Pleyel, Ignace
Pleyel Joseph Stephen Camille, *18 December 1788 Strasburg, †4 May 1855 Montmorency (near Paris), French instrument maker, publisher, pianist and composer of Austrian origin, son of Ignace. He initially learned to play the piano from his father, and then with J.-B. Desormeiy, J. Dusik and D. Steibelt. In 1813–14, he toured with recitals in southern France, at the same time seeking sales for his father’s publishing house. In 1815, already co-owner of the publishing house, he went to London for 4 months, where he gave concerts, including on 2 pianos, with his friend F. Kalkbrenner and familiarised himself with English piano building, establishing contacts with J. Broadwood, T. Tomkison, F.W. Collard and M. Clementi. After returning to Paris, he became co-owner of his father’s piano factory (Ignace Pleyel et Fils aîné), finally taking it over in 1824; after 1829, he managed it together with Kalkbrenner, who became an energetic promoter of the company. Using his London experience, Camille Pleyel reorganised the factory in 1824 and introduced English technology, soon leading the company to flourish; while in 1813 it produced only 31 instruments a year (while at the same time, Broadwood manufactured over 1,000), and in 1827 no more than 100 (employing 30 workers), in 1834 it already produced 1,000 instruments (employing 250 people), and in 1855 about 1,500 instruments (employing 350–400 workers). It was awarded the gold medal four times at the National Exhibitions in Paris (1827, 1834, 1839, 1844). In order to promote his pianos, Camille Pleyel opened the famous concert hall (Salle Pleyel) on 1 January 1830, in which Chopin gave several concerts, including his Paris debut (26 February 1832) and his last Paris concert (16 February 1848). In December 1839, a second hall was opened. Regular performers there included F. Kalkbrenner, J.N. Hummel, F. Hiller, I. Moscheles, F. Liszt, S. Thalberg, as well as the debuts of C. Franck, the eleven-year-old A. Rubinstein (1841) and C. Saint-Saëns (1846). Camille Pleyel was a close friend of Chopin, whom he accompanied on his trip to London in the summer of 1837; in 1839, Chopin dedicated to him the French and English editions of his 24 Preludes Op. 28, and the Pleyel publishing house published his works from Op. 16, 17 and 19; Camille Pleyel initiated the creation of a committee to build a monument on Chopin’s grave, as Chopin was a fervent supporter of his pianos. Equipped with a single escapement of the English type and light, carefully crafted hammers (hard inside and wrapped in delicate, flexible leather) with an appropriately selected striking point, pianos were characterised by a much more delicate, smaller sound than Érard’s instruments and were sensitive to very subtle changes in striking and tone shading between registers, which perfectly suited the aesthetics of Chopin’s sound (“Pleyel’s non plus ultra pianos”). According to his pupil, E. von Gretsch, Chopin considered Pleyel pianos to be ideal instruments for achieving very subtle nuances, and according to Liszt “he liked [them] especially because of their sonorous, slightly subdued sound and the ease of sound production.” Chopin’s preference for Pleyel instruments may also have resulted from his accustomedness to the lightness of Viennese mechanisms, which he encountered in Warsaw salons and in Vienna (C. Graf’s piano). Camille Pleyel provided Chopin with successive, new models of his instruments for evaluation; his piano no. 7267 from 1839 (Paris, Musée de la Musique), piano no. 13716 from 1848, which accompanied the composer on his trip to Scotland (Jagiellonian University Museum) and the last Pleyel instrument no. 14810, which was in his possession from 1847 until his death (TIFC) have survived. In addition, a Pleyel instrument from 1856–57 has been preserved in Poland (no. 32490, District Museum in Krosno). Chopin also used Pleyel pianos both in Paris, when giving private lessons, and in Mallorca. Pleyel instruments were also favoured by F. Kalkbrenner and F. Hiller, while Liszt, H. Herz and S. Thalberg preferred Érard pianos.
As a composer, Camille Pleyel was highly valued for a perfect knowledge of traditions and styles; he created many pieces for piano before 1824 (51 opuses in total), mainly fantasias, potpourris, rondos, capriccios, nocturnes and sonatas. They belong to, a typical of their time, salon literature, strongly marked by the virtuoso of brilliant style: striking and witty with chromatic progressions and passage figurations, arpeggios, trills and tremolos, and they serve, above all, to display mechanical skill. Ignace Pleyel gave few concerts; he was admired in London and Paris, also by Chopin, especially for his performances of Mozart’s works (“Today only one man can play Mozart; he is Pleyel, and when he wants to play a sonata for four hands with me, it is a lesson for me”).
