studi musicali - Patrizio Barbieri

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Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
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studi musicali nuova serie 04 2013 n. 01
studi musicali .
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ISSN 0391-7789
ISBN 978-88-95341-51-4
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studi musicali
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nuova serie
anno 04
2013
numero 01
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
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Studi musicali. Nuova serie
Rivista semestrale di studi musicologici
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Studi musicali
Nuova serie, iv, 2013, n. 1
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Alejandro Planchart
The Geography of Italian Proper Tropes
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Anthony Cummings
On the Testimony of Fragments (or, Alessandro Striggio the Elder
and the Genesis of the Genere Concitato)
061
Warren Kirkendale
Zu Handschriften von Händel und Caldara in der Santini-Sammlung
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Berthold Over
Emanuele d’Astorga und Marchese Francesco Maria Ruspoli
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Thomas Griffin
Some Late Scarlatti Recovered: Part Two of Alessandro Scarlatti’s
Serenata Erminia (1723)
115
Laurie McManus
Hearing and Seeing Nineteenth-Century Augenmusik:
the Case of Brahms’s Requiem
145
Patrizio Barbieri
The Italian piano: laborious industrial growth 1810-2010
2030
Daniela Tortora
Da * selon Sade a La Passion selon X.
Intorno alla Passion selon Sade di Sylvano Bussotti
The Italian piano: laborious industrial growth 1810-2010
Patrizio Barbieri
The following outline deals with the evolution of the Italian piano and its position on the world stage from a technological and industrial point of view.
Although much more distinguished in the violin- and harpsichord-making sector, Italy’s role in the modern piano industry is not negligible. Indeed, the
Peninsula is numbered by Alfred Dolge among the six countries included in his
authoritative Pianos and their makers: and this was in 1911, at the time when the
instrument invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori was at its most popular.1
Despite this fact, it should immediately be added that in this context Italy was
considerably behindhand, in both quality and technological aspects, as compared to the five nations then leading the sector: the United States, Germany,
Great Britain, France, and Austria. It should also be remembered that,
although like the first two countries mentioned Italy’s industry developed only
during the second half of the nineteenth century, during the period from 1870
to 1910 annual production in the United States rose from 24,000 to 370,000
pianos and in Germany from 15,000 to 120,000, whereas Italy never exceeded
7,000 units. Unlike the countries just mentioned, the first real internationally
1 Alfred Dolge, Pianos and their makers, Covina, California, Covina Publishing Company,
1911 (reprint New York, Dover Publications, 1972).
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patrizio barbieri
appreciated concert grand piano made in Italy only appeared starting from
1981, thanks to Paolo Fazioli.
In about 1980-90, limiting the comparison to other western countries, Italy’s
position improved slightly even in the sector of upright pianos, not only as a
result of the instrument’s by now stabilised characteristics, but in particular following the scaling-down of the major western industries after market invasion
by Asiatic entrepreneurs. The latters’ overwhelming power, in the late twentieth
century, reached numerical proportions never before recorded. Let it suffice
that, in the mid-seventies, the Japanese company Yamaha produced around
200,000 pianos per year, to conclude that in five years this single firm made more
instruments – and, we may add, on the whole of better quality – than Italy managed to manufacture from the times of Cristofori to the present day.2
Having thus outlined the scenario, let us now glance at the criteria used to
carry out this survey.3 Production data is difficult to quantify, since Italy – unlike
other leading countries in the sector – has never had a manufacturers’ association
with updated registers, so that statistics are largely based on the accurate import
and export data published annually, previously by the Ministry of Finance and
now by the Central Statistics Bureau (Ufficio Centrale di Statistica). As regards
the quality aspect on the other hand, reference is made to the results achieved at
Italian exhibitions (initially regional, then nationwide) and more particularly –
for the purpose of greater objectivity – at the major international exhibitions of
2 For data relating to Yamaha see Cyril Ehrlich, Pianoforte, in The New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians, London, Macmillan, 1980, xiv, §8-9, pp. 704-710: 710 (in any absolute sense,
Yamaha’s is the highest production level ever achieved by any factory). In 1922, annual production in the United States had risen to 430,000 pianos: [Raffaello De Rensis] Cento anni di Casa
Anelli, organi e pianoforti 1836-1936, Cremona, Cremona Nuova, 1936, p. 89.
3 An information about manufacturers mentioned can be found in: Encyclopedia of keyboard
instruments. Volume 1: The piano, ed. Robert Palmieri, New York & London, Garland, 1994 (hereafter Enc1994); entries reproduced, after possible updating, in The Piano. An Encyclopedia, Second
edition, ed. Robert Palmieri, New York & London, Routledge, 2003. Further information can be
found in Annarita Colturato, L’industria dei pianoforti a Torino nell’ Ottocento, in Miscellanea
di studi. 3, a c. di Alberto Basso, Torino, Centro Studi Piemontesi, 1991, pp. 43-61; Francesca
Seller, I pianoforti napoletani nel XIX secolo, «Fonti musicali italiane», xiv, 2009, pp. 171-199 (an
article also containing a dictionary of the piano makers in Naples); Annalisa Bini, Testimonianze sui costruttori di pianoforti italiani nell’Archivio dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, in Musica se
extendit ad omnia. Studi in onore di Alberto Basso in occasione del suo 75° compleanno, a c. di Rosy Moffa
e Sabrina Saccomanni, Lucca, Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2007, ii, pp. 687-694.
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the italian piano: laborious industrial growth 1810-2010
London, Paris, and Vienna (1851-1900). The prizes obtained at the latter – not negative, but rarely above a bronze medal – confirm that competition from other
countries continued to be an obstacle that Italy did not manage to overcome.
