Conrad Graf

Conrad Graf (17 November 1782 in Riedlingen, Württemberg – 18 March 1851 in Vienna) was an Austrian-German piano maker. His pianos were used by Beethoven, Chopin, and Clara Schumann, among others.

Life and career

Graf began his career as a cabinet maker, studying the craft in his native Riedlingen in south Germany. He reached the status of journeyman in 1796 and migrated to Vienna in either 1798 or 1799. In 1800 he served briefly in an all-volunteer military unit, the Jäger Freikorps, then became apprenticed to a piano maker named Jakob Schelkle, who worked in Währing, then a suburb of Vienna. When Schelkle died in 1804, Graf married his widow Katharina and took over the shop.

The Graf family had two children listed in census records: Karalina Schelklin (born 1802), from Katherina's previous marriage, and Juliana Graf (born 1806). Katherina died in 1814, and Graf did not remarry.

It is not known how Graf developed his style or methods for building pianos. None of the pianos of his teacher Schelkle survive, and the surviving early Graf instruments are not much different from his fully mature ones. As Wythe says, "Graf's style appears to have emerged fully developed out of an apprenticeship with an obscure provincial maker."