, and could be played in
eight major and five minor keys. Erard introduced his new single-action harp to
Paris on his return to France in 1795; his first French harp patent, however,
dates only from 1798.French firm of piano and harp makers and music publishers.
ANN GRIFFITHS (1), RICHARD MACNUTT (2)
The firm was founded by Sébastien Erard (b Strasbourg, 5 April 1752; d La Muette, nr Passy, 5 Aug 1831), the fourth son of the church furniture maker Louis-Antoine Erard (b Delemond, Switzerland, 1685; d1758). As Sébastien Erard was only six years old when his father died, accounts of his having acquired his woodworking skills in his father's workshop cannot be substantiated. He was, however, brought up within a community of skilled artisans, with uncles, cousins, his godfather and older brother all being employed as joiners, cabinetmakers and gilders, for the most part in an ecclesiastical context. He may have known and worked with the younger Strasbourg-based members of the Silbermann dynasty.
Erard most probably arrived in Paris in 1768. The Duchesse de Villeroy (1731–1816) was an early patron, providing him with workshop premises at her mansion in the rue de Bourbon, and in 1777 he made for her an impressive five-octave bichord piano modelled on a Zumpe square. In 1779 he built his only known harpsichord, the clavecin mécanique [clavecin à expression] (now in the Musée de la Musique, Paris). Thereafter he began to exploit the new market for five-octave pianos, so successfully overcoming the fashionable aristocratic preference for ‘pianos anglais’ that he was obliged to call on the help of an older brother, Jean-Baptiste Erard (b Strasbourg, 7 July 1749; d Passy, 10 April 1826). Together they moved first to 109 rue de Bourbon, and in November 1781 to 13 rue de Mail, which remained the headquarters of the firm until its eventual closure. Attempts by the jealously conservative guild of Parisian luthiers to stem the Erard enterprise in 1784 were overcome by the personal intervention of Louis XVI, who awarded Sébastien Erard a special dispensation dated 5 February 1785.
Royal commissions followed. Erard's special transposing piano designed for Marie Antoinette has not survived, but the instrument he made for her in 1786–7 is, without doubt, the finest extant French 18th-century piano (now in the Cobbe Collection, Hatchlands, Surrey). The form and action are exactly those of an English square piano, but the cabinet work is of a sophistication not encountered on any surviving contemporary English instrument. The brothers formed an enormously successful business partnership in January 1788, operating henceforth as Erard Frères, and in January 1791 they became proprietors of the rue du Mail premises they had previously rented. Registers for 1788 and 1789 record 254 and 410 pianos respectively. However, the French Revolution dramatically affected sales, and in 1790 only 76 instruments were produced. Erard's achievements at this time include a grand forte piano announced by the Annonces, affiches et avis divers on 10 December 1788, and the perfection of a double action (a modified version of Zumpe's improved action) in 1790. He also introduced prototype instruments, which he called fortepiano en forme de clavecin, in 1790 (private collection, France) and 1791 (Musée de la Musique, Paris); these did not enter general production until after the Revolution. They had a compass of five and a half octaves (F''–c'''), with a single escapement action, three strings per note, and four pedals for lute, forte, celeste and una corda. Only ten Erard pianos are listed in Bruni's 1795 inventory of musical instruments seized from the homes of the émigrés et condamnés, but of all the pianos taken, the most valuable was an Erard model of 1787, estimated at 8000 francs.
Sébastien
Erard's achievements in the improvement of the piano are paralleled by those he
made in the construction and mechanism of harps. He does not appear to have
made many harps before being obliged to leave revolutionary France for London,
but he had already observed in a letter that ‘the mechanism of this instrument
is too complicated; I have changed and much simplified it; this means it
doesn't break strings like before. Once I have obtained the right to show my
discovery, I will bring out my harps’. Although he probably first visited
London as early as 1779 it was not until 1790 or 1791 that he finally settled
there, founding an establishment at 18 Great Marlborough Street in 1792. There
he concentrated on the manufacture of harps, which previously had almost all been
imported from France, and it was there too that in November 1794 he
acknowledged the first ever British patent for a harp (Improvements in
Pianofortes and Harps, patent no.2016). He strengthened the neck by
laminating the wood with the grain running in the same direction, and his new
rounded soundbox replaced the previous staved construction. The tuning
mechanism, instead of being enclosed within the neck, was placed between two
brass plates and attached to it, thus giving the instrument additional rigidity.
