Petrof

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Petrof is a Czech piano maker. The company was founded in 1864 in Hradec Králové by Antonín Petrof (d.1915) who had studied piano making in Vienna.

[edit] History of PETROF

1857 – The company founder Antonín PETROF goes to Vienna to learn how to build grand pianos

1864 – Hradec Králové - building of the first concert grand piano

1865 – Antonín Petrof transforms his father's joinery workshop into a piano maker's workshop

1874 – The company moves to a new property in the direction of Brno

1881 – The company starts keyboard production and the construction of action

1884 – The construction of a saw mill

1894 – Start exporting instruments abroad

1895 – Subsidiary in Temesvár in Hungary opened

1908 – The company becomes a limited company. Not only the founder Antonín Petrof, but also his sons Jan, Antonín and from 1914 the youngest Vladimír (2nd generation) work for the company.

1915 – Antonín Petrof and his wife Marie, the company confidential clerk die

1928 – PETROF together with the significant American manufacturer STEINWAY open a subsidiary in London at Wigmore Street.

1932 – The company management enlarges the company administration with the 3rd Petrof generation: Dimitrij, Eduard and Eugena

1948 – Nationalization - the national company Továrny na piana a varhany (Piano and organ factories) with a registered office at Hradec Králové is established; the PETROF brand is further used

1954 – Development department for upright pianos and grand pianos is established.

1991 – The Petrof family returns to the factory – Ing. Jan Petrof (4th generation) after 40 years of totalitarian regime – Start of privatization process

1994 – New modern research centre with own big-capacity free-field measuring chamber, biggest of its kind in the Czech republic, opened

1997 – Továrna na piana, a. s. established in Hradec Králové

1999 – 135th anniversary of establishment of Petrof company

2001 – PETROF, spol. s r. o. - the factory passed fully into the hands of the Petrof family, 5th generation enters

2004 – Zuzana Ceralová Petrofová becomes president of the company – 5th generation

2005 - Zuzana Ceralová Petrofová - appointed president of European Federation of Music Instrument Manufacturers - CAFIM

[edit] External links

• petrof.cz