We’ll start with his father.
Julius Bauer was born in Berlin on July 20, 1831. At an early age he showed a natural talent for making musical instruments and by the time he was 18 he had accumulated many years of experience working on pianos and violins. At this time, the revolution of 1848 was erupting, so he left for America and arrived in New York.
He immediately opened his own store, in 8 years his company had grown rapidly. He leaves his brother John in charge of the New York store and arrives in Chicago in 1857 with his other brother Herman. They sold various brands of pianos including Behning, Miller, McCammon, and Knabe.
In the great Chicago fire of 1871, his business was destroyed. For the next year and a half, he operated a church while a new building was being built. During this time of tragedy, his brother John’s dies, so he closes the New York branch.
Although Bauer started out as a retailer, he soon began making pianos that were sold under his name. Bauer pianos became known for being exceptionally well made pianos.
With its success, Bauer was able to afford luxurious department stores in two major cities, Chicago, and again in New York in 1880.
Julius dies in 1884 and his wife Anna Marie takes over the management of the company.
Their son William was born in 1870, and after graduating from high school, he goes on vacation to Europe. When he returns to Chicago, he begins his factory career learning all he can about pianos from scratch.
Now the fun begins. William turned out to be a gifted piano maker with an inventive mind. In my opinion, he was one of the most original thinkers in the history of piano technology.
(The following can be a bit technical.)
His designs seem to be based on rigidity. Its plates are designed so that the string tension lies in a horizontal plane within the center of the plate, whereas on a “normal” grand piano, the string tension lies horizontally at the top of the plate. .
It takes another step in its verticality. A major shortcoming of studs is that the cabinet can drown out sound. William addresses this issue by placing the soundboard at the back of the instrument for maximum sound exposure, but the plate and strings are in the middle of the instrument. He connects the soundboard to the bridge and the strings with cleats.
Pretty amazing!
I recommend that you look at his patents, which can be accessed online by searching for Patents on Google.
Another example of his unique approach is the soundboard itself. You can easily identify a Julius Bauer piano because its soundboards have ribs on the top and bottom.
Later, he even invented a piano without any steel plate. It features a wooden plate to replace the traditional cast iron plate in order to give the piano a sweeter tone.
His piano designs and construction methods were very unique and highly praised in his time. Today they are worth a second look, and well worth restoring.
He sold his company to the Wurlitzer Piano Company in 1930 and was hit hard during the Great Depression.
Wurlitzer continued to build on the Julius Bauer name until around 1938.