August Förster Pianos

[Ric Brekne]

I've not hear that these guys had hoped onto the Chinese express yet.  But they were one of the few east block manufactureres in the old days that made a decent enough instrument. Quite decent really.  Probably the best of the lot with Petrof right behind.  They were in Liepzig East Germany I believe.  They were early into  plastic flanges.  The only problems I've run into that seem to be typical were that they used some kind of lubricant in the bushings that had the oppositie affect after a few years use (Uprights) and in the grands the lowest bass notes always seemed to develope loose tuning pins.

Otherwise a big boomy powerful base tone with a nice balance in the treble.  Treble did develope a bit of false beating ... sometimes a lot... but never as much as Petrof products did at the time.  I havent run into any new examples as the dealer who used to sell these is a non player now.  

Cheers
RicB




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Do you mean August Förster? If so, these are German pianos of relative high 
quality. Old Försters are very nice, too. I played in a Big Band on a newer 
Förster and I liked it. But the dampers are a little bit weak.

Förster produced an Elektrochord in 1932, a grand with pickups. And a 
"Vierteltonflügel" with two keyboards and two frames and two stringsets. 
These sets were different tuned for a quarter ("Viertel") of a note:
http://www.august-foerster.de/

Gregor