The results of our survey have been summarised in five sections: 1. The transition from artisanal to industrial production; 2. Up to Italian Unification: the semiindustrial phase (analysed for each of the pre-unification states); 3. From Unification to the First World War: the industrialisation phase (collapse of Neapolitan production and development of northern Italy’s, especially in Turin); 4. Between the
Two Wars: the ‘commercial’ piano and the Great Depression; 5. The Second Post-War
Period: the advent of Asiatic industry and the birth of ‘Fazioli Pianoforti’.
§1. The transition from artisanal to industrial production
1.1. From harpsichord to piano. During the course of the eighteenth century, many
European workshops changed gradually from harpsichord to piano production,
like John Broadwood (Great Britain), the Stein family (Austria), Pascal Taskin
and Sébastien Erard (France). In Italy, on the other hand, this did not occur. On
the contrary, the most representative school of the sector, the Florentine workshop of Bartolomeo Cristofori and his pupil Giovanni Ferrini, died out leaving
no one sufficiently outstanding by dint of substantial design or production
process innovations.
One of the reasons for this lies in the fact that in 1737 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, following the destiny of other Italian states, became a prefecture of the Austrian government, which obviously sought to safeguard its own national industry (§2.3). A second can be found in the progressive deterioration of instrumental music and the rise of the opera that took place all over the peninsula starting
from the early decades of the eighteenth century and continued up to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (1861). A third reason includes a series of factors
which, during this same transition period, were to prove disastrous for Italian
craftsmanship. In this connexion, it may be useful to make a comparison
between Vienna and Naples, which latter city, up to the Unification of Italy, was
noted for the greatest production of pianos in the peninsula. The comparison is
appropriate because (1) in both cities, even during the nineteenth century, piano
production remained at artisan or semi-artisan level (§2.2); (2) Naples was also
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patrizio barbieri
the capital of an independent state, which was moreover the most technologically advanced in all Italy at that time. The reason for the net superiority of the Austrians is summarised in the following three paragraphs, documented in greater
detail later in this article.
Materials. Whereas for harpsichord production at Naples only very few parts
had to be imported, for pianos imports included ivories for key-covers, fir or
spruce soundoards, felts, specially treated skins for the hammers, quality fish
glue, steel strings (§3.1). To these were often added precious woods (such as
mahogany and rosewood) for the cases, not painted and gilded like harpsichords,
but made of exposed wood. Vienna, on the other hand, had factories that even
exported skins and steel strings (§3.3). The wood for soundboards, from nearby
Bohemia and Bavaria, was artificially seasoned at a large plant in Vienna itself, as
reported in 1829 by Giacinto Amati: for about 60 hours the planks were subjected
to the action of steam produced by boiling water, so as to remove part of the starch
and other substances, and were then dried for two or three days in special ovens.4
Accessories. In 1850-51, in addition to piano makers, the Austrian capital also
numbered as many as 54 makers of accessories, all rigidly classified per sector
(keyboards, cases, legs for cases, steel or iron tuning pins, ivory covers). At
Naples, on the other hand, allied industries meant generic artisans (“bronze makers, blacksmiths, brass workers, string-makers, turners, etc.”).5 For specific accessories, Siever’s treatise (1868) lists the addresses of as many as 51 suppliers, all
from Vienna, Paris, London, or Germany; he himself, owner of one of the best
Neapolitan firms, states that for the action of his «pianoforti inclinati e obliqui»
and for their keyboards he bought supplies from Paris (Fig. 1 below).6 The matter
of accessories, and even more so of the materials mentioned above, was however
a handicap that weighed on the entire Italian industry for much of the century.
Unlike the harpsichord, the greater structural complexity and rapid development of the pianoforte made it financially convenient to split the work among
4 Giacinto Amati, Ricerche storico-critiche-scientifiche […], iii, Milano, Pirotta, 1829, p. 258.
5 Luigi Nunneri, Relazione sulla condizione della classe operaja pianofortista […], Napoli, Lubrano, 1887, p. 6 («bronzisti, fabbri, ottonai, cordari, tornieri, ecc.»).
6 Giacomo Ferdinando Sievers, Il pianoforte, guida pratica per costruttori, accordatori, dilettanti e possessori di pianoforti […], Napoli, Ghio, 1868, pp. 207-211. He adds a fifty-second (Carlo
Cristin, of Naples) who, however, for his more strategically important accessories relied on supplies from abroad.
148
specialised sectors. The growing demand from a rapidly developing middle class
also required a rhythm of production unknown to the harpsichord makers of
previous centuries. Although not aligned with French and English ‘mass production’, such an excellent organization − leading to low production costs and high
production quality − rewarded Austria with a high export rate.7
Quality control. In Vienna, a special commission examined the pianos produced by each applicant maker and also ascertained whether he had sufficient
funds to open a workshop with certain quality requirements. Such requirements
made it possible for Vienna, in the 1870s, to withstand increasing German competition. At Naples, this did not occur. Its sectoral market held on so long as high
import taxes protected it from foreign competition, only to collapse when, on
being annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, the said taxes were abolished (§3.1). In
previous centuries, this kind of quality control existed in Italy too, carried out
more or less directly by the corporazioni di arti e mestieri, guilds that were abolished by the Napoleonic regimes. The result was that, unlike the harpsichord,
the Italian piano was not even appreciated in its own country. Indeed, the Venetian Pietro Gianelli wrote, in 1830:8
as regards the piano-forte, on viewing an
instrument, some ask where it is made. If the
reply is ‘from overseas’ or ‘from beyond the
mountains [Alps]’, they say at once, ‘Oh, then
it’s good’; otherwise they don’t even want to
hear it, or if they do, they look down on it.
circa i piano-forte alcuni veduto un tale strumento domandano, dov’è fatto? che se loro
si risponde oltre mar, oltre monte, dicono
tosto, oh è buono, altrimente neppur si
degnan di ascoltarlo, o ascoltandolo lo disprezzano.
