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The Restoration of the Fortepiano by  

Nannette Streicher Opus 961, Vienna 1813

(SAM 844)

Figs. 1a and b: Fortepiano by Nannette Streicher, Vienna 1813, after restoration.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Collection of Historic Musical Instruments,
inv. no. SAM 844.

FORTEPIANO

BY

NANNETTE
STREICHER

1. INTRODUCTION The Collection of Historic Musical Instruments is not only world-famous

for its exceptional cimelia of the Renaissance and early Baroque, it also
chronicles, among other things, the history of Viennese piano production
from its origins until the first half of the twentieth century on the basis of
selected pieces. With the restoration of the fortepiano by Nannette Streicher
(fig. 1), built in 1813, a longstanding gap in the exhibition concept could
be closed.
The restoration was supported by a generous donation from the TANA
Trust, London, and by Saskia van der Wel and Fritz Heller.

Nannette Streicher (1769–1833), born Anna Maria Stein in Augsburg, was
the oldest of the four surviving children of Johann Andreas Stein (1728–
1792), perhaps the most famous German piano builder of the Mozart period.
Already early on, she worked in her father’s workshop and there from a
young age learned the craft of piano making. She was a talented pianist,
and already as an eight-year-old played the Triple Concert of Wolfgang
Amadé Mozart together with her father and the composer, when in 1777
the latter visited the Stein workshop in Augsburg on his journey to Paris.
In 1794 she married Andreas Streicher (1761–1833), a childhood friend of
Schiller, with whom she moved to Vienna in the same year, and here,

2. WHO WAS NANNETTE STREICHER?

Ina Hoheisel and Alfons Huber b