Æolian Company
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The Aeolian Company was a musical-instrument making firm whose products included player organs,
pianos A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an action mechanism where hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal tempe ...
,
sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed Book, books or Pamphlet, pamphlets ...
, records and
phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...
s. Founded in 1887, it was at one point the world's largest such firm. During the mid 20th century, it surpassed Kimball to become the largest supplier of pianos in the United States, having contracts with
Steinway & Sons Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in New York City by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth le ...
to provide its
Duo-Art Duo-Art was one of the leading reproducing piano technologies of the early 20th century, the others being American Piano Company (Ampico), introduced in 1913 too, and Welte-Mignon in 1905. These technologies flourished at that time because of ...
system for installation in Steinway pianos. It went out of business in 1985.


History

The Aeolian Company was founded by
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
piano maker William B. Tremaine as the ''Aeolian Organ & Music Co.'' (1887) to make automatic
organs In a multicellular organism, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to a ...
and, after 1895, as the ''Aeolian Co.'' automatic
pianos A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an action mechanism where hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal tempe ...
as well. The factory was initially located in
Meriden, Connecticut Meriden ( ) is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, located halfway between the regional cities of New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. The city is part of the South Central Connecticut Planni ...
. Tremaine had previously founded the Mechanical Orguinette Co. in 1878 to manufacture automated reed organs. The manufacture of residence or "chamber" organs to provide entertainment in the mansions of millionaires was an extremely profitable undertaking, and Aeolian virtually cornered the market in this trade, freeing them from the tight competition of church-organ building with its narrow profit margins. Elaborate cases and consoles were often featured in residence organs. In other installations, the pipes were hidden behind
tapestries Tapestry is a form of textile art which was traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Normally it is used to create images rather than patterns. Tapestry is relatively fragile, and difficult to make, so most historical pieces are intended to han ...
, under or above staircases, or spoke from the basement through grilles or tone chutes. The company also made organettes and player pump organs for the "Working Man" to buy. The pianola, a pneumatic player piano, soon after became extremely popular. It had been invented in 1895 by Edwin S. Votey, president of the
Farrand & Votey Organ Company Farrand may refer to: * William R. Farrand (1853–1930), American manufacturer of pianos and organs * Livingston Farrand (1867–1939), American physician and anthropologist * Royal T. Farrand (1867–1927), American football player and medical ...
in Detroit. In 1897, Votey joined Aeolian,(December 21, 1899). Aeolian Organ Company’s purchase f Votey Organ Company ''Hartford Courant'', p. 3. Retrieved April 13, 2020 and in 1900 the firm obtained the patent for such instruments. In 1899, Aeolian took over the property and business of the Vocalian Company of Worcester, Mass. and ran it together with the Meriden plant. In 1903, Tremaine absorbed a number of companies making self-playing instruments, including the lbertWeber Co., a New York piano maker since 1852, into the Aeolian, Weber Piano & Pianola Co. In 1904 Aeolian sued the
Los Angeles Art Organ Company {{More footnotes, date=April 2009 The Los Angeles Art Organ Company was based, as its name suggests, in Los Angeles, California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United Stat ...
for patent infringement of its player mechanism, leading to court victories that, with other factors, effectively shut down a competitor. Other patent lawsuits were not always successful. As the pianola, in its turn, was supplanted by the newer Aeolian's " Duo Art"
reproducing piano A player piano is a self-playing piano with a pneumatic or electromechanical mechanism that operates the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls. Modern versions use MIDI. The player piano gained popularity as mass-produced home ...
(1913), which could reproduce the sound of a famous artist playing without manual intervention, the Aeolian, Weber Piano & Pianola Co. became the world's leading manufacturer of such roll-operated instruments. In 1915 the Aeolian Co. started making Vocalion phonographs and in 1917/8 started
Vocalion Records Vocalion Records is an American record label, originally founded by the Aeolian Company, a piano and organ manufacturer before being bought out by Brunswick in 1924. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pi ...
, a maker of high-quality discs which in December 1924 was sold to
Brunswick Records Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916. History 1916–1929 Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing ...
. The phonograph was one of the main factors in the demise of the player piano, although Starr made players and records as well as pianos. An attempt of the company to engage in the production of church and concert organs resulted in important installations at
Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...
Chapel and
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. It was undermined by the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, during which the organ division was merged with the E.M. Skinner Organ Co. to become the
Aeolian-Skinner Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts was an American builder of a large number of pipe organs from its inception as the Skinner Organ Company in 1901 until its closure in 1972. Key figures were Ernest M. Skinner (1866–1 ...
Organ Co., a leading builder until the 1970s. On January 27, 1917,
R. J. Reynolds Richard Joshua Reynolds (July 20, 1850 – July 29, 1918) was an American businessman and founder of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. The son of a tobacco farmer and major slaveowner, he worked for his father and attended Emory & Henry Col ...
placed an order with the Aeolian Company for a pipe organ with four keyboards and a pedal footboard. Today, the organ has about 250 organ rolls and is played in the afternoon for visitors. As the popularity of the player piano faded with the rise of the phonograph and radio, the company merged in 1932 with the American Piano Company (itself a 1908 consolidation of
Chickering & Sons Chickering & Sons was an American piano manufacturer located in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1823 by Jonas Chickering and James Stewart, but the partnership dissolved four years later. By 1830 Jonas Chickering became partners ...
, Knabe & Co., and other manufacturers). The combined company, known as the Aeolian-American Corporation, went through several ownership changes. In 1959, ownership passed to the Heller family, owners of the former Winter and Co., and it was renamed simply the Aeolian Corporation. William G. Heller, who had worked for Aeolian and its predecessor companies since 1904, served as a company president from 1924 until his death in 1974. In 1974, Aeolian sold pianos under the brand names of
Mason & Hamlin Mason & Hamlin is an American manufacturer of handcrafted grand and upright Piano, pianos, based in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1854, it is one of two surviving American piano manufacturers from the Golden Age of the Piano, "Golden Age" o ...
, Chickering, Knabe, Hardman & Peck, Winter,
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, and Ivers & Pond. In 1983, two years before declaring bankruptcy, it was sold to former
Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in New York City by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth le ...
president Peter Perez.


