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Pleyel et Cie

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Chopin's Pleyel piano in Cell No. 4 in Valldemossa Charterhouse in Majorca, one of only two in the world.[1]
Chopin's last piano made by the Pleyel company (no 14810) displayed in the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw; Chopin played and composed on this instrument in 1848–49

Pleyel et Cie ("Pleyel and Company") was a French piano manufacturing firm founded by the composer Ignace Pleyel in 1807. In 1815, Pleyel's son Camille joined him as a business partner. The firm provided pianos to Frédéric Chopin,[2] and also ran a concert hall, the Salle Pleyel, where Chopin performed his first – and last – Paris concerts. Pleyel's major contribution to piano development was the first use of a metal frame in a piano. Pleyel pianos were the choice of composers such as Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, de Falla and Stravinsky and of pianists and teachers Alfred Cortot, Philip Manuel and Gavin Williamson.[3] Nineteenth-century musicians involved in the company's management included Joseph O'Kelly and Georges Pfeiffer.

History

Around 1815, Pleyel was the first to introduce the short, vertically strung cottage upright piano, or "pianino" to France, adapting the design made popular in Britain by Robert Wornum.[4] Their pianos were such a success that in 1834 the company employed 250 workers and produced 1000 pianos annually.

The company's success led them to invest in experiments, resulting in the double piano in 1890, invented by Hungarian composer Emánuel Moór. Although not the first company to experiment with building two pianos into the same frame, Pleyel's instrument, patented as the "Duo-Clave", was by far the most successful and produced the largest instruments. The company manufactured a very small number of double pianos in the 1890s and continued to make them until the 1920s. CDs can be bought today of performances on some of these pianos.

In 1913, Pleyel built the "Jungle Piano" for use by Albert Schweitzer in his hospital in Lambaréné (French Equatorial Africa – now Gabon). It was fitted with pedal attachments (to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard) and built with tropical woods that would acclimate to conditions there.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Pleyel firm produced the first chromatic harp. In the early 20th century, at the behest of Wanda Landowska, it helped to revive the harpsichord.

Pleyel also pioneered the player piano with the Pleyela line of pianos. These were often small pianos of an unusual design.

Today

Pleyel continued to manufacture pianos through 2013, under the corporate auspices of the Manufacture Française de Pianos company. In the 1980s, the Pleyel company bought out the Erard and Gaveau piano companies which also manufactured pianos in France. The Pleyel pianos of today incorporated improvements of these companies and others. In the last two decades, Pleyel Piano was bought by the same family which had bought the Salle Pleyel concert hall in order to revive the name and quality of Pleyel pianos. They built a new factory in the south of France and started making a line of newly designed and improved pianos. Then, in 2008, they decided to downsize the factory and lines of pianos. They moved the factory back to Paris and opened a new factory where they began introducing new pianos designed by famous designers. The red spruce used by Pleyel comes from the Fiemme Valley in Trentino, Italy. After full assembly of a piano, the instrument receives a further 30–40 hours of fine-tuning.[5]

In 2010 fortepiano maker Paul McNulty made the first in modern time copy of Pleyel 1830 (original in Paris Museum of Music), now at the Fryderyk Chopin Institute being used for International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments, as well as for concerts and recordings

At the end of 2013, the company announced it would cease manufacturing pianos in France.[6]

In September 2018 Paul McNulty's fortepiano Pleyel 1830 was used in 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments (run by Fryderyk Chopin Institute)

References

  1. ^ Edmond Leung's piano performance through time.
  2. ^ Macintyre, Ben (17 March 2007). "Chopin's true sound can be heard at last after discovery of his piano". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 19 March 2007.
  3. ^ "Letters, Volumes 41–42". Washington, DC.: Time Inc. 1935. OCLC 9467134. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ Margaret Cranmer, "Pleyel (ii)", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
  5. ^ Hundley, Tom (30 April 2008). "Grand finale: European piano-makers hear their centuries-old industry's closing notes". Chicago Tribune.
  6. ^ Beardsley, Eleanor (28 December 2013). "Chopin's Favorite Piano Factory Plays Its Final Chord". Weekend Edition Saturday. National Public Radio. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
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