running into him at various stores, he kept telling me to come to get it, so eventually, I did. It needed some work, so I asked if he minded if I tried to fix it. With his approval, it all began. I loved working on it and appeared to have a knack for three-dimensional mechanics, as well as the touch and ear for the musical aspects. I already had skills as a craftsperson and woodworker as I had been doing some furniture restoration since I was in my early teens at the encouragement of my parents. Word got out, and I found that this was something I could do at home with the children and still give them sufficient supervision and attention. My first workshop was half of the kids’ playroom in the basement, and I worked while the children played in the other half. 

I was a young mother who had left the computer research world to concentrate on raising my two young children, so I had returned to my avocation, the piano. I found that playing, accompanying, and teaching worked better with child-rearing and made me much happier. I have been obsessed with keyboard instruments since I could stand. My parents started lessons for me at four years old because I wanted to learn so badly. By high school, I had become frustrated with the inability of the modern piano, wonderful as it is, to achieve something I could sense was missing in playing baroque and early classical music, particularly Scarlatti and Mozart. At a piano teacher's meeting, I met a gentleman who had studied with Malcolm Bilson, the pioneering fortepianist from Cornell, who brought a copy of a Stein fortepiano to demonstrate Mozart. I knew instantly this was part of what I had been seeking, and I was hooked. I met Margaret Hood through him, visiting her, and then the two of us were part of a debut concert for one of her Streicher piano copies, playing the Schubert F minor Fantasy. Margaret, and I became friends throughout the remainder of her life. She was a helpful mentor and inspiration.  

Be sure you love the instrument and the music. Passion and hard work are key to being successful. Find a mentor, and don't be afraid to reach out and ask questions. I have found almost all the people in this area are helpful and giving of advice and methods. Also, start investing in good tools when you can, but invest gradually and wisely. The better the tools, the better and more efficient your work is. Realize that you don't need a full wood or metalworking shop right off the bat, if ever, as they are expensive and take a lot of space. Get tools you will use a lot, but also cultivate a relationship with people with professional shops. Thus far, I have easily found people who really enjoy helping make the unusual wood or metal bits I need that are beyond my capability at home, or they can do it faster and better and hence cheaper than I can. The cost is far less than purchasing expensive equipment, let alone owning or renting the considerable space needed for it. 

Nannette Streicher has been an inspiration to me from the moment I first heard of her. She managed a family, an important business, and designed and refined the instruments, at a time when even women who worked in various industries were faceless in the background, names forgotten to history. Yes, women have always worked in the piano industry, mostly cottage industry work, some taking over managing a deceased husband's workshop, but typically had to marry the foreman and use his name for the work to be taken seriously. Margaret also managed work, family, and creativity. She was also an artist and horsewoman with a brilliant mind and a beautiful soul. How could you not be inspired? As to impact and place in music and the industry, Nannette brought the early Viennese piano design and the few first concert pianists such as Mozart into the 19th century and was making the first vital adaptations for a world with larger performance spaces and virtuoso sometimes almost violent players, requiring more volume and durability. Her instruments are the bridge to the next level, of early Bosendorfers and on. Margaret was one of the first and, to this day, very few in the world making replicas of the early 19th century Streicher pianos, letting us know this important link to the instruments and sound and touch known by Beethoven and Schubert and others.