Location

Aeolian was first located at 841
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, in the heart (and soul) of the piano district; the company later moved to 23rd Street, and then to 360
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
. Aeolian Hall (1912–13), 33 West 42nd Street, housed the firm's general offices and demonstration rooms as a recital hall on the 43rd Street side, where many noted musicians performed, and was where the first Vocalions were made. The building was sold by Aeolian in 1924. The firm's pipe-organ factory was in Garwood, N.J., until the merger with the E.M. Skinner Co. The firm returned to Fifth Avenue in 1925, this time moving to
689 Fifth Avenue 689 Fifth Avenue (originally the Aeolian Building and later the Elizabeth Arden Building) is a commercial building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 54th Street (Manhattan), 54t ...
. The firm's facilities in the new Aeolian Building included a 150-seat recital hall, recording studios for Duo Art
piano roll A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with holes punched into them. These perforations represent note contro ...
s, offices, design studios, drafting rooms, and a director's room in the upper stories. The Aeolian Company (as Aeolian American Corp.) remained in the Aeolian Building until 1938, after which it leased half of Chickering Hall on West 57th St.


Copyright law

It was Congressional suspicion of the market power of the Aeolian company during the early 20th century that prompted adoption of the first
compulsory license A compulsory license provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licenses the use of their rights against payment either set by law or determined through some form of adjudication or arbitration. In essence, under a compulsory license, an i ...
system in U.S. copyright law, for the mechanical reproduction of musical compositions, a category that included
piano rolls A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with holes punched into them. These perforations represent note control d ...
. The player piano deeply troubled popular music composers such as
John Philip Sousa John Philip Sousa ( , ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era known primarily for American military March (music), marches. He is known as "The March King" or th ...
. Sousa worried that the pianos would kill the public's demand for sheet music, and sheet music was the source of composers’ copyright royalties. To make matters worse, the player piano companies refused to pay royalties to composers for the songs they put on player piano rolls. These rolls were scrolls of paper with holes punched out in patterns that instructed the piano how to play a particular song. The rolls, argued the player piano companies, did not “copy” the composers’ musical compositions. As a result, they were perfectly legal. The Supreme Court, in its 1908 opinion in '' White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company'', sided with the player piano companies. The Court held that because humans could not read player piano rolls, they were not in fact copies of the musical compositions they encoded. The result in White-Smith lasted but a year before Congressional action. The
Copyright Act of 1909 The Copyright Act of 1909 () was a landmark statute in United States statutory copyright law. It went into effect on July 1, 1909. The 1909 Act was repealed and superseded by the Copyright Act of 1976, which went into effect on January 1, 1978; ...
mandated that all musical compositions would be subject to a
compulsory license A compulsory license provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licenses the use of their rights against payment either set by law or determined through some form of adjudication or arbitration. In essence, under a compulsory license, an i ...
. In short, since 1909 the copyright law has allowed musicians to copy others’ songs by mechanical means (e.g., via piano roll or
phonorecord A phonorecord is defined by the United States Copyright Act of 1976 to be a material object that embodies sounds (other than those accompanying audio-visual recordings such as movies). From the Copyright Act: “Phonorecords” are material object ...
/sound recording) without asking permission, so long as they paid a specified fee to the original songwriter. Anticipating that Congress was about to overturn White-Smith, Aeolian Company moved swiftly to buy up song rights from musicians and publishing companies so it could copy them onto player piano rolls. Aeolian's competitors quickly complained to Congress about Aeolian's attempt to corner the music market. Congress responded with the invention of the
cover song In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song released ...
rule.


Surviving instruments

# Several Aeolian Company products may be seen and some heard on tours at the Musical Museum, Brentford, London, England.


References

# {{Authority control Musical instrument manufacturing companies based in New York City Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City Manufacturing companies established in 1887 Piano manufacturing companies of the United States Pipe organ building companies 1887 establishments in New York (state) Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1932 1932 disestablishments in New York (state) 1932 mergers and acquisitions American companies disestablished in 1932 American companies established in 1887