| ESTONIA
pianos come from the Republic of Estonia, a small country in northen
Europe located on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Due to its
attractive geographical position Estonia has been conquered and
ruled by many different countries for centuries. The influence of
German nobility has been most dominating all trough the history.
The
ESTONIA Piano Factory sums up over 200 year of piano making in
Estonia. The first written evidence of piano making in Estonia
dates from 1779 by Johannes Friedrich Gräbner, in the newspaper
Revaliche Wochentliche Nachrichten (Reval was the old name of
Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and the newspaper, published
in German, reads - Weekly News of Reval). From 1850 - 1940 there
were nearly 20 piano manufacturers, including Rathke, Astron,
Moritz, Sprenk and Hiis. The ESTONIAN Piano Factory, founded in
1893 by Mr.Ernst Hiis, combined later the other smaller factories
and their craftsman in Estonia into one company. |
|
 Ernst
Hiis (1872 - 1964) is the Grand Old Man of Estonia piano craftsmanship.
He studied at Rathke, Steinway - Hamburg and Blüthner companies
and established his own company in 1893. From the start he aimed
at making only Grand pianos which were all entirely handcrafted
(a tradition still pursued today) and sold under his name- HIIS
or IHSE (the later is a German version). Mr. Hiis is remembered
by his colleagues as a fanatic master with the utmost dedication
to the sound of the instruments. In 1950 the Government of Estonia
asked him to combine other smaller factories into the Tallinn
Piano Factory and concentrate primarily on Grand Pianos under
the name ESTONIA. Soon the ESTONIA pianos received domestic and
international recognition with 17 Gold Medals, including those
from exhibitions in Brussels (Belgium) and Leipzig (Germany).
ESTONIA
Piano Factory is grateful to Mr. Paul Vesterstein for his marketing
efforts of the ESTONIA pianos in the United States.
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