Oscar Laffert.
The Musical Courier,
Vol 18 #24 June 12, 1889, page 486b.
We find, according to the latest number of the Leipsic "Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau," that Oscar Laffert, of Breslau, whose illness was announced some weeks ago, is dead, and from the same paper we gather the more important points of his life and activity in music trade journalism.
From Lichtenberg's musical establishment in Leipsic, where he was engaged as a young man, Laffert became bookkeeper in chief of the piano business of Julius Blüthner, where he subsequently became identified with the Kaps-Blüthner controversy regarding priority of claim in the Aliquot system, at that time used in the pianos of both firms, which controversy made him quite famous. It was always his intention to start a music trade paper, and he and his fried Mr. Paul De Wit, who was then with the publishing house of C. F. Kahnt, in Leipsic, started the "Zeitschrift," now Mr. De Wit's property, the first number appearing on October 1, 1880.
In the beginning this journalistic enterprise was viewed by the German piano manufacturers as a chimerical scheme, chiefly on account of Mr. Laffert's position at Blüthner's, but with his retirement from that position the paper found the obstacles removed, and Mr. Laffert went to Carlsruhe, where, in conjunction with Mr. H. Voegelin, a piano manufacturer, he opened a large musical establishment and piano wareroom.
Laffert, after laboring assiduously to build up the business, would have remained in Carlsruhe had he not been called to assume the place as director of the Apollo Piano Works at Dresden. He remained three years at the head of this establishment, and then resigned on account of disagreements with the board. When he accepted the position of director of the Apollo Company, his connection with the "Zeitschrift" closed, in accordance with notices published May 4, 1885.
Having been a tireless worker for many years without interruption, and on account of the additional strain upon his nervous system caused by the responsibilities of the Apollo position, Laffert found his health giving way. He retired to the city of his birth, Breslau, where he established a piano and music business, representing the Blüthner pianos, but the disease wore upon him rapidly, and after having been placed in an asylum he endured his sufferings a few weeks only, as he died on May 16, not quite 40 years old.
He was a man of broad culture and was thoroughly posted on all the details of the piano business in Germany, in consequence of which his views and opinions had particular value.
Under his auspices the work on the piano written by Siegfried Hansing, who is the superintendent of the factory of Messrs. Behr Brothers & Co., and which was reviewed in these columns some months ago, was published.