Wolfgang Zuckermann

Wolfgang Joachim [Wallace] Zuckermann (born 11 October 1922) has achieved renown in three careers. As a harpsichord maker he invented a highly popular kit for constructing new instruments and wrote an influential book, The Modern Harpsichord. As environmental and social activist, he has authored books including The Mews of London and The End of the Road. And as a patron of the arts he designed, built and managed the Sundance Festival of the Chamber Arts from 1963-1967.

He was born in Berlin to Jewish parents in an academic family, and was named Wolfgang after Goethe and Mozart. He had an elder brother, Alexander, who later became a city planner and bicycle advocate in Oakland, California, and a younger brother named Michael. At age eight he began studying the cello, an instrument he continued to play in adulthood. The male family members formed a string quartet, with Alexander playing first violin, the father second, Michael viola, and Wolfgang cello.

With the advent of the Nazis in Germany, Zuckermann's family had to flee the country; they settled in New York in 1938, where Zuckermann's father ran a leather factory. In the same year Zuckermann became an American citizen and henceforth went by the name "Wallace" (or, in suitable contexts, "Wally"). He saw front line action as a private with the U.S. Army and followed this by obtaining a B.A. in English and psychology (1949) from Queens College, New York, winning the title of Queens College Scholar, the highest honor conferred upon graduates at that institution. He continued for a time studying psychology at the graduate level.

Zuckermann was employed for a time as "a sort of child psychologist", an occupation he soon gave up. He later noted wryly:

I have always thought mechanical things were easier to manage than living things (like children) because your own skill or ability was the principal element you had to contend with. If "things went wrong" it wasn't in spite of the fact that you always gave your harpsichord your best (which you yourself never had), that you sent it to Sunday School and gave it riding and French lessons, and put it to bed before 11 nightly.

Following this preference, Zuckermann "went to a trade school to learn piano mechanics and tuning and soon set myself up buying, repairing and selling old pianos." His amateur musical activities included Baroque chamber music, and the combination of his vocation and avocation soon led to an interest in harpsichords. He built his first instrument in 1955.

...
Wikipedia