1.2. Further problems of industrial development. Prior to Unification, Italy was
divided into many states (§2). Unlike France and Great Britain, they still lacked
any kind of modern industrial mentality. Their growth in this sense was largely
impeded by the following factors:
1. Widespread protectionism, with the sole exception of Piedmont(Turin).
2. A political structure opposed to any association of industrialists or workers.
7 Alfons Huber, Austria, Piano industry in, in Enc1994, pp. 30-33: 32.
8 Pietro Gianelli, Dizionario della musica sacra e profana, 3rd edn, iv, Venezia, Picotti, 1830, p. 46.
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patrizio barbieri
3. Nascent industry opposed both by rich landowners (who saw workers subtracted from employment on their large estates) and by those who viewed growing mechanisation as a threat for employment.9
4. Difficulty of attracting the already scarce capital in major credit institutions,
owing to the subdivision of Italy into tiny duchies (or rather, ‘duchini microscopici’,
as then defined by someone), which prevented the setting up of major factories.10
Since the artisan had to purchase materials from middlemen, the cost of his product
was not competitive when compared to industrial products.11 For piano manufacturers, considerable funds were needed, for example, to import timber from abroad
and leave it to season for several years.12 Only initially was this disadvantage partly
offset by the still limited transport network, favouring local products.
5. Factories not divided into departments, with little automation and lacking
steam engines. As a result of this kind of organisation, as early as 1807 London’s
Broadwood, on the other hand, could produce over 400 pianos per year, with
related standardisation of quality and containment of running costs.13 In Italy
though, Maltarello – the major maker of the period – was still without automatic
machinery in 1870.14 Among the important manufacturers, only Mola was
equipped with a steam engine, and only in the last decade of the century.
6. As far as the piano was concerned, a further obstacle was the kind of action
adopted. Whereas France and England had, right from the start, opted for Stossmechanik (striking action, then better known as English or French action) and Vien9 Anna Gallo Martucci, Il Conservatorio d’arti e mestieri. Terza classe dell’Accademia delle belle
arti di Firenze (1811-1850), Firenze, M.C.S., 1988, p. 70. These latter fears were strengthened by the
fact that hydraulic machinery for the throwing and spinning of silk had already left many workers
unemployed: Ildebrando Imberciadori, Forze e aspetti industriali della Toscana nel primo ‘800,
Firenze, Vallecchi, 1961, p. 53.
10 As underlined by the Relazione illustrata della Esposizione campionaria fatta per cura della Società
Promotrice dell’Industria Nazionale, Torino, Doyen, 1871, p. 187.
11 See, for example, Edoardo di Diego, Le arti e le industrie in Lanciano. Studi e considerazioni,
Lanciano, Carabba, 1877, pp. 25-26.
12 Corinno Mariotti, Istrumenti musicali all’Esposizione di Torino (contin.), «Gazzetta musicale
di Milano», xxiii, 1868, pp. 179-181: 180. Alessandro Betocchi, Forze produttive della provincia
di Napoli, ii, Napoli, De Angelis, 1874, p. 287, mentions – as used by Neapolitan manufacturers –
«Russian deal» («abete di Russia») and «American rosewood» («palissandro d’America»).
13 Daniel E. Taylor, England, Piano industry in, in Enc1994, pp. 121-124: 121.
14 Alberto Errera, Storia e statistica delle industrie venete e accenni al loro avvenire, Venezia,
Antonelli, 1870, p. 647.
150
na for Prellmechanik (Viennese action), most of the Italian states (together with
Switzerland) adopted both at the same time.15 This was not only for geopolitical reasons (Tuscany and Lombardy-Veneto were Austrian prefectures) but also economic
ones (a piano with Viennese action cost about half the price of the others, a not negligible detail for a still economically weak basin of potential buyers).16 It also led to
delay in perfecting the striking action, revealed as the winning system in the second
half of the century. This vacillation between choosing the ‘French system’ or the
‘Viennese system’ clearly emerges in a recommendation to Milanese makers in 1851,
by Casa Ricordi: «having adopted a system, let them persevere in perfecting it».17
7. This last drawback – as noted in 1868 – was aggravated by the «very attitude
of the Italian worker, who, owing to his alert intelligence does not wish to be
occupied, like a machine, in making the same part of an object and wholly ignoring the latter’s other details and the object as a whole».18 In 1923 Pietro Anelli too
observed «that need, and perhaps the congenial tendency of Italians not to be
well-disciplined and to be over-artistic, has reduced our artisans to spending
their energies in different ways, so as to be simultaneously makers, players,
mechanics» (leading, for example, one of his forebears not only to make pianos
and church organs, but also to work as a painter).19
Evolution from the artisan to the semi-industrial stage was launched during
the Napoleonic era and much accelerated by numerous ‘prize competitions’, as
well as what were real regularly organised ‘exhibitions’, sponsored by various
local institutes for industrial development for the very purpose of monitoring
and stimulating growth in the different production sectors. Starting from 1861,
such exhibitions became nationwide. At international level, the example had
been given by London, with the Great Exhibition of 1851.
15 Werner Iten, Switzerland, Piano industry in, in Enc1994, pp. 385-386.
16 See, for example, the prices of instruments manufactured by Angelo C. Colombo, published in
the «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xv, 1857, p. 220.
17 Esposizione d’industria in Milano, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», ix, 1851, p. 108 («abbracciato
un sistema, siano tenaci nel perfezionarlo»).
18 Mariotti, Istrumenti musicali cit., p. 180 («attitudine stessa dell’operaio italiano, che appunto per
il suo ingegno svegliato non comporta di rendersi qual macchina occupato continuamente a fare la
stessa parte di un oggetto e di questo poi ignorando del tutto e gli altri dettagli e l’intiero complesso»).
19 [De Rensis], Cento anni di Casa Anelli cit., p. 104 («il bisogno, e forse anche la geniale tendenza
degli Italiani non bene disciplinati e troppo artisti, riduceva questi nostri artigiani a spendere in forme
diverse le loro energie, così che essi erano nello stesso tempo costruttori, suonatori, meccanici»).
