Let’s go way back to the 18th
century to visit the beginnings of the Erard Piano-forte maker. Why? By the 19th century, Erard pianos were as popular then as the Steinway is today. Many of the foremost musicians of that time, such as Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Liszt to name just a few, preferred the Erard over any other pianoforte of that era. As reported in
the "Music Critic and Trade Review" magazine of September 5, 1880, we read:
“Towards the latter part of last month
(August 1880), says the London and
Provincial Music Trades Review, the house of Erards’ celebrated the
centenary of their foundation. Owing to the recent death of M. Blondel, the
Paris manager of the firm, there were no festivities. But Madame Erard marked
the event by an act of regal generosity, distributing 60,000 francs among her
workmen and employees, in proportions varying according to the period each one
had been in her employment. Sebastian Erhadt, the founder of the firm, was born
at Strasburg, April 5, 1752, the eldest of four children of an upholsterer in
that city. He was originally apprenticed to a draughtsman, and it is narrated
that he ascribed much of the success which attended him in after life to his
theoretical knowledge of drawing and of the principles of mechanics. His father
died poor, and Sebastian, at the age of sixteen, was thrown upon his own
resources. He tramped to Paris, and entered the employment of a harpsichord
maker there. He was a persevering young man, but it is narrated of him that “he
was too inquisitive, and wanted to know too much.” However, his employer having
received an order for a harpsichord, and being unable to execute it himself,
entrusted it to young Erhadt, and when it was finished he, after the fashion
too often adopted by eminent and other pianoforte manufacturers of the present
day, affixed his own name to it. Questions, however, arose as to the mechanism,
which the bogus maker was unable to explain, and the fact that the real maker
was Sebastian Erhadt was disclosed.
The celebrity of the mechanical
harpsichord soon ran around the fashionable world of Paris, and young
Sebastian, then 25 years of age, attracted the notice of the Duchess of
Villeroi. The lady herself had some originality of invention, and she
established for Erhadt, whose name was forthwith Gallicized to Erard, a factory
in her chateau. It was here that Erard manufactured the first pianoforte ever
made in France, it being, according to Fetis, a square, with two unisons and
five octaves, upon the plan of the pianofortes which had been imported from
England and Germany. This was in 1777, and from it the celebrity of Erard may
lie said to date. His orders for pianos largely increasing, he sent to
Strasburg for his brother Jean Baptiste, and the two, in July, 1780,
established in the Rue de Bourbon, in the Faubourg St. Germain, the factory
which soon became one of the most celebrated in Europe. It was the centenary of
this establishment that was observed last month.
Sebastian Erard now busied
himself with new inventions, and among other things he devised for the voice of
the queen, which was of such limited compass that almost every piece was too
high for her, a movable keyboard. Some writers aver that the movable keyboard was
old even at that time (1787), but it is almost identical with other inventions
of a similar sort which have been patented even during later years. The idea
was simply to change the position of the keyboard so that the hammers might
strike a higher or lower string, thus transposing “a semitone, a whole tone, or
even a minor third.” For eleven years the factory of Erards flourished in
Paris, until the revolution broke out. The Erards were forced to flee to
England, and in 1793 they established their London factory. On October 17th,
1794, Sebastian Erard took out his first English patent, entitled “Two methods
for the escapement of the hammer and an arrangement for striking one two or
three strings at pleasure by a side movement of the damper rail. Harmonic
octave produced by mechanism which pressed on the string exactly in the centre.”
At that time, although the pianoforte was known to have been used at a concert
by Dibdin as far back as 1767 (the concert program now being framed, is in the
office of Messrs. John Broadwood & Sons), it was really in its infancy.
Backers, Broadwood, ans Stodart were then the great pioneers of pianoforte
manufacture, for although the firm of Kirkman was in existence long prior, its
industry was exclusively confined to the manufacture of harpsichords. In 1796,
after the Reign of Terror, Erard returned to Paris, continuing, however, his
London factory. In that year he made his first grand horizontal piano on the
English model, which, according to Fetis, he continued using till 1808. He had
in the meantime, in 1801, patented in London an invention “to render the touch
either hard or soft to any degree, at the election of the player.”
In 1808 Sebastian Erard finally
discarded the English action, and on September 14th of that year he
patented the first ideas of his famous repetition action. It is the fourth
article of the patent (the previous articles relating to stopping the piano
strings so as to give a semitone above, and to plate improvements), and it runs
as follows: - “In the piano an improvement is introduced into the movement in
connection with the hammer rail, which affords the power of giving repeated
strokes without missing or failure by very small angular motions of the key
itself.” The specification with drawings is printed, and it may also be found
in the seventh of the Rolls Chapel Reports. In an article in the Dictionary of Musicians, Mr. A.J.
