Richard W. Gertz

Gertz had the enviable good fortune to be born into a family that was filled with music lovers. His father was the Concertmaster of the Orchestra in Hannover, Germany and often played from the same desk as the famous Joseph Joachim. Richard Wagner, Liszt, Bulow, Brahms, and Spohr were his intimate friends and frequently visited the Gertz home. They were often there socially, but music was ever present and Gertz was exposed to the finest available right in his family’s parlor.

Gertz’s father also owned a piano business. He carried only the finest available pianos including Bechstein and Bluthner, and introduced the Steinway & Sons pianos in Germany. The very first Steinway piano received by Gertz was sent complimentary to Liszt, who used it in his studio at Weimar.

Young Richard attended one of Germany’s finest schools, all the while working in his father’s repair shop and learning all he could about the piano and its evolution. As this instrument was “cutting edge technology” at the time, he understood that the math and science he studied at school could be immediately applied to the improvements that were ruminating in his young mind. As a matter of course, he would redesign older pianofortes that his father would take in on trade. He would cut down the larger instruments to a more standard 200 cm. size, design a new scale, fit a more modern action, and then sell them at good prices. Many instruments that did not have the tone of the more modern pianos being produced in the early 1880’s were sent to the Gertz repair shop for similar work. Young Gertz was gaining quite a reputation as a designer and builder.

During a visit by William Steinway to his father’s home, the former encouraged young Richard to come to New York and work at the Steinway factory. As soon as his schooling was finished, Richard answered that call. Because of his father’s relationship with the company and William’s recognition of his prowess, young Gertz had lots of freedom at the factory and for two years he worked in different branches of the Steinway factory. After making some connections in America, Richard spent two years working for the Bollman Brothers firm and an additional two years working for Mason & Hamlin in their organ department before returning to Germany.

Once home, Richard formally studied science with special attention given to acoustics. In 1892 his father passed and Gertz ran his business until 1895. It was then that The Mason & Hamlin company hired him to redesign their scales. His work and instruction to the staff was so successful that he was offered the opportunity to become a shareholder and run the entire piano manufacturing operation. Gertz jumped at the chance.

Richard’s mastery of every job necessary to execute his designs coupled with an uncanny ability to study out every possible good or bad effect on tone and touch by even the smallest part of an instrument made him recognized not just in the Mason & Hamlin factory, but in the entire industry.

In 1904, Gertz was the chief judge of musical instruments at the St. Louis World’s Fair. By 1906, he was president of the Mason & Hamlin company.

Richard Gertz's "Tension Resonator" (The metal spiderweb of bracing in the picture to the left) is a part of the revolutionary thinking behind the Gertz Mason & Hamlin designs.