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patrizio barbieri
§2. Up to Italian Unification: the semi-industrial phase
Prior to unification, each of the states into which Italy was divided independently developed its own industry. For a clearer view of subsequent developments,
they were (in brackets the date of their joining the Kingdom of Italy):
• Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia (1861); Savoy and the Department of
Menton-Nice were ceded to France in 1860.
• Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1861).
• Grand-Duchy of Tuscany (1861).
• Duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Modena (1861).
• Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto: Lombardy (1861); Veneto (1866); Venezia
Tridentina, Venezia Giulia (1918); Fiume and the Dalmatian territories
(1924, assigned however to Jugoslavia in 1945).
• Papal States: Romagna, Marche, Umbria (1861); modern Lazio (1870).
We shall now examine in detail the piano production of the various Italian
states during this initial stage.
2.1. Papal States. In Italy, one of the first prize competitions was organised in
Rome, in 1810, on the Capitol, by Napoleon Bonaparte in person. Prize-winners
include Carlo Arnoldi, for a grand piano and for a hydraulically-driven saw, «a
machine well-known to mechanics, made in Rome first by him, starting from the
year 1798».20 For most of the nineteenth century, incidentally, Italy’s entire industry was kept going by this kind of hydraulic engine. As far as piano-building is
concerned, it may be assumed that such an automatic device was used by Arnoldi
to saw timber for soundboards and keyboards, a specialisation which, at that time,
was already a separate industrial branch in other countries (being fairly widespread, for example, in Bavaria, a region close to Arnoldi’s native Trentino).21
With the Pope’s return however (1814), in Rome – the only case among all
Italian cities – such initiatives had no follow-up.22 In 1838, it was remarked
20 Processo verbale del concorso ai premj de’ prodotti delle arti, e delle manifatture di necessità, di comodo, e di lusso de’ romani dipartimenti in occasione del giorno onomastico di Napoleone I […], Roma,
Perego Salvioni, 1810, pp. 7-8.
21 On Bavarian workshops, see Sievers, Il pianoforte cit., pp. 207-211.
22 Philippe Camille [compte de] Tournon, Études statistiques sur Rome et la partie occidentale des Étas Romains […], Paris, Treuttel et Würz, 1831, Livre iii, p. 13.
152
that «many towns in England with 30,000 inhabitants produce a greater
quantity of manufactures than the 3,000,000 subjects of the Papal States», a
fact due to the ‘protections’ and ‘prohibitions’ of Papal government.23 As late
as 1842, Carlo Arnoldi − eight of whose instruments have come down to us −
was still the only official maker of pianos in the Eternal City, although at that
period his activity must still have been that of an artisan, or even an ordinary
tuner.24 Research has shown that at that time, the great popularity of Viennese pianos had reduced piano-building activities to almost nil. Documentation concerning his death (in Rome, on 28 August 1854) also shows that even
Carlo Arnoldi had transformed his activity and become a picture dealer, totally abandoning his previous trade.25 After him, in Rome, the first major piano
maker is found only after annexation to the Kingdom of Italy (Paolo Alessandroni: see Table 6 below).26 With the latter, Rome’s timid adventure into the
sector closes definitively.
2.2. Naples. In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the start of industrial activities was also launched during the Napoleonic era. In 1800, a «Giunta di arti e
manifatture» was set up, subsequently becoming the «Giunta di arti, manifatture e industria» (1808), which, in 1821, was merged with the «Reale Istituto d’incoraggiamento delle scienze naturali».27 The vigorous stimulation produced by
this institute was also continued under Ferdinand ii, who succeeded to the
throne in 1830. During this period, many foreign entrepreneurs – including several piano makers – settled in Naples, attracted by stable political conditions, a
23 Giovanni Bowring, Statistica della Toscana, di Lucca, degli Stati pontifici e Lombardo-Veneti e
specialmente delle loro relazioni commerciali. Rapporto, London, Clowes, 1838, p. 80.
24 Indeed, the name of Carlo Arnoldi is included amongst the tuners: L’indicatore ossia raccolta
d’indirizzi e notizie risguardanti gli oggetti di maggior interesse ed utilità ad ogni ceto di persone […],
Roma, Ajani, 1842, pp. 222, 224.
25 Patrizio Barbieri, Pianos and piano-makers in Rome, 1708-1900, article under preparation.
26 Alessandroni’s activity however starts being recorded shortly after 1850, when he produced
several accurate copies of the Erard grand; in 1856 he made Fr. Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio’s «Violicembalo», much applauded by Franz Liszt: Patrizio Barbieri, Violicembalos and other Italian
Sostenente pianos 1785-1900, «Galpin Society Journal», lxii, 2009, pp. 117-139: 125-130.
27 Giovanni Carano Donvito, Le manifatture del Reame nella esposizione del 1830 in Napoli, in
Studi in onore di Gino Luzzatto, iii, Milano, Giuffrè, 1950, pp. 34-41: 35; Paologiovanni MaioneFrancesca Seller, Prime ricognizioni archivistiche sui costruttori di pianoforti a Napoli nell’Ottocento, in Liuteria musica e cultura 1997, a c. di Renato Meucci, Lucca, LIM, 1998, pp. 21-41: 21-22.
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patrizio barbieri
promising market and, more especially, by high protectionist tariffs (averaging
10-12%, with peaks of 20% for the flourishing iron and steel industry).28
The initial activity in Naples – early on in the century – of the Viennese Carl
Fischer notwithstanding,29 most piano makers soon opted for the Frech-type
Stossmechanik, often introducing personal variants (Fig. 1). The Istituto d’incoraggiamento also took a systematic interest in piano building and, at two of the
first industrial exhibitions it sponsored (1825, 1828), a prize was won by Carlo De
Meglio; this maker may be considered the father of the Neapolitan piano, as well
as head of the family that in Italy – throughout the century – was distinguished
for its production of grand pianos (see, below, Table 6).
