A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Becker (pianoforte-maker)

BECKER. In Russia the pianoforte-makers have been Germans. The leading Russian house at the present time owes its origin to Jacob Becker, a native of the Bavarian Palatinate, who founded it in 1841. Although pianoforte-making had early in this century been introduced in St. Petersburg, until about 1850 pianists had imported their instruments for public performance. From that time however Becker succeeded in making concert instruments, and since 1871 Mr. Paul Peterssen, the present head of the house, by adopting modern principles of framing, has made an effectual stand against this—to Russian interests—disadvantageous competition, and it has now become as much a matter of course to hear the Russian pianofortes of Becker in the concerts of Petersburg and Moscow as it is to hear the Russian language in polite society.

[ A. J. H. ]