Most remarkable was the new fork mechanism, which, when engaged by the pedal,
brought two forked pins into contact with the strings, thus shortening them the
degree of a semitone; the sharpened strings remained parallel with the others,
causing fewer breakages, and accuracy of intonation was greatly improved (see
Harp, §V, 2(i)). The harp was tuned in E, and could be played in
eight major and five minor keys. Erard introduced his new single-action harp to
Paris on his return to France in 1795; his first French harp patent, however,
dates only from 1798.
In London the harp had remarkable success. Sales took off from November 1800, when the Princess of Wales paid £75 12s. for harp no.357. The decoration, which appears to have been standardized early, comprised a circle of rams' heads around the capital of the fluted column, and the most popular model of harp, as noted in the London Order Books (RCM, London), was ‘noire, bordures etrusques’. The brass plate was engraved with the serial number, address and anglicized form of the maker's forename. Between 2 February 1807 and 24 April 1809 single-action harps amounting to £20,152 14s. 8d. were sold. By September 1810 Erard's London outlet had sold 1374 harps.
In Paris, under the Consulate (1799–1804), pianos continued to be the firm's prime concern. Two main models of grand piano, still known as forte-pianos en forme de clavecin, were produced (with compasses of five and a half, and six octaves respectively), in addition to squares. An Erard piano completed in November 1800 was presented to Haydn in 1801, and in 1803 an almost identical one was given to Beethoven (Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz). These pianos were trichord, equipped with an English mechanism, and, like the pre-revolutionary ones, had four pedals. The last two movements of Beethoven's Concerto in C minor op.37 were rewritten for this piano, and it also inspired the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas.
In
1807 Sébastien Erard returned to London where he spent five years concentrating
on developing the harp. By that time its only remaining defect was that it
lacked adequate means of modulation, owing to the single-action mechanism. Although
Erard took out several successive patents in England and France between 1801
and 1808, it was not until 1810 that he perfected the first double-action
mechanism based on the fork principle (patent no.3332). Tuned in C this harp could be played
in 15 major keys and 12 minor ones, and with little modification Erard's
principles are still used by modern pedal-harp makers. 3500 of the 43-string
‘Grecian’ model, so-called because of its ornamentation, were sold between 1811
and 1820. (See Harp, §V, 2(ii) for a more detailed technical
description).
In the meantime, Sébastien Erard's Paris concern was seriously compromised by the imposition of trade and industrial restrictions due to the Napoleonic wars, and in 1813 it was declared bankrupt; business was allowed to continue, however, and all debts incurred by the Paris enterprise were reimbursed by 1824 thanks to the profits made in England. Direction of the London establishment from May 1814 until 1829 was taken over by the son of Jean-Baptiste, Pierre [Orphée] Erard (b 10 March 1794; d 15 Aug 1855), who took out his own patent for harp improvements in 1822.
In Paris, Sébastien successfully subjected his inventions to examination by a Commission drawn jointly from the Académie des Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in April 1815. From 1815 to 1820 he worked at combining the expressive touch of the English-type escapement action with a more facile repetition, and eventually achieved this with his repetition mechanism, for which Pierre took out a London patent on 24 October 1822 (see Pianoforte, §I, 6, fig.20). A seven-octave piano with the new mechanism was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1823, and the 12-year-old Franz Liszt made his sensational Paris début on one of Erard's new instruments, following it up with his first London appearance on 21 June 1824. Liszt was so impressed by the precision, speed, vigour, clarity and sensitivity of touch made possible by the new instrument's repetitition action, that he was inspired to compose his Huit variations op.1, dedicating them to Sébastien Erard. Sébastien was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1824, and an Officer in 1827. He continued to direct the Paris establishment after the death of Jean-Baptiste in 1826. Rather than occupy himself with business affairs, however, he retreated to his private workshop; he continued to design and invent new improvements but neglected to supervise their eventual manufacture, a role previously undertaken by Jean-Baptiste. In 1827 he experimented with a new repetition action for his square pianos, and the same year undertook a commission from Charles X for an ‘orgue expressif’ for the Palais des Tuileries, engaging the help of the Englishman John Abbey (1785–1859) on the project. Sadly, the newly completed organ was damaged in the July revolution of 1830, just after installation, and Erard never received his payment.
