Johann Heinrich Pape

Biography

Johann Heinrich Pape was born at Sarstedt, Germany, on July 1, 1789. He arrived in Paris in 1809, studied in London for over a year, and returned to Paris in 1811, where he took charge of the Pleyel factory and began building pianos on English models. In 1815 he went into business for himself and embarked on a prolific and eccentric campaign of experimentation, taking out more than 120 patents for piano improvements and publishing a booklet describing his inventions. The author regards most of these ideas as impractical curiosities, with one notable exception: his experiments with hat-felt for hammer covering, which led to a lasting improvement in piano manufacture. Pape's reputation as an inventor spread across Europe, and during his prime, from 1835 to 1855, his factory trained young men from across the Continent, including his most talented pupils, Frederick Mathushek and Carl Bechstein. Toward the end of his career he became fixated on building pianos in unusual shapes—cycloid, hexagonal and others—that failed to find buyers. Although he once owned one of the largest piano factories in Paris, employing over 300 men, Pape died in poverty on February 2, 1875. From Spillane (1890): Jean Henri Pape was born in Hanover in 1789. He arrived in Paris in 1809, and the following year entered the establishment of Pleyel as a workman. Once skilled, he traveled to England around 1817 to learn further, English makers then enjoying a marked superiority, before returning to France to found his own business. Pape exhibited his first piano built with a down-striking action, positioned above the strings, in Paris in October 1827, having reportedly worked on the idea since the previous year; Thomas Loud, Jr. of Philadelphia had patented a similar invention some months earlier, in May 1827. Pape was credited by the writer Andes as the first to introduce felt into pianos in Europe, producing his first felt pianos in 1839 after advocating the material from 1835, though Alpheus Babcock of Boston had already patented felt hammer-covering in America in 1833. Pape also invented an unsuccessful tuning-fork piano and, around 1838, exhibited hexagonal and cycloid pianos that led to no lasting reform. He is credited as the first to introduce overstringing and iron bracing into French pianos, and, per Foucaud, with originating the modern form of the string "agraffe." Spillane suggests Pape was the real party behind Pierre Frederick Fischer's 1835 British overstringing patent.

Highlights

• Took out over 120 patents for piano improvements
• Pioneered use of hat-felt for hammer covering, a lasting improvement
• Trained pupils including Frederick Mathushek and Carl Bechstein
• Born in Hanover in 1789; arrived in Paris in 1809 and entered Pleyel's workshop in 1810.
• Exhibited a down-striking-action piano in 1827 and introduced felt hammer-covering, overstringing, and iron bracing in French pianos.
• Also built experimental hexagonal, cycloid, and tuning-fork pianos.

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), pp. 259, 260.

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 26, 27, 28.

Public domain.