Showing posts with label piano makes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label piano makes. Show all posts

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Piano-making in UK.

Once again the less-than-perfect state of new pianos has been highlighted this week. This week, I have seen or worked on 4 pianos not yet 2 years old that have needed extra technical attention before they can be considered satisfactory. Nobody likes hearing the same old moan time and time again, but the customer has to live with the reality of their choice of piano. Most of these keen pianists are paying good money and are at a loss to understand why their pianos are not as good as was expected.

I have been reading Alastair Laurence's book Five London Piano Makers, and I am sure I have detected in the book, hints of a similar mood of disappointment. He says in his introduction, "The near total collapse of British piano making means that there seems to be little likelihood of those fascinating centres of musical workmanship - the small piano factories - ever being seen again on these shores."

Anyone who has worked in a piano workshop will know something of the atmosphere of constant and affectionate labour over the many apparently lifeless components of a piano. Workers feel a strange and invisible force urging them towards the later stages of repair work - that stage when the piano is touched with the magic of creativity and is now finished! Maybe in other professions, something of the same drive is at work, but wherever there are pianos and music, the mixture is intoxicating.

The fact that there are fewer 'centres of musical workmanship' in the UK is partly due to the poor standard of piano produced during the late 1970s. Piano makers were now competing with imported pianos from the far east which, frankly, were better. Cost cutting meant, the fine finishing of the pianos was cut to a minimum, thus bringing forward the eventual demise of the industry.

Alas, many of the cheaper imported pianos are as less-than-perfect as was the case in the UK in the late 1970s. The best we can do is to make good what we can and hope that one day finesse, better reliability and the positive feedback that should follow a piano purchase will be rather more common than it is today. Let us hope that the tide of piano-making doldrums might be on the turn! 

Whether what remains of the piano industry in the UK can get its act together strongly enough to meet the challenge remains to be seen. I share Alastair Laurence's finishing word of hope: "With luck, a new, younger generation of piano makers here will help to ensure the survival of piano-making skills in Britain throughout the twenty-first century." 

We have work to do!


The Piano World

© Steve Burden
Pianology
  

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Collard & Collard

The history of Collard & Collard begins around 1760. The story starts with a Music Publishing Company called Longmann & Broderip who dabbled in making pianos. Muzio Clementi, whose many compositions were published by Longmann & Broderip was interested in having a piano-making facility and, being wealthy, he invested in the piano factory and brought in his associates F.W. & W.P Collard to manage it. 

Clementi traveled widely and sold Pianos along with his compositions.
Orders were sent back to London from wherever Clementi visited - he was a very shrewd businessman. At this time, the company was called Clementi & Company. 

F.W. Collard introduced improvements to their pianos, on the strength of which, they took a significant share of the market. When Clementi died in 1832, the firm became known as Collard & Collard. By this time the pianos were solidly built by craftsmen and had a proven reliability.

The Diary of a Nobody  was published in 1892, written by George & Weeden Grossmith. This charming book is a classic of English literature, telling the story of a Mr. Charles Pooter and describes mundane life in late Victorian England. One anecdote involves a new cottage piano - bought on the three years' system, manufactured by W. Bilkson (in small letters) from Collard & Collard (in very large letters). Collards were by this time at least a well-known household name.
Collard & Collard had established themselves as makers of good quality and reliable pianos. They continued to be popular well into the early 20th century. In the late 1920s the piano trade was having to adjust to the harsh realities of very poor sales. Many long-established makers had to close, those whose 'names' were deemed to have value were bought by the stronger of the surviving companies.
Collard & Collard was eventually bought by Chappells.


Directory of Piano Makers

© Steve Burden

Thursday 26 April 2012

Piano Makes

Jane Austen mentions a Broadwood piano in at least one of her novels. In her day, pianos were objects of status and the ability to play was proof of a refined education. These things no longer carry the same significance though of course, the dynamics of status are still with us. The objects desired today are smart phones, expensive cars and the latest technological gadgets! 

The Broadwood name is known only to pianists who probably were told long ago that Broadwoods were the best English-made piano. However, such a high opinion of Broadwood Pianos was not universally held - years ago, I remember an elderly tuner say, somewhat unflatteringly: "Ah yes, Broadwood Pianos! The bass is very broad, and the treble very wooden!"    

Quirky English names on elderly pianos can be amusing - especially as in the business world have to be catchy or striking in some way. How about the following: Thompson & Shackle; Jarrett & Gouge; Skerrett; or Dunmo, Ellis & Hill; Duck, Son & Pinker; Dale Forty; Green & Marsh; Wallis Harris; Witton & Witton.


This Macintosh piano has absolutely nothing to do with Apple Computers and 
I do not imagine that Apple Mac will ever dabble in making acoustic pianos. This is an inexpensive piano made in Edingburgh. Straight strung, over damped, rather tired now, but with a decent enough tone and quite tuneable.

Even when new, this sort of piano was never brilliant, but clearly, they were built well enough to last a very long time.  

Uncomplicated and honest, pianos like these, never pretend to be more than what they are, they just continue doing what they were built for - making music! Thousands of makers put together pianos like this and proudly put their names on the fall-board. Sadly, most are now entirely forgotten. 

There was an old German maker called 'Lubitz' but you don't often see a Lubitz piano here in the UK. One might think a firm called 'Lubitz' made toilet spares!
© Steve Burden 
Piano World