Astor & Company

With its six turned and reeded legs, fretwork panels at either end of the nameboard and removable cover to right of the keyboard, and the rounded front corners of its elegant mahogany case, this piano represents the height of early 19th century middle-class taste.

The Astor piano has the common English double action, where the escapement is effected by the sprung hopper attached to the key flipping backwards when the hammer has almost reached the string. Extended from five octaves, the FF–c´´´´ compass features the “additional keys”, whose hammers strike the strings through a window at the back of the soundboard.

This instrument was manufactured around 1810 in the London workshop of Astor & Company. George Astor (1752–1813) was born near Heidelburg and moved to London in 1770. He was the London member of a family of musical instrument makers and dealers which were to establish themselves on both sides of the Atlantic. His younger brother John Jacob Astor moved to America in 1783, first dealing in pianos and flutes in Baltimore and then New York. A lucrative business grew from the London demand for furs, and the Astor family became one of the richest in the United States in the 19th century. The dynasty’s name lives on today in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

This piano was donated to the School of Music in 2012 by Mrs Marquis, and at that time had been recently restored.

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Updated:  25 October 2022/Responsible Officer:  Head of School/Page Contact:  CASS Marketing & Communications