Johann Von Schonfeld’s description in 1796, of the sound of Anton Walter’s forte piano, compared Walter’s piano sound to the sound of the Stein piano. Walter’s piano implemented a thinner soundboard and bridge than Stein, which Edwin Good describes as being more responsive, with a ‘clearer’ tone, though softer volume. ²⁹⁵

Walter’s fortepianos have a full bell like tone, a clear attack, and a strong, full bass. At first the tone is somewhat dull, but if one has played for some time it becomes very clear, especially in the treble. If they are played very much, the tone soon becomes sharp and iron-like, which can be corrected by re-leathering the hammers. ²⁹⁶

Good writes that the thicker strings and the triple –strung treble made it possible to play on Anton Walter’s Viennesse forte piano more loudly without forcing the tone, and that the Stein soundboards and bridges were thinner than those of the other Viennese piano makers of the time, a feature that made his instruments more responsive, perhaps ‘clearer’ in tone, but also softer in volume than for example a Walter. ²⁹⁷

Commentaries on the significant differences in the Austrian-German (Viennese) and Anglo-German (London) piano designs of the late 18th Century, illustrate the use of tonal attributes which are still is use today, and in some ways the comparison is similar to the piano comparison of the Stuart and Steinway piano sounds. The late 18th Century was a period where national characteristics of piano design influenced national styles of piano performance and composition. The sound of the Austrian- German pianos made by Walter, Stein, Schmit and Graf for example, were made with lighter thinner, more flexible soundboards and the strings were mainly set as bichords, doubled, without wound strings in the bass, whereas the Anglo-German pianos of Stodart,²⁹⁸ Backers, and Broadwood, implemented a derivative of the Cristofori action, and strings set as trichords, triple stringing, with thicker soundboards. Pianists Johann Hummel and Francis Kalkbrenner described the sound of both types of piano in published critiques of the day. The music of Dussek, Cramer and Field was representative of the Anglo-German piano sound, described as having a ‘fullness of tone’, ‘harmonic sweetness’ and as ‘singing’ .The music of Haydn and Mozart was representative of the Austrian-German piano sound, described as ‘small but clear’, ‘bassoon-like’ in the bass,²⁹⁹ ‘round’, ‘flute-like’, as having an ‘elegant silvery tone’, and ‘feather light’. ³⁰⁰

Perhaps the earliest comparison of piano sounds in front of an audience occurred in 1823, at Vienna’s Kartnerthor Theatre, when pianist Ignaz Moscheles performed a piano-comparison concert on

^{295     16}Good, 85.
²⁹⁶Johann Ferdinand von. Schonfeld, The Yearbook of Music of Vienna and Prague(Jahrbuch der Tonkunst von Wien und Prag 1796), 88. Register von Otto Biba Schonfeld, Johann Ferdinand von . (Muchen: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler, 1976), and Tilman Skowroneck, Beethoven the Pianist(U.K :Cambridge University Press, 2010),78.
^{297     17}Good, 85.
^{298     18} Good,69.
^{299     5}Schonberg,23-24. original source: Johann Hummel (1827) A complete Theoretical and Practial Course of Instruction in the Art of Playing the Piano Forte,(London: T. Boosey 1828);
^{300     2} Boehm “ STEIN FAMILY”, 372.