Feurich

The Feurich piano company was founded in 1851 in Leipzig, Germany, by Julius Gustav Feurich and has been family operated for five generations becoming renowned for the quality of its pianos. Today Feurich is owned by an Austrian piano manufacturer named Wendl & Lung, and the bulk of manufacturing is carried out in China.[1]

History
J. Feurich piano (Museum of History, Ulan-Ude)

Artisanal piano making has a long tradition in Saxony. The city of Leipzig was, along with Paris, London, and Vienna, one of the pillars of European musical culture and music capital of the German Empire. In addition to its great cultural heritage, the city of Leipzig was also an excellent trading venue with a lot of national contacts and a prosperous middle class. Here Julius Gustav Feurich founded the piano factory, Feurich, in 1851.[2]

By 1860, more than 400 instruments were manufactured and sold. Julius Feurich worked to expand his business and in the following years a larger and more modern factory was built allowing for ever greater quantities to be produced. By the turn of the twentieth century, nearly 14,000 uprights and grand pianos were manufactured.

The owner Hermann Feurich was awarded an imperial and royal warrant of appointment to the court of Austria-Hungary.[3]

Feurich was one of the greatest German piano companies, but had the bad luck to be located in a major city that was bombed heavily during World War II and the factory was destroyed. It then had the further misfortune to be in East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain, during Germany's partition which caused exports to go to nearly zero. The factory was re-located to the outskirts of Gunzenhausen (West Germany) in the 1960s.

In 2012 Feurich was sold to a similar traditional Austrian piano manufacturer named Wendl & Lung, a piano manufacturer from Vienna founded in 1910. Wendl & Lung is picking up Feurich Pianos and Grand Pianos again, based on the same constructions as before. Starting in 2012, Feurich pianos and grand pianos are produced in Ningbo (China) and in Burscheid (North Rhine-Westphalia).

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References
  1. "Facing the music: how China is buying Germany's piano industry". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  2. http://www.feurich.com/history/
  3. Handbuch des Allerhöchsten Hofes und des Hofstaates Seiner K. und K. Apostolischen Majestät., Vienna: K.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1917, p. 519
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