Johann Joseph Pramberger was born in the Black Forest of Germany. Around 1810 he became an employee of Michael Schweighofer, a Viennese piano builder and 10 years later was a full partner. The company's name changed to Schweighofer & Pramberger. His son, Johann Pramberger Jr. studied under his father and later took over the family business. He received patents relating to strings and soundboard design. In 1950, the family of Anton Pramberger decided to leave war-torn Europe for the United States and joined family members who had been working since 1913 at Steinway & Sons in New York. Anton had been promised work at the Astoria factory. There, he put his skills to work, dedicating 25 years as a Pattern Maker and designing and creating the equipment required to build fine pianos. His son, Joseph Pramberger, would become the modern-day link in the Pramberger lineage of piano makers. Starting in 1958, Joseph Pramberger honed his craft at Steinway & Sons, where he spent 29 years perfecting his skills, first as a Design and Project Engineer, ultimately as the Vice President in charge of Manufacturing.
Joseph Pramberger
In 1987, Joseph retired from Steinway & Sons and formed his own company, Pramberger Piano Ltd., New York, where he and his father Anton worked together in the restoration and rebuilding of pianos and offered consulting services. One of the first clients was Yamaha. Pramberger was immediately commissioned to redesign Yamaha’s CFIII concert piano. This piano had failed to capture the respect and admiration of concert artists. The CFIII was perceived to be thin in tone and dynamically shallow. Joseph Pramberger made sweeping changes, and the piano then became the CFIIIS. Since this piano underwent its makeover, it has gained the approval of many classical and pop artists, as well as a number of orchestras and is still today Yamaha's flagship.
Joseph Pramberger schocked the piano world in 1995 when he decided to join Young Chang where he made dramatic innovations in sound and action design to help improve the quality of their affordable grand pianos. That led the company to produce a new line called the Pramberger Series. Joseph Pramberger saw the culmination of his work in 2000 with the launch of his own piano line, the Pramberger Platinum Series Piano. Joseph Pramberger died of cancer on December 15, 2003. His widow, Joyce, decided to sell the Pramberger piano brand name, logos and trademarks to the highest bidder. In 2004 Samick paid one of the highest sums ever in the history of the Piano Industry for the Pramberger trademarks in order to add this prestigious name to their ongoing collection of piano brands. Unfortunately for Samick, Joseph Pramberger’s original piano designs were not part of the deal. All of Joseph Pramberger’s piano scale designs and technical information remained with the Young Chang Piano Company.