Fig. 1. From the catalogue of the Sievers factory, Naples (1868): No. 5, baby grand («mezza
coda» with «French action»); No. 6, concert grand («di academia», «costruzione alla francese»
still not of the overstrung type, five iron reinforcing bars over the strings);
No. 9, «pianoforte inclinato a corde oblique»
28 Angelo Mangone, L’industria nel Regno di Napoli 1859-1860, Napoli, Fiorentino, 1976, pp. 24-25.
29 Dolge, Pianos and their makers cit., p. 216.
154
Towards 1850, in the Kingdom of Naples, the musical instrument industry
employed about 1500 persons overall.30 The most developed was the piano sector, numbering 70 makers in 1860, of whom 42 of a certain size.31 Among the
leaders, Giacomo Ferdinando Sievers employed 30 workmen.32 Although quantitative data is not available, it can be deduced that most makers still had workshops at an artisan level, with a restricted number of employees, the manager
also covering the role of «capo d’arte», with a turnover mostly «to order».33
Such a high number of manufacturers in a single city is not however surprising. In
Paris, in 1847, there were as many as 180, some of which of a considerable size (such
as, for example, Erard and Pleyel, each of which had already reached a serial number
of 36,000 by about the year 1865).34 A more suitable comparison is with Vienna,
where even the most famous firms – such as Bösendorfer or Streicher – remained by
preference at a semi-artisan level. In 1850-51 the Austrian capital numbered 105 makers with an overall turnover of 2600 pianos per year (whereas, at the same period,
Broadwood alone produced 2300 annually).35 Between Naples and Vienna however
there was the substantial difference already noted in §1.1. As a consequence, Neapolitan production, at least around 1835-45, was not competitive. Indeed:
1. With regard to the pianos presented at the 1836 exhibition, an inspired
criticism by the Istituto d’incoraggiamento noted «that these Neapolitan musical instruments remain far behind those of Germany, France and England».36
30 Mangone, L’industria nel Regno di Napoli cit., p. 81.
31 Nunneri, Relazione cit., p. 4; Michele Ruta, Storia critica delle condizioni della musica in Italia e
del conservatorio di S. Pietro a Majella di Napoli, Napoli, De Angelis, 1877, p. 186; Seller, I pianoforti
napoletani nel XIX secolo cit., p. 177. At Naples, musical instrument artisans must have largely focused on
piano production. Commenting on the exhibition held at Naples in 1853, the «Gazzetta musicale di
Milano», xii, 1854, p. 54, observed: «If we should judge from the kind of instruments presented by the
prize-winning manufacturers, we would say that piano manufacture alone is active and numerous in
that capital» («Se dobbiamo arguire dalla specie degli strumenti presentati dai fabbricatori premiati,
convien dire che la sola fabbricazione dei pianoforti sia attiva ed anche numerosa in quella capitale»).
32 Ruta, Storia critica cit., p. 187.
33 Massimo Petrocchi, Le industrie del Regno di Napoli dal 1850 al 1860, Napoli, Pironti, 1955,
pp. 14-15.
34 Charles Timbrell, Pleyel, Ignace-Joseph (et C.ie), in Enc1994, pp. 296-297: 297.
35 Huber, Austria cit., pp. 32-33.
36 R. L., De’ saggi delle manifatture napolitane esposte nella solenne mostra del 1836, «Annali civili del
Regno delle Due Sicilie», xi, maggio-agosto 1836, pp. 55-93: 81 («rimangono ancora tai musicali
strumenti di Napoli a gran distanza da quei di Germania, di Francia e d’Inghilterra»).
155
patrizio barbieri
2. For those (all Neapolitan) presented at the 1844 exhibition, prizes were
limited to the silver medal, especially as a result of their higher prices.37
Protected by high tariffs, Neapolitan production was moreover almost exclusively limited to the domestic market: indeed, the Parthenopean maker Luigi
Nunneri states that, in his city, prior to the unification of Italy, «the appearance
of a piano at the customs was an event, a rarity».38 Just as rare, however, were
exports, as shown in Tables 1a-b and, below, Table 2.39 The details provided by
the latter are borne out by the evidence of Ponsicchi.40 However that may be, at
the London exhibition in 1862 the only four Italian piano exhibitors came from
the Kingdom of Naples, and among them one was an award-winner, albeit with a
mere «honourable mention»: Leopoldo De Meglio.41
Table 1a. Kingdom of Naples, continental provinces: number of pianos imported per year, from
1840 to 1860. Unlike other goods, the state registers contain no records of pianos exported,
showing that the quantity was negligible
Period
N° pianos
1840-45
1845-49
1850-59
1859
1860
44
(average)
48
(average)
47
(average)
36
15
37 G. F., De’ saggi delle manifatture napoletane nell’anno 1844, «Annali civili del Regno delle Due
Sicilie», xxxvi, ottobre-dicembre 1844, pp. 117-152: 136.
38 Nunneri, Relazione cit., p. 6 («il comparire di un pianoforte in dogana era un caso, una rarità»).
39 The data in Tables 1a-b are taken from: Ministero delle Finanze. Movimento commerciale delle
provincie napoletane nell’anno 1859. Appendice al movimento commerciale delle provincie dell’Italia settentrionale, in Ministero delle finanze. Movimento commerciale delle provincie toscane negli anni 1859 e
1860. Appendice al movimento commerciale delle provincie dell’Italia settentrionale, Torino, Stamperia
reale, 1863, p. 85 et seq: 101, 112-3, 175, 186, 236.
40 Cesare Ponsicchi, Il pianoforte sua origine e sviluppo […], Firenze, Guidi, 1876, p. 56 («Nel
Napoletano abbiamo distinte fabbriche che però hanno poca esportazione»).
