By Esther Joh

While in modern times standardization has affected the craft of piano building, in the 18th century instruments were still personal works of art.  Therefore, pianos differed from town to town and from builder to builder.  Although within geographical area craftsmen did influence one another, the distance between two cities as far apart as London and Vienna resulted in the establishing of two distinct schools of piano building: the Viennese and the English.  Viennese made by Stein from the early 1770, developed by Anton Walter, who built Mozart's own piano in the early 1780s.  English were developed through Backers, a Dutch-born harpsichord maker resident in London, and John Broadwood.