Pleyel et Cie. ("Pleyel and Company") is 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 Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for Piano solo, solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown ...

, who considered Pleyel pianos to be "non plus ultra". Pleyel et Cie. also operated a concert hall, the

Salle Pleyel The Salle Pleyel (, meaning "Pleyel Hall") is a concert hall in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, designed by the acoustician Gustave Lyon together with the architect Jacques Marcel Auburtin, who died in 1926, and the work was completed i ...

, 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 Chopin,

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

, Saint-Saëns,

Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

, de Falla and

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...

and of pianists and teachers Alfred Cortot, Philip Manuel and

Gavin Williamson Sir Gavin Alexander Williamson (born 25 June 1976) is a British politician who served in various Cabinet positions under Prime Ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak between 2016 and 2022, lastly as Minister of State without ...

. 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 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 temper ...

, or "pianino" to France, adapting the design made popular in Britain by Robert Wornum. 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 Emánuel Moór (; 19 February 1863 – 20 October 1931) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and an inventor of musical instruments. Life Moór was born in Kecskemét, Hungary, and studied in Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Between 1885 and 1897 ...

. 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. Towards the end of the 19th century, the Pleyel firm produced the first

chromatic harp Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize Scale (music), scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical styles, ...

. In the early 20th century, performances by Wanda Landowska helped revive interest in the

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

. In 1913, Pleyel built the "Jungle Piano" for use by

Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German and French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, ...

in his hospital in Lambaréné (

French Equatorial Africa French Equatorial Africa (, or AEF) was a federation of French colonial territories in Equatorial Africa which consisted of Gabon, French Congo, Ubangi-Shari, and Chad. It existed from 1910 to 1958 and its administration was based in Brazzav ...

– now

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

). It was fitted with pedal attachments (to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard) and built with tropical woods that would acclimate to conditions there. In the early 1920s, Pierre Hans (1886-1960), an engineer with very thick fingers, commissioned Pleyel to build a piano he designed with an upper keyboard and a lower keyboard tuned a half tone apart, which became known as the Hans piano. Pleyel produced several Hans pianos, but they fell out of use after World War II. Pleyel also pioneered the

player 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 ...

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 French Piano Manufacturing Company ("''Manufacture Française de Pianos, Cie.''"). 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, the company was bought by the same family which had bought the Salle Pleyel concert hall in order to revive the name Pleyel. 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 ''Picea rubens'', commonly known as red spruce, is a species of spruce native to eastern North America, ranging from eastern Quebec and Nova Scotia, west to the Adirondack Mountains and south through New England along the Appalachians to wester ...

used by Pleyel came from the Fiemme Valley in

Trentino Trentino (), officially the Autonomous Province of Trento (; ; ), is an Autonomous province#Italy, autonomous province of Italy in the Northern Italy, country's far north. Trentino and South Tyrol constitute the Regions of Italy, region of Tren ...

, Italy. After full assembly of a piano, the instrument received a further 30–40 hours of fine-tuning. At the end of 2013, the company announced it would cease manufacturing pianos. In 2017, Pleyel was bought by Algam, a company based in Nantes, France. Algam has invested heavily in the brand and production of new Pleyel pianos has now recommenced making Pleyel the oldest piano company in the world which is still producing pianos.

2009 replica

In September 2009, the company produced a replica of the Pleyel piano, produced in 1830, that was used by

Fryderyk Chopin The Fryderyk is the annual award in Polish music. Its name refers to the original Polish spelling variant of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin's first name. Its status in the Polish public can be compared to the US Grammy and British BRIT Awar ...

. The original, which is now in the collection of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, was used as the source for the plans for this replica. This replica was used in The 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in September 2018.

Recordings made with originals and replicas of Pleyel et Cie pianos

* Yuan Sheng. Frederic Chopin. ''Ballades Nos 1-4/Impromptus Nos 1-4''. Played on the 1845 Pleyel piano. Label: Piano Classics * Ronald Brautigam. Felix Mendelssohn. ''Piano Concertos.'' Played on a copy of the 1830 Pleyel piano made by Paul McNulty. Label: Bis *

Janusz Olejniczak Janusz Olejniczak (; 2 October 1952 – 20 October 2024) was a Polish classical pianist, academic teacher and actor. He made an international career as a pianist, especially with the piano music of Chopin which he played on modern and period i ...

. Chopin evening around 1831 Pleyel. * Alexei Lubimov. Chopin, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven: ''at Chopin’s home piano''. Played on the original 1843 upright Pleyel piano. Label: NIFCCD * Dina Yoffe. Fryderyk Chopin. ''Piano Concertos No 1 & 2. Version for one piano.'' Played on the 1848 Pleyel and the 1838 Erard pianos. Label: Fryderyk Chopin Institute * Viviana Sofronitsky, Sergei Istomin. Frederyk Chopin. ''Complete works for cello and piano''. Played on a replica of the 1830 Pleyel piano made in 2010 by Paul McNulty. Label: Passacaille * Kevin Kenner. Fryderyk Chopin. ''4 Impromptus''. Played on the 1848 Pleyel piano. Label: Fryderyk Chopin Institute * Tomasz Ritter. Fryderyk Chopin. ''Sonata in B Minor, Ballade in F minor, Polonaises, Mazurkas''. Karol Kurpinski. ''Polonaise in D minor.'' Played on the 1842 Pleyel piano, the 1837 Erard piano and a copy of Buchholtz piano from ca 1825-1826 made by Paul McNulty. Label: Fryderyk Chopin Institute * Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka. Frederic Chopin. ''24 Preludes''. Played on the 1842 Pleyel piano. Released under a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

license.

References

External links