41 Table 6 and the International Exhibition 1862. Official catalogue. Industrial Department, London,
Truscott & Simmons, [1862], pp. 325-326.
156
Table 1b. Kingdom of Naples, continental provinces: value of piano imports and related
customs dues, in liras, years 1859-60. The names of the single states are the original ones
STATE
YEAR / IMPORT
1859
1860
Austria
2,550
1,800
Francia
41,438
2,700
Stati Sardi [= Piedmont]
2,550
TOTAL
46,538
4,500
Imp. duty, gross (total)
7,714
715
Imp. duty, net (total)
6,942
636
Fig. 2. The solemn industrial exhibition of 1853, organised by the Reale Istituto d’incoraggiamento delle scienze naturali, in the Sala di Tarsia, at Naples. From E. ORESTE MASTROJANNI, Il
Reale Istituto d’incoraggiamento di Napoli. MDCCCVI-MCMVI […], Napoli, Pierro, 1907
157
patrizio barbieri
Bearing witness to the city’s technological pre-eminence in Italian production in that sector, it should be remembered that it was at Naples that for the first
time in the Peninsula a piano with an entirely metal bearing structure was
designed and built. Indeed, 5 August 1838 saw the granting of a five-year ‘privativa’ (patent) to Giacomo Ferdinando Sievers «for the construction and sale of
pianos with cast-iron frame and case».42 At the Neapolitan exhibition held that
year, Sievers was awarded the «small gold medal» for an instrument that was
strikingly similar to the one described on the said patent and to another presented in the same year, but its frame was actually merely reinforced with «iron
bars».43 At the Neapolitan industrial exhibition in 1853 (Fig. 1), however, Giovanni Maurer presented a «pianoforte with a new invention, that is with a castiron frame and wrest plank» (as we shall see below, in the same year a similar
attempt was made at Milan, but limited to just the frame).44 The iron wrest plank
42 Tornate dell’Istituto d’incoraggiamento (settembre 1839), «Annali civili del Regno delle Due
Sicilie», xxi, settembre-dicembre 1839, p. 135 («per la costruzione e smaltimento di pianoforti
con pancone e cassa di ferro fuso»). Archive documents published by Maione and Seller, Prime
ricognizioni cit., p. 28, show that a few months later (October 12), Sievers applied for and obtained
another patent for a pianoforte with the same frame, but with hammers striking the strings from
above, downward toward the soundboard (the already-known ‘down-strike action’). A pianoforte
with English action and with the same hammer action was later presented at the 1844 exhibition
by Giovanni Schmid and Giacomo Eppler: G. F., De’ saggi delle manifatture napoletane nell’anno
1844, p. 136 (piano with «spina e bischeri situati al di sotto del pancone; poiché il martello battendo la corda in senso opposto, la rende più salda, e la voce fassi più armoniosa e chiara»).
43 R. L., De’ saggi delle manifatture napoletane esposti nella solenne mostra del 1838, «Annali civili del
Regno delle Due Sicilie», xix, gennaio-aprile 1839, pp. 74-75; R. L., Rimunerazioni delle manifatture
napoletane per l’anno 1838, id., xx, maggio-agosto 1839, pp. 45-47: the said instrument had ‘inverse
striking’, an action invented by Count Stanhope, subsequently taken up by Pape (Paris) and finally perfected by Sievers (i.e. the ‘down-strike action’ encountered in note 42).
44 Disamina eseguita dal Reale Istituto d’incoraggiamento degli strumenti musicali, «Gazzetta musicale di
Napoli», iii, 1854, pp. 9-11: 10 («pianoforte con una nuova invenzione, cioè con telaio e pancone di
ferro»), which states: «This construction is highly useful because not only does it influence the duration of the tuning, but also helps preserve the case itself, since the stress produced by the strings has
no contact with wood, but with iron» («Tale costruzione è utilissima perché influisce alla durata dell’accordo non solo, ma anche alla conservazione del mobile, non avendo la forza prodotta dalle corde
alcuna relazione col legno, ma bensì col ferro»). Up to then, manufacturers such as Carlo De Meglio
and Sievers had merely reinforced the structure with «long iron bars»: Cronaca Napolitana, «Gazzetta
musicale di Napoli», i, 1852, p. 11. Fig. 1 is taken from E. Oreste Mastrojanni, Il Reale Istituto d’incoraggiamento di Napoli. mdcccvi-mcmvi […], Napoli, Pierro, 1907, p. 59.
158
was provided with a groove holding the timber to which the tuning pins were
fixed.45 Such a construction had the advantage of isolating the weak wooden
structure from the stress of the strings, then continually increasing (most of the
fairly thick wooden frames of the pianoforti a tavolo (Tafelklaviers = table or
square pianos), subjected over many years to diagonal string traction, even today
present permanent torsional deformation, often problematic to deal with during
restoration). Around 1850 all-iron frames were widespread in the United States,
but in Europe popularity was slower in coming, owing to the belief that an entirely wooden construction – wood being ‘resonant’ par excellence – was decisive for
the proper acoustics of the instrument. In Vienna, for example, the first frames of
this kind appeared as late as 1858-62.46 Even at the mentioned 1853 exhibition,
Maurer’s innovation was not duly assessed, since he received only one of the four
silver medals, as compared to the seven gold medals awarded to traditional pianos
by other makers in the city. In 1868, Sievers himself condemned47
un sopraccarico di ferro che guasta in certo
modo l’omogeneità del legname che ajuta la
rapida trasmissione del suono; perciò la
maggior parte dei fabbricanti hanno dismesso interamente il ferro fuso, e non adoperano che ferro battuto [«a forza di martello»,
he specified shortly afterwards], scemando
il numero delle sbarre, le quali solo pei grandi pianoforti giungono a 5 e non oltrepassano questo numero che rare volte.
an overload of iron, which somehow ruins
the homogeneity of the timber that assists
rapid sound transmission. For this reason,
most manufacturers have entirely dismissed cast iron and only employ wrought
iron [«by dint of the hammer», he specified shortly afterwards], decreasing the
number of rods to the number of only five
in grand pianos and only rarely exceeding
this number.
