Pleyel, Camille
Pleyel Ignaz, Ignace Joseph, *18 June 1757 Ruppersthal (Lower Austria), †14 November 1831 near Paris, Austrian composer, publisher and piano builder. He probably learned to play the piano from J.B. Vanhal in Vienna, and around 1772–77 he studied composition under J. Haydn in Eisenstadt, financially supported by Count L. Erdődy. There he wrote his first opera, Die Fee Urgèle, written for a puppet theatre and performed in 1776 in Esterház and Vienna. In 1777, he became the Kapellmeister of Count Erdődy’s orchestra, who financed his trip to Italy, where he stayed until 1781 or 1783. For King Ferdinand IV of Naples, he composed a cycle of pieces for the lyre organizzata and a string quartet, and in 1785 his second opera, Ifigenia in Aulide, was performed at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. In 1783, he obtained the position of second, and in 1789 first Kapellmeister at the Strasbourg Cathedral. In 1788, he married F.G. Lefebvre. In December 1791, he accepted an invitation from the London Professional Concerts Association of W. Cramer, and until May 1792, he conducted a series of concerts in London, working in parallel with J. Haydn, engaged at the same time by J. Salomon; he performed his works there, including piano concertos. After returning to Strasbourg in 1793, he was denounced and arrested on charges of pro-Austrian sympathies. He was saved from death by composing a patriotic anthem for a large vocal and instrumental ensemble, considered a test of loyalty to the Republic. After leaving prison, he returned to Alsace in 1793, but having no prospects of becoming a Kapellmeister, he moved to Paris in 1795, where in 1796 he founded a publishing house (it existed until 1834); from 1815, he operated together with his son Camille as Ignace Pleyel et Fils aîné; he published – for the first time also in the form of miniature study scores, in the series «Bibliothèque Musicale» – works by Haydn (1801 edition of his 83 string quartets, dedicated to Napoleon), Beethoven, L. Boccherini, M. Clementi, J. Dusik, J. N. Hummel, F. Kalkbrenner and others, and exchanged publications with leading European publishing houses (Vienna, Hamburg, Bonn, London, Amsterdam). In 1805, he was in Vienna, where the performance of his string quartets was enthusiastically received. In 1807, he founded a piano factory in Paris, which, despite initial difficulties, gradually conquered the market, eventually becoming – after it was taken over by his son Camille – the second company in France after Erard. In 1811–15, Pleyel collaborated with J.H. Pape, who had arrived in Paris; with his help, in 1815 he introduced a piano to the market, based on the design of the English builder R. Wornum from 1811, which quickly gained popularity and imitators, replacing table pianos by the end of the 1830s. After 1820, he gradually withdrew from business, spending more and more time at his estate near Paris, where he died.
Pleyel was a very prolific composer; his oeuvre includes over 40 symphonies (33 published), concertos (including cello and violin), almost 60 string quartets (the first, published in 1783, dedicated to Count Erdődy, the second, published in 1784, dedicated to Haydn) and numerous septets (first use of this term, 1787), sextets, quintets, trios and duets for various instrumental ensembles, as well as violin and piano sonatas (for 2 and 4 hands), individual pieces for harp, 2 operas and several vocal works (including 2 masses and a Requiem). Most of the pieces were written before 1792 in Strasbourg and enjoyed extraordinary popularity during Ignace Pleyel’s lifetime, evidenced by thousands of handwritten copies and hundreds of prints, sometimes published simultaneously by different publishing houses. Their level is uneven. The greatest value is held by his string quartets (the first ones had at least 10 editions), which show great ease of composition, freshness of invention and good mastery of craft. Stylistically, they are close to Haydn’s works and were highly praised by Mozart, L. Boccherini and contemporary critics (F.-J. Fétis), who considered them a good introduction to the musical language of Haydn’s much more ambitious quartets. Most of the symphonies date back to the Paris years, but they show stylistic features developed on the basis of quartets (Haydn’s simplified style, attractively combined with Mozart’s dramaturgy). The duets for 2 violins, violin and viola, violin and flute have great didactic value. There are numerous borrowings in the composer’s entire output, made both by Ignace Pleyel himself and by later publishers, often without his consent. Many of the works are merely transcriptions or adaptations of earlier works (or parts of them) for different combinations of instruments, with changes in key, metre, rhythm, with a different sequence of parts or the addition of new ones, etc.; some songs are also adaptations of fragments from his quartets or symphonies. This procedure of “self-reproduction” is a testament to the haste and economy of work, in order to meet the needs of a wide audience. The authorship of the manual Nouvelle Méthode de Pfte., contenant les principes du doigté (Paris 1796), published by Pleyel, remains controversial (I. Pleyel or J. Dusík).
Literature: “Revue Pleyel” I, 1923 – XLVIII, 1927, reprint Scarsdale (New York) 1969; R. Benton Ignace Pleyel. A Thematic Catalogue of His Compositions, New York 1977; C. Johansson French Music Publishers’ Catalogues of the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, Stockholm 1955; B.S. Brook La symphonie française dans la seconde motié du XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1962; J. Klingenbeck Ignace Pleyel, Komponist, Verleger, KlavierFabrikant, “Zeitschrift für Musik” CXVIII, 1957; J. Klingenbeck Ignace Pleyel. Sein Streichquartett im Rahmen der Wiener Klassik, “Studien zur Musikwissenschaft” XXV, 1962; R. Benton Ignace Pleyel, Disputant and A la recherche du Pleyel perdu, or Perils, Problems and Procedures of Pleyel Research, “Fontes Artis Musicae” XIII, 1966 and XVII, 1970; R.R. Smith The Periodical Symphonies of Ignace Pleyel, 2 volumes, dissertation University of Rochester (New York) 1968; J. Zsako Bibliographical Sandtraps. The “Klavierschule”, Pleyel or Dussek?, “Current Musicology” 1971 no. 12; C. Hopkinson The Earliest Miniature Score, “The Music Review” XXXIII, 1972; W. Lebermann Ignace Joseph Pleyel. Die Frühdrucke seiner Solokonzerte und deren Doppelfassungen, “Die Musikforschung” XXVI, 1973; R. Benton Pleyels Bibliothèque musicale, “The Music Review” XXXVI, 1975; R. Benton Bemerkungen zu einem Pleyel – Werkverzeichnis, “Die Musikforschung” XXIX, 1976; R. Benton Pleyel as Music Publisher, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXXII, 1979; R. Benton Pleyel as Music Publisher. A Documentary Sourcebook in Early 19th-Century Music, Stuyvesan (New York) 1990.