An inventory taken at the rue de Mail site on Sébastien's death in 1831 shows that there were 80 specialist workers employed in 19 workshops, of which 16 were devoted to the piano. At the remaining three harp workshops, four workers were employed for woodwork, one for assembly and one for gilding. The stock included 50 completed pianos and 13 harps. A separate inventory reveals approximately 260 paintings of exceptional quality, many of which are now housed in the world's most famous museums, including Dürer's Adoration of the Magi (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) and Rembrandt's 1634 portrait of his mother (National Gallery, London). Pierre was obliged to sell his uncle's collection to pay off debts of £15,000, reputedly incurred by Sébastien in setting up the manufacture of the new grand pianos with repetition, in addition to death duties.
After his uncle's death Pierre Erard took charge of business in both Paris and London. In 1834 he returned to Paris, where the improved upright piano he had introduced in 1824 was awarded a gold medal at that year's Exposition, and he himself was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He also continued to make square pianos, still popular as elegant salon instruments. In December 1835 he was granted a seven-year extension of his 1822 patent for the double-escapement action grand piano. Six months later he took out a patent for his ‘Gothic’ harp, so-called on account of its decoration (see illustration). The soundboard was lengthened by four inches to accommodate 46 strings, which could be more widely spaced. Heavier wire-wound bass strings were introduced from E' downwards and the harp's overall compass was C'' to f'''. The lower part of the body shell was strengthened so that it was approximately double the usual thickness, and the notches for the pedals were cut into the actual body of the harp.
From 1839 onwards the bulk of the Paris manufactory was turned over to the production of upright pianos; the construction of the grand piano was eventually standardized around 1841, and in 1843 the difficult problem of a successful double-escapement mechanism for the square piano was finally satisfactorily solved. By 1844 there were 300 workers at the rue de Mail site, extra workshops had been established in the rue Saint-Maur-Popincourt, and 25,000 instruments had been produced. In 1850 a new patent was taken out for a metal framing system for the grand, and a new concert grand was constructed. In 1855 the manufacture of pianos and harps was relocated to purpose-built premises at La Villette.
After the death of Pierre Erard in 1855 the business passed into the hands of his widow Camille (1813–89). M. Bruzaud was nominated successor in London and Mme Erard appointed her brother-in-law Antoine Eugène Schaffer (1802–73) to direct the Paris enterprise. In 1883 she entered into a business agreement with Amedé Blondel, and the firm operated as Erard et Cie. An illustrated trade pamphlet of 1878 shows four grands, four uprights, and two models of harp, including the ornately carved ‘Louis XVI’, and a 47-string Gothic model. Harps made in London and Paris were numbered differently, so that the French-built harp no.2344 imported in 1894 bore the English no.6610 (private collection, Wales). Erard's Kensington factory was sold by auction on 9 September 1890, and the business in London gradually declined, though a few harps continued to be made at the rear of the Great Marlborough Street premises until the late 1930s. In 1895, at the request of Louis Diémer and his Société des Instruments Anciens, the Paris branch of the firm produced a harpsichord modelled on a 1769 instrument by Pascal Taskin (now in the Russell Collection, Edinburgh). Exhibited in Paris and Vienna, this instrument is now in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung [Preussischer Kulturbesitz], Berlin.