45 Maione-Seller, Prime ricognizioni archivistiche cit., p. 26 (from which moreover we learn
that even prior to 1852 Maurer had been granted a patent for the said invention).
46 Mary Ellen Haupert, Frame, in Enc1994, pp. 137-139: 139; Taylor, England cit., p. 121;
Huber, Austria cit., p. 33 (according to the last-mentioned author, in Vienna the first cast-iron
frame was employed in 1862, by Friedrich Ehrbar). The «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xvi, 1858,
p. 201, however, records that, at an exhibition held at Florence, the «German» instruments
included «one pianoforte by Besendorf, one by Tomascheck, one by Seuffert, and one by Betsy.
This last instrument is very solid owing to its cast-iron wrest plank» («un pianoforte di
Besendorf, uno di Tomascheck, uno di Seuffert, ed uno di Betsy. Il quale ultimo istrumento è di
molta solidità per avere un pancone di ferro fuso»).
47 Sievers, Il pianoforte cit., p. 83.
159
patrizio barbieri
Even an authoritative specialist from the «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», as late
as 1881, declared that he preferred «worked iron [= wrought iron] to cast iron»
because «cast iron lacks sonority».48
The city of Naples supplied almost all the provinces lying «al di qua del Faro»,
i.e. in the continental part of the kingdom. As we shall see, trade also extended to
Sicily, although recent research has revealed the presence of a surprisingly high
number of local makers in the provinces «al di là del Faro».49
2.3. Florence. After the Medici dynasty died out in 1737, Tuscany passed on to
a branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family, becoming a prefecture of the Vienna
government. As a result, pianos too started to be imported from Austria (and
these instruments immediately won the Tuscans’ favour, since even the very
first – unlike those of local production – already had a highly French-polished
case).50 This meant that promising workshops like those of Cristofori and Ferrini did not give rise to a real Tuscan school, but merely left a tail-end consisting
of a few isolated artisans.
The situation gave signs of improving under the Napoleonic administration,
although the latter clearly sought to safeguard its own national industry.51 In 1809
the administration created in Florence a «Conservatorio di arti e mestieri», like the
one in Paris (founded in 1794 and still active today), in order to contribute to the
technological improvement of the Grand Duchy’s manufactures. This institution
was weakened considerably by the departure of the French and not until 1839 did it
produce any public exhibitions, toward which local industry reacted much more
tepidly than at Naples. In particular, the making of musical instruments received
no stimulus from the Conservatory’s plentiful battery of acoustic instruments.52
48 Gustavo Chouquet, La musica all’Esposizione di Parigi (cont.), «Gazzetta musicale di
Milano», xxxvi, 1881, pp. 59-61: 61.
49 Giovanni Paolo Di Stefano, Makers of the piano in Sicily between the eighteenth and the twentieth century, in The piano in Italy, ed. by Giovanni Paolo Di Stefano, Palermo, Undamaris, in print.
50 Ponsicchi, Il pianoforte cit., p. 37.
51 Gallo Martucci, Il Conservatorio d’arti e mestieri cit., p. 37; Rodolfo Morandi, Storia
della grande industria in Italia, Bari, Laterza, 1931, pp. 7-31.
52 On this subject, see Guido Gori, L’Accademia delle Belle Arti e l’Istituto Tecnico Toscano 18091859, in L’acustica e i suoi strumenti. La collezione dell’Istituto Tecnico Toscano, a c. di Anna Giatti e
Mara Miniati, Firenze, Giunti, 2001, pp. 11-30 (Italian-English bilingual edn).
160
The first pianos made in Florence on a semi-industrial scale were produced
well into the nineteenth century by the firm Lucherini, whose factory was managed by a German technician. German too was the trade-mark with which these
instruments, provided with Viennese action, were placed on the market.53 183031 saw the opening of the factory of the brothers Antonio and Michelangelo
Ducci, which – beside organs – produced pianos almost identical to those of the
Austrian Carl Stein, the maker at whose workshop Michelangelo had improved
his knowledge; at the city’s 1841 exhibition, the two brothers also presented a
new hydraulic veneering machine.54 By 1847, however, Tuscany’s already weak
sectoral industry was practically extinct: Lucherini and the Duccis had halted
piano production because it was not economically profitable. The only surviving
maker in that year was Berlians – perhaps the first, together with the above-mentioned Paolo Alessandroni, to introduce Erard’s double escapement in Italy –,
who produced pianos with French action. Luigi F. Casamorata, to whom we owe
this information, adds however: «his instruments, albeit with a fairly dark
sound, were certainly not lacking in esteem, and might have been successful
commercially if their prices had been lower».55 This remark, besides emphasising that production by minor manufacturers was no longer commercially competitive, reveals that the Florentines were still tied to the clear timbre produced
by Prellmechanik, which even Vienna at this period was seeking in every way to
render more sonorous. In Florence, the Viennese piano tradition was so rooted
that Cesare Ponsicchi – tuner at the local music conservatory, directed by the
already-mentioned Casamorata – in 1876 reports that up to a few years earlier
«some teachers had religiously retained their method of touch with which they
even played modern pianos»: this method – abounding in «rifioriture e picchiettature», and with a very light touch – had been needed by the «very harsh» and
53 Ponsicchi, Il pianoforte cit., p. 57.
54 La Casa musicale G. Ceccherini & C. Successori Ducci 1831-1981. Cronaca di avvenimenti musicali,
Firenze, Tipografia Giuntina, 1981, pp. 3-6; Esposizione dei prodotti dell’industria manifatturiera in
Toscana, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», iii, 1844, pp. 174-175.