The Pleyel factory was one of the leading music companies in Europe in the 19th century. Although much less innovative than the companies of Érard or Pape (it retained the single escapement until almost the end of the 19th century), it introduced several inventions, including the upright piano (1815) and the cast iron frame (1825). After Camille Pleyel’s death, the company was taken over by his son-in-law, the pianist A. Wolff (1821–87), who, after 1870, increased production to 2,500 instruments a year (under the name Pleyel, Wolff & Cie) and introduced a number of improvements leading to an increased volume of sound; by 1865 a total of 36,000 instruments had been built (as many as the much older Erard company). In 1887, the company was taken over by Wolff’s son-in-law, G. Lyon (1857–1936), an engineer by education, who achieved (as Pleyel, Lyon & Cie) production of around 3,000 instruments (at that time Erard produced 1,900 per year), and also introduced, in addition to the double grand piano and the two-manual grand piano (1924), other types of instruments, including the harpsichord, pianola, chromatic harp with no pedals, Aeolian harp and chromatic kettledrums. At the world exhibition in Paris in 1889, the company presented (like Erard’s company) a two-manual harpsichord with 8’ registers, 4’ in the lower manual and 8’ in the upper (currently in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum in Berlin).
In 1912, for W. Landowska and according to her instructions, the company built a heavy harpsichord with a cast iron frame taken from a piano structure (with 4 choirs of strings) with an additional 16’ register in the lower manual and an 8’ lute register in the upper; the instrument had 6 pedals to change registers without interrupting the play on the keyboards. The Pleyel factory produced harpsichords of various designs until 1961. In 1920, the factory became a joint-stock company (Pleyel, S. A., Paris), taking over the Cavaillé-Coll organ-building company in 1930. In 1961, it was incorporated into the company Erard and Gaveau (Société Erard-Gaveau), established a year earlier, which in 1971 became the property of the German Schimmel corporation, founded in 1885 in Braunschweig, which today produces a small number of Pleyel, Erard and Gaveau pianos.
Literature: C. Montai L’Art d’accorder soi-même son piano, Paris 1836, reprint Geneva 1976; J. Turgan Les grandes usines de France. La manufacture de pianos de MM. Pleyel, Wolf et Cie, Paris 1862; A. Marmontel Histoire du piano et de ses origines, Paris 1885; L. de La salle Pleyel, Paris 1893; A. Dolge Pianos and Their Makers, Covina 1911, reprint New York 1972; R.E.M. Harding The Piano-Forte. Its History Traced to the Great Exhibition of 1851, Cambridge 1933, reprint New York 1973; E. Closson Histoire du piano, Brussels 1944; A. Loesser Men, Women and Pianos. A Social History, New York 1954; C. Ehrlich The Piano. A History, London 1976, Oxford 2nd ed. 1990; F.J. Hirt Meisterwerke des Klavierbaus. Geschichte der Saitenklaviere von 1440 bis 1880, Olten 1955, Zurich 2. wyd. 1981; R. Benton London Music in 1815, as seen by Camille Pleyel, “Music and Letters” XLVII, 1966; O. Barii La facture française du piano de 1849 à nos jours, Paris 1983; M. Haine La manufacture de pianos Pleyel dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, “Revue internationale de musique française” V, 1984; B. Vogel Fortepiany epoki Chopina a współczesna praktyka wykonawcza, “Rocznik Chopinowski” XVII, 1987; D. Hildebrandt Pianoforte. A Social History of the Piano, New York 1988; I. Poniatowska Muzyka fortepianowa i pianistyka w wieku XIX. Aspekty artystyczne i społeczne, Warsaw 1991; B. Weber Paryska firma budowniczych fortepianów Ignace Pleyel & Cie/Paris i Chopinowskie fortepiany Pleyela w Polsce, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1999 no. 21; J.-J. Eigeldinger Chopin vu parses élèves, Boudry 1970, 3rd ed. 1988, Polish ed. entitled Chopin w oczach swoich uczniów, transl. by Z. Skowron, Kraków 2000; J.-J. Eigeldinger Chopin and Pleyel, “Early Music” XXIX, 2001