From 1903 until 1959 the firm was known as Blondel et Cie (Maison Erard), from 1935 to 1956 as Guichard et Cie (Maison Erard), and from 1956 onwards as Erard et Cie S.A. It amalgamated with Gaveau as Gaveau-Erard in 1959, continuing harp manufacture on a small scale until the early 1970s under the name of Erard. In 1978 the premises in the Salle Gaveau and the goodwill of the harp-manufacturing section of Gaveau-Erard were acquired by Victor Salvi.
The effect of the Erard harp was crucial to the development of 19th-century harp writing, with the experiments and innovative techniques introduced by the English virtuoso Elias Parish Alvars revealing more technical and expressive possibilities for the double-action harp than Sébastien Erard could ever have imagined. Ravel's Introduction et Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet (1905) – one of the major works of the harp repertory – was the result of an Erard commission. Many illustrious pianists played Erard instruments, including Louise Dulcken, Kalkbrenner, Steibelt, Pixis, Moscheles, Henri Herz, Thalberg (whose L'art du chant appliqué au piano owes a great deal to the expressive possibilities of Erard's pianos) and Liszt. Mendelssohn was given an Erard piano in June 1832.
The firm’s publishing activities were in the hands of Marie-Françoise (1777–1851) and Catherine-Barbe (l779–c1815) Marcoux, nieces of Sébastien and Jean-Baptiste. In about 1798 they began trading at 37 rue du Mail, Paris (the same address as Erard frères). From about 1806 their main address is given as no.21 and from about 1818 as no.13 rue du Mail (respectively the atelier and shop of Erard frères). In September 1833 Julius Delahante announced that he had taken over the business; until 1840 both he and the Mlles Erard are listed in directories, still at 13 rue du Mail, but not thereafter.
In 1802 the Erards took over the remaining stock of 393 numbers of Bailleux’s Journal d’ariettes italiennes, originally published by subscription from 1779 to 1795; to this they added three further volumes of their own, probably between 1802 and 1805. It is possible that they also acquired other items from, or even the whole of, the remainder of Bailleux’s stock. Their earliest publications included violin concertos by Andreas Romberg and Rodolphe Kreutzer; cello concertos by Bernhard Romberg; piano concertos by Dussek, Cramer and Steibelt; several sets of piano sonatas by Clementi, Cramer, Ferrari and Steibelt; the first printing of John Field in France (op.1 sonatas); and the first French full score of Haydn’s The Creation (1800). Between 1800 and 1805 the firm published full scores of eight operas, including Spontini’s Milton and Julie, and others by Boieldieu, Dalayrac and Plantade. These were followed in 1807 and 1809 by Spontini’s La vestale and Fernand Cortez, the firm’s most important publications; thereafter their output seems to have diminished greatly. They concentrated on instrumental music, making only occasional operatic excursions, for example Spontini’s Olimpie, a revised edition of Fernand Cortez and Hérold’s L’illusion. All the firm’s publications were engraved.
