Museum Collection
A “Schröder” Grand Piano
In the sitting-room of the memorial house in the Estate of M.A. Sholokhov there is a grand piano of “Schröder” company. It was bought by the writer in 1936 in Moscow in the second-hand shop. Young composer I.I. Dzerzhinskiy (already the author of the opera “The Quiet Don” by that time) helped to choose the instrument.
“Schröder” is the most famous piano company of German Saxon masters and manufacturers which existed over a hundred years (1816-1917).
In Russia the piano German masters appeared late in the XVIII-early in the XIX centuries. From 1880 Karl Schröder became a Supplier for the Court of the All-Russia’s Emperor (the possessor of the highest quality mark).
The grand piano of the Sholokhovs family was made in 1907 (according to the number of 28281).
Before the Great Patriotic war the grand piano stood in the house with a mezzanine. When the Sholokhovs’ family went away for evacuation it remained in the house and was greatly damaged during the bombardment of the stanitsa. In the November of 1942 the instrument was taken to Dudarevskiy Village (with a help of P.G. Korolyov), where it stood in the school gymhall, until the front moved back from the Don.
The instrument was returned back to the house, and for 10 years it had remained unrepaired. Only early in the 1960-s the grand piano was restored. Mikhail Aleksandrovich took the strings from Sweden, invited the piano tuner from Rostov. At present the instrument sounds perfectly.
Before the war M.A. Sholokhov often played music. He had an ear for music and would play the tunes he liked most or remembered by ear. After the war he did not use the instrument.