Hipkins refers to a patent for the repetition grand piano action, taken out by
Sebastian Erard in 1809, but no such patent is in the records of our patent
office. Mr. Hipkins further states that a feature of this 1809 patent was the
inverted bridge or upward bearing at the wrest plank bridge of the piano, since
invariably adopted. But as we can find no record of the facts, we must leave
the responsibility of the statement to Mr. Hipkins. It is very certain,
however, that the invention of the repetition action had occupied Sebastian
Erard from the time that Louis XVI conferred the brevet upon his firm to the
date of the actual fruition of his ideas. Sebastian, however, well nigh seventy
years of age, felt himself too old to carry his invention out, and he confided
it to his nephew Pierre, the son of his brother, Jean Baptiste Erard. Pierre
Erard was born in 1796, and at the age of 25, in 1821, he describing himself as
of “Great Marlborough street, musical instrument maker,” took out the
celebrated repetition action patent, dated December 22nd of that
year. The preamble of the patent declares that Pierre Erard, “in consequence of
communications made to him by a certain foreigner residing abroad, is in
possession of an invention of ‘Improvements in pianofortes and other keyed
instruments’, namely, a new and improves application of mechanism to the
escapement.” The patent is briefly described in the official abridgements as
follows: -
“The present invention introduces
four improvements, which require simply the depression of the key. (1) A spring
so contrived that its strength is made to support the weight of the hammer
after it has made its blow and has escaped from its support upon the sticker.
(2) A contact is brought about between the hammer, near the centre upon which
it moves, and the spring or lever connected and supported by such spring, in
order to prepare the fall of the hammer when its escapement takes place. (3) A
lever, by moving on its centre, effects the escapement of the sticker from under
the hammer. (4) A piece so contrived with an adjusting screw as to catch the
hammer in its fall, and to stop or hold it as long as the key is kept entirely
down, so as to prevent the possibility of its rebounding to the wires again,
while it releases it again with the smallest rise of the finger end of the key.”
This practically ended the
connection of Sebastian Erard with the firm which he had founded. The labor of
his early years told upon even a robust constitution, and after suffering many
years from disease, he died at his chateau, La Muette, near Passy, August 5th,
1831. His funeral was a grand one, attended by most of the leading artists of Paris.
M. Pierre Erard now took up the
active direction of the business, and he proved himself as prolific in
invention as his uncle before him. Following rapidly upon the invention of the
repetition action in 1821, M. Pierre Erard, on January 5th, 1825,
patented the system of fixed metal bracing, which was widely adopted, and is
even used in our days. This invention (emanating originally from Sebastian
Erard) also included a new contrivance for the check. In February, 1827, a
further patent, also the idea of Sebastian Erard, and improving the action and
the check with a new method of hinging the hammer, was granted, while in 1835 the repetition action patent of
1821 was extended for seven years, on the ground of the great utility of the
patent and of the losses at first sustained in working it. In September, 1840,
M. Pierre Erard took out his first original patent of a new action for oblique
pianofortes, the patent also including a ball and socket centre of motion for
the finger key and an X stand to obtain equal support for all the four feet of
horizontal pianos. The last two points of the invention have, we believe, since
been abandoned. Another patent was granted to M. Pierre Erard in September,
1850, the ideas including the application of wood to metal instead of metal to
wood, a tuning screw for each wire, new pedal keys, and especially a wrest
plank wholly of metal. Another patent was taken out in November, 1851, by which
the strings were laid on or against the sound board instead of on the bridge
of the sound board, the idea proposing to obviate the pressure which tends to
press away the sound board.
M. Pierre Erard died at Passy in
1855, and the important business has since been carried on by his widow, Madame
Erard, assisted by a competent London and Paris staff. In February, 1862, Mr.
E.G. Bruzaud, the manager of the London house, patented a contrivance by which
two dampers were used for each note.
It may be mentioned that the invention in 1838
of the harmonic bar is claimed for M. Pierre Erard by Dr. Oscar Paul in the Geschichte des Claviers, published in
Leipzig in 1688. The house of Erard has also always been celebrated for its
harps. . . Harp patents were also taken out by Sebastian Erard in 1802, 1808,
(damping) 1810,. . . and by Pierre Erard in 1822 and 1835.
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