DEMF, i
FétisB
HopkinsonD
P. Erard: The Harp in its Present Improved State Compared with the Original Pedal Harp (London, 1821/R)
‘Memoir of Sebastien Erard’, The Harmonicon (1831), 255–8
Perfectionnemens apportés dans le mécanisme du piano par les Erard, depuis l’origine de cet instrument jusqu’à l’Exposition de 1834 (Paris, 1834/R), 1–16
Rapport fait le 17 Avril 1815 sur la harpe à double mouvement de l’invention de Sébastien Erard (Paris, 1834/R)
P. Erard: Erard’s Patent-Action Grand Pianoforte: Historical Exposé of the Invention and Extract of Proceedings before His Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council (London, 1835)
Le piano d’Erard à l’Exposition de 1844 (Paris, 1844/R)
A.B. Bruni: Un inventaire sous la Terreur: état des instruments de musique relevé chez les émigrés et condamnés (Paris, 1890/R) [with introduction and biographical notices by J. Gallay]
A.J. Hipkins: A Description and History of the Pianoforte and of the Older Keyboard Stringed Instruments (London, 1896/R, 3/1929/R)
A.C.F. de Franqueville: Le Château de la Muette (Paris, 1915), 183–99
A. Blondel: ‘La harpe et sa facture’, EMDC, II/iii (1927), 1928
R.E.M. Harding: The Piano-Forte: its History Traced to the Great Exhibition of 1851 (Cambridge, 1933/R, 2/1978/R)
A. Loesser: Men, Women and Pianos: a Social History (New York, 1954/R)
H. Charnassé and F. Vernillat: Les instruments à cordes pincées: harpe, luth, et guitare (Paris, 1970)
C. Ehrlich: The Piano: a History (London, 1976, 2/1990)
F. Abondance: ‘Les frères Erard: essai de chronologie’, Erard: du clavecin mécanique au piano en forme de clavecin, Musée de la Musique, June – Nov 1979 (Paris, 1979) [exhibition catalogue]
A. Devriès: ‘Sébastien Erard, un amateur d'art du début du XIXe siècle et ses conseillers’, Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., xcvii (1981), 78–86; repr. in Sébastien Erard, 1752–1831, ou la rencontre avec le pianoforte, Luxeuil-les-Bains, 3 – 29 May 1993 (Luxeuil-les-Bains, 1993), 76–88 [exhibition catalogue]
G. Haase and D. Krickelberg: Tasteninstrumente des Museums (Berlin, 1981)
M.C. Roodenburg: De harpen van het huis Erard: verslag van een wetenschappelijk onderzoek aan de hand van gevonden documenten (diss., U. of Utrecht, 1984)
F. Gétreau, ed.: La facture instrumentale européene suprématies nationales et enrichissement mutuel, Musée de la Musique, 6 Nov 1985 – 1 March 1986 (Paris, 1985) [exhibition catalogue: incl. F. Gétreau: ‘Les Erard: l'inventeur et l'enteprise familiale’, 153–61; M. Robin: ‘Du clavecin mécanique au piano à double échappement’, 162–71; A. Griffiths: ‘Les Erard: la harpe à double mouvement’, 173–9]
Sébastien Erard, 1752–1831, ou la rencontre avec le pianoforte, Luxeuil-les-Bains, 3 – 29 May 1993 (Luxeuil-les-Bains, 1993) [exhibition catalogue: incl. A. Roudier: ‘Les origines de la famille Erard’, 12–27; A. Moysan: ‘L'Erard de 1790’, 28–47; A. Roudier and A. Moysan: ‘Le piano français de Beethoven’, 58–65]
A. Cobbe: ‘Sebastien Erard's Fortepiano for Marie Antoinette’, Hatchlands Music Festival 1993, 40–47 [programme book]
Sébastien Erard: Blankenburg, Harz, 1994 [with Eng. summaries]
L. Barthel: La harpe de Rousseau à Boieldieu: évolution organologique, les partitions de Marie Antoinette, catalogue des auteurs et des oeuvres: 1760–1828 (diss., U. of Lyons 2, 1994)
Le pianoforte en France & ses descendants jusqu’aux années trente (Paris, 1995) [incl. F. de la Grandville: ‘Pianos anciens conservés dans les musées de provence’, 12–38; P. Fritsch: ‘Gottfried et Jean Henry Silbermann: l'origine de leurs fortepianos’, 94–105; C. Grassier: ‘Le piano romantique français de 1823 à 1867’, 94–105]
A. Roudier: ‘La forme clavecin chez les Erard 1790–1797’, Sébastien Erard: l’aventure du pianoforte, Musée des beaux-arts et d’archeologie, 21 Sept – 4 Dec 1995 (Besançon, 1995) [exhibition catalogue]
P. Erard: Letters addressed to Sébastien Erard (March – Dec 1814, May 1824), Harpa, no.19 (1995), 44–7; no.20 (1995), 44–8; no.21 (1996), 43–5; no.22 (1996), 20–21; no.23 (1996), 49–50; Harpa-Piano, no.1 (1997)
M. Cole: The Pianoforte in the Classical Era (Oxford, 1998)
