Ignace Pleyel

Biography

Ignace Pleyel, born in 1757 near Vienna as the twenty-fourth child of a village schoolmaster, showed early musical promise. Count Erdoedy paid Joseph Haydn $500 a year for five years to teach and board the young prodigy. After studying with Haydn, Pleyel traveled to Italy, spending time at the court of Naples, where he composed an opera and orchestral works for the king. From 1783 to 1793 he served as chapel-master of Strasburg Cathedral, composing most of his widely sold works during this period. In 1793 he took an engagement in London, performing in concerts in competition with his old teacher Haydn, but soon returned to Strasburg. During the French Revolution he was suspected of royalist sympathies and repeatedly condemned to death; watched by gendarmes, he composed music for a revolutionary drama in seven days, which restored public confidence in his loyalty. He then moved to Paris, entering music publishing in 1805 and founding a piano factory in 1807. In 1824 he transferred the business to his son Camille and retired to a country estate near Paris, where he died on November 14, 1831. Ignace Pleyel of Paris adopted Robert Wornum's 1826 upright piano action for his own instruments, and the action became known on the Continent as the "Pleyel" action. Dolge notes that Pleyel and other Paris firms subsequently specialized in upright pianos with such success that the square piano scarcely gained a foothold in France, in contrast to its long dominance in America and elsewhere. No further biographical detail about Pleyel personally -- dates, training, or other ventures -- is given in this section. Ignace Pleyel, working in Paris, is named alongside Henri Pape as one of the piano makers who, following Robert Wornum's 1826 patent, set to work improving the new upright piano action. Their efforts were so successful that the resulting design came to be popularly, if inaccurately, called the 'French' action -- a name Dolge attributes partly to Paris's leading role in manufacturing actions for the piano trade. From Spillane (1890): Ignace Pleyel was born in Austria in 1757, the twenty-fourth child born to his mother, who died soon after his birth; his father Martin Pleyel remarried and fathered fourteen more children, for thirty-eight in all, about thirty-five of whom survived. Pleyel became a noted composer and rose to be chapel-master of Strasburg Cathedral. He settled in Paris around 1804 and turned to manufacturing pianos, using his existing reputation as a musician and composer to advantage. He rapidly built one of the largest piano establishments in Europe. By about 1835 the firm, then run by his son Camile in partnership with the musician Kalkbrenner, controlled the largest wholesale and retail pianoforte trade in Europe.

Highlights

• Adopted Robert Wornum's improved upright action for his own pianos, giving rise to the name "Pleyel" action on the Continent.
• He and other Paris firms specialized in upright pianos so successfully that square pianos gained little foothold in France.
• Along with Henri Pape, refined Wornum's upright action in Paris to such notable effect that it became popularly (if inaccurately) known as the 'French' action
• Studied under Haydn at Count Erdoedy's expense; later composed an opera for the King of Naples
• Served as chapel-master of Strasburg Cathedral (1783-1793) and competed in concerts with Haydn in London
• Founded a music publishing house (1805) and piano factory (1807), later transferred to his son Camille
• Born in Austria in 1757, the twenty-fourth of thirty-eight children of Martin Pleyel.
• Became chapel-master of Strasburg Cathedral before turning to piano manufacturing.
• Founded one of the largest piano establishments in Europe after settling in Paris around 1804.

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), pp. 54, 93, 254, 255, 256.

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 22, 23.

Public domain.