Today’s Pirastro GmbH was founded in 1798 by Giorgio Pirazzi as “Giorgio Pirazzi and Sons”, string-maker from Italy, with representatives in Rome, Naples and Padua. Pirazzi was a Miller’s son born in 1766 in Domodossola in Italy and was sent as a 14-year old to string makers in both Naples and Rome where he was to learn the craft of the manufacture of strings. On completing his apprenticeship, Pirazzi returned back to his home on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Here he met Italian families who had experienced good fortune by moving to Frankfurt and now were returning to their old homes for the holiday period.
The business grew slowly and steadily and in the 1890s Gustav Pirazzi (the grandson of the founder) invited his friend, Theodor Strobel, to join him as a business partner. The partners combined the first four letters of their names to create the PIRA-STRO brand which is still so well-known today. Strobel died in 1922 and Gustav’s son Hermann took over the firm, leading it until his death in 1976.
A growth in demand necessitated the need for a second production site in Germany in the early seventies. Following this, in 1992 Eva Pirazzi, daughter of Hermann, and her husband, Volker Müller-Zierach, took on the leadership of the firm. Today Eva and Volker work with their adult children Annette and Henning, both of whom joined the firm following the completion of their studies and experiences working in other companies across Europe. Henning and Annette are now the sixth generation of the family to lead the firm.