Fret-free Clavichord after Christian Gottfried Friederici 1765
The workshop in Gera, which Christian Gottfried Friederici ran together with his brother Christian Ernst, was a top address for fine keyboard instrument making. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the grand master of sensitive music for keyboard instruments, praised the clavichords, and no less a person than Wolfgang Amadé Mozart owned at least one instrument from the famous Thuringian atelier. Leopold Mozart's written statement to his son is well known: "When you speak with Mr. Stein, you must avoid any opportunity to make a report of our instruments from Gera, for he is jealous of the Friederici."