Chickering & Sons was an American

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or Production (economics), production of goods with the help of equipment, Work (human activity), labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary se ...

located in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. 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 with John Mackay, manufacturing pianos as "Chickering & Company", and later "Chickering & Mackays" until the senior Mackay's death in 1841, and reorganized as "Chickering & Sons" in 1853. Chickering pianos continued to be made until 1983.

History

It was P.T. Barnum who persuaded

Jenny Lind Johanna Maria Lind (Madame Goldschmidt) (6 October 18202 November 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in ...

- the Swedish Nightingale - to make a concert tour of the United States. After her agreement, Barnum commissioned the Chickering company to manufacture a custom grand piano for her nationwide tour, ultimately involving 93 performances. The piano was completed by August 1850; Lind arrived in September and the concert series began in Boston. Her pianist was Otto Goldschmidt, whom she married at the end of her tour. Coincidentally, as the tour began, Henry E. Steinway (Steinweg) and his large family arrived in New York as immigrants from Germany. Henry attended the opening night of the NYC concert series but showed little interest in the diva. His profound interest was in the Chickering piano, to which he dashed for such careful examination that he nearly had to be hauled away so the concert could begin. On December 1, 1852, a fire destroyed Chickering's piano factory located at 336 Washington Street in Boston. While some believe it was arson, most agree it was likely accidental. One policeman was killed. The walls of the building collapsed, and set adjoining structures on fire. A new factory was built in 1853–54 at 791 Tremont Street in Boston. From 1860 to 1868 space in the building was the location of the

Spencer Repeating Rifle The Spencer repeating rifle was a 19th-century American lever-action firearm invented by Christopher Spencer. The Spencer carbine was a shorter and lighter version designed for the cavalry. The Spencer was the world's first military metallic-c ...

Company, who made over 100,000 rifles and carbines for the U.S. Army and sportsmen from 1862 to 1868. This structure still stands today. It was renovated into artist studios in 1972.Chickering Piano Works Fire
at CelebrateBoston.com Jonas Chickering made several major contributions to the development of piano technology, most notably by introducing a one-piece,

cast-iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

plate to support the greater string tension of larger grand pianos. He also invented a new deflection of the strings, and in 1845 the first convenient method for over stringing in square pianos. Instead of setting the strings side by side, the company introduced substituting an arrangement of the string in two banks, one over the other. This not only saved space but brought the powerful bass strings directly over the most resonant part of the sound-board, a principle used to this day in the construction of all pianos, both grands and uprights. Chickering was the largest piano manufacturer in the United States in the middle of the 19th century, but was surpassed in the 1860s by Steinway. In 1867, Jonas's son Frank Chickering had the Imperial Cross of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

, then one of the world's most prestigious non-military awards, bestowed upon him by

Emperor Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

for services to the art of music, one of more than 200 awards the piano manufacturer garnered over the years. The company became in 1908 part of the American Piano Company (Ampico), and continued after the merger in 1932 of American with the Aeolian Company, to form Aeolian-American. That company went out of business in 1985, and the Chickering name continued to be applied to new pianos produced by

Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

and then the Baldwin Piano Company.

Recordings made with instruments by Chickering

* Lambert Orkis. Louis Moreau Gottschalk . ''Selected Piano Music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk''. Label: Smithonian Collection of Recordings, 1982. Played on a Chickering concert grand piano (1865). * Dag Achatz. Franz Liszt. ''Franz Liszt played on Liszt's own piano''. Label: BIS. Played on Liszt's Chickering piano (1867). *

Jenő Jandó Jenő Jandó (; 1 February 1952 – 4 July 2023) was a Hungarian pianist and Professor of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. He was the first house pianist for Naxos Records and recorded more than 60 albums. Background and education ...

. Franz Liszt. ''The Instruments of Liszt in the Budapest Liszt Ferenc Museum''. Label: Hungaroton. Played on pianos by Chickering (1867 and 1879-1880), Bösendorfer and other instruments. * Artem Belogurov. Foote, Whiting, Paine, Chadwick, Nevin, Ruthven Lang. ''American Romantics: The Boston Scene''. Label: Piano Classics. Played on a Chickering piano (1873).

Chickering Halls

The firm commissioned and operated several concert halls in Boston and New York: * Chickering's building, Boston (c. 1850s), no.334 Washington St.The commemoration of the founding of the house of Chickering & Sons
upon the eightieth anniversary of the event, 1823-1903. Boston: Chickering & Sons, 1904 * Chickering's Hall, Boston (1860-1870), no.246 Washington St. * Chickering Hall concert auditorium, 130 5th Avenue, New York City (1875), designed by

George B. Post George Browne Post (December15, 1837November28, 1913) was an American architect trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition. Active from 1869 almost until his death, he was recognized as a master of several contemporary American architectural genres, an ...

, and the venue for Oscar Wilde's first lecture in America in 1882 (razed) * Chickering Hall, Boston (1883-c. 1894), no.152 Tremont St., near West St. * Chickering Hall, Boston (1901-c. 1912), Huntington Ave., corner of Massachusetts Ave. * Chickering Hall, 27 West 57th Street, NYC (1923), designed by Cross & Cross (1924)

Images

File:Piano Factory.jpg, The Chickering factory in 2002, now artist lofts File:1895 Chickering factory TremontSt Boston.png, The Chickering factory in 1895. File:George Harvey Chickering d1899 USA.png, Portrait of George H. Chickering (d.1899)George H. Chickering Dead; Last Male Survivor of the Well-Known Family of Piano-forte Makers Passes Away in Boston." New York Times, November 18, 1899 File:Antique Chickering Piano, Stanley Hotel.jpg, Antique piano at Stanley Hotel (note the "C...e...g" in "Chickering" aligns with the CEG chord on the piano) File:ChickeringHall 130 5thAve NYC.png, Chickering Hall, New York, no.130 5th Av. File:ChickeringHall ca1900s Boston MA postcard.png, Chickering Hall, Boston, Huntington Ave., c. 1900s File:Chickering Monument.JPG, Chickering Monument by Thomas Ball (1872). File:C. Frank Chickering.png, 1890 drawing of C. Frank Chickering

References

External links