Louis Fissore

Biography

Louis Fissore was a French piano-maker who had worked in Pleyel's shop in Paris before emigrating to the United States. He landed first in New York, where he apparently met with little encouragement, before arriving in Baltimore in the early part of 1833; a patent record describes him as having resided in Baltimore only three months at the time his patent was issued. On July 22, 1833, he patented an improvement in metal piano plates, summarized in the Journal of the Franklin Institute as employing cast-iron for the instrument's frame, with tuning-pins passed through the plate and secured by a washer and screw-nut rather than simply driven in, along with a specialized tuning-hammer using pinions for slow, powerful motion. The author regards his plate design as a variation on European examples of the period. Little else is known of Fissore; his name appears in New Orleans records for a few years after 1840, then disappears, leading the author to surmise he probably spent the remainder of his career as a journeyman.

Highlights

• A French piano-maker who had worked in Pleyel's shop in Paris before emigrating, landing first in New York and then arriving in Baltimore in early 1833
• Patented, July 22, 1833, an improvement in cast-iron piano plates, including a method of fixing tuning-pins with a washer and screw-nut and a specialized pinion-geared tuning hammer
• His name later turns up in New Orleans records for a few years past 1840, after which it disappears; the author speculates he ended his career as a journeyman

Source

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), pp. 129, 130.

Public domain.