55 Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata, Esposizione di arti e manifatture in Firenze, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», vi, 1847, pp. 330-331 («i suoi strumenti, quantunque di voce assai cupa, non mancano al certo di pregio, e potrebbero aver voga in commercio se i prezzi fossero più miti»). Concerning the statements on the double escapement, see however L’esposizione italiana del 1881 in
Milano illustrata, Milano, Sonzogno, [1881], p. 154.
161
patrizio barbieri
dry sound produced by the highly sensitive Viennese action (whose hammers
had to be covered with leather, rather than felt).56
Tables 1c and 2 however show that in pre-unification Tuscany piano exports
were irrelevant as compared to imports (the latter favoured moreover by a low
tariff of 4.4%, as shown in Table 1c).57
Table 1c. Grand Duchy of Tuscany: trade exchanges with other countries for «square, grand,
and upright pianos» («pianoforti a tavola, a coda e verticali»), years 1859-60. For 1859 it is even
stated that, out of 68 instruments of the 78 imported, 20 were square (“a tavolino”),
43 grands, 5 harmoniums (“armoniche a tavolino”)
MOVEMENT
YEAR
1859
1860
Imported (N°)
78
96
Imported (value, in Liras)
-
52,829
Import duty (Liras)
-
2,313
Exported (N°)
3
6
Exported (value, in Liras)
-
3,600
Export duty
-
-
2.4. Lombardy-Veneto and Parma. In Lombardy-Veneto, as in Tuscany, the protectionist policy of the Austrian monarchy imposed grave restrictions on industrial
development.58 Commenting on the fact that no pianoforte was included in the
Milanese 1830 exhibition, the sociologist Giuseppe Sacchi provided the following explanation:59
56 Ponsicchi, Il pianoforte cit., p. 38 («taluni maestri i quali avevano conservato religiosamente
la loro maniera di tocco col quale suonavano anche i moderni pianoforti»).
57 The data in Table 1c is taken from Ministero delle Finanze. Movimento commerciale delle provincie
toscane negli anni 1859 e 1860 cit., Torino, Stamperia reale, 1863, pp. 46, 82.
58 Il commercio estero del Regno Lombardo-Veneto dal 1815 al 1865, a c. di Ira A. Glazier, Roma,
Archivio economico dell’Unificazione Italiana, 1966, p. 46.
59 Giuseppe Sacchi, Ragguaglio intorno alla pubblica esposizione degli oggetti d’industria in Lombardia nell’anno 1830, «Annali universali di statistica», xxvi, ottobre-dicembre 1830, pp. 91-112: 100.
162
Nessun gravicembalo fu recato all’esposizione. La fabbrica di tali strumenti che
un tempo fioriva anche fra noi è stata sobbarcata dalla concorrenza de’ gravicembali
viennesi.
No gravicembalo [= piano] was shown at
the exhibition. The making of such instruments, which once also flourished in our
midst, has lost credit owing to the competition of Viennese pianos.
Despite this fact, in Lombardy the piano industry developed better than in Tuscany. In Milan, it was officially launched by Giuseppe Cattaneo: thanks to a gold
medal awarded in 1834, owing to the interest of the local «Regio Istituto di scienze», he managed to obtain from a «capitalist» (capitalista) – perhaps the first case
of this kind in this sector – the necessary funding to transform his workshop into
a small but modern factory. Cattaneo however died shortly afterwards, leaving
as his successor his pupil Ambrogio Riva who, in partnership with a certain
Michele Voetter, in 1840-47 produced an average of one piano per week (about
300 were produced over the first six years). In that same period, two other pupils
of Cattaneo, Angelo Colombo and Luigi Stucchi, went to France to improve their
knowledge (the former with Boisselot, the latter with Erard); on their return,
they were able to open, each on his own account, a factory like the Riva establishment (also obtaining major official awards at the Brera exhibition of 1851).
Immediately afterwards, Stucchi «devoted himself entirely» to making upright
pianos, whereas Colombo also produced grands.60
The two immediately faced the problem of introducing iron to reinforce the
frame. Earlier at the Milanese exhibition in 1847 Riva had presented a pianoforte
«of new construction, with the case framed with iron», which, however, raised
no reaction.61 Five years later, Colombo too started introducing what were
defined as «dangerous novelties» to the art: indeed, at the 1853 competition, he
was present «with a grand piano framed externally and on three sides with large
parallelepipedal iron bars», with one end of the strings fixed to the said bars and
the other to the tuning pins fixed in the wooden wrest-plank. This time there was
plenty of reaction. In an article dated 1855 it was observed that, although the tuning lasted longer, it was to the detriment of the sonority, since «the sound board,
together with its frame, was by the same maker condemned to the irons!» [i.e. to
60 Rivista, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xiii, 1855, pp. 213-214.
61 I. Cambiasi, Esposizione degli oggetti d’arte e manifatture in Brera, «Gazzetta musicale di
Milano», vi, 1847, pp. 185-7 («di nuova costruzione, colla cassa intelajata di ferro»).
163
patrizio barbieri
hard labour] («la tavola armonica in un colla sua incassatura venne dallo stesso
artefice condannata ai ferri!»). For which reason, «signor Colombo was mortified at being deferred to another competition, with suspended decision». At the
1855 exhibition, the tenacious piano-maker presented a modified frame, in which
the soundboard only came into contact with the iron «at a few points».62
Although a similar acoustic analysis appears decidedly naïf nowadays, the
same cannot be said of a remark added by the anonymous critic of the «Gazzetta
musicale di Milano» to his said article dated 1855, admitting the improved but
still unsatisfactory sonority of Colombo’s second attempt. Indeed, he focused on
the contribution that the resonance vibrations of the ‘dead’ part of the string, i.e.
the part between the bridge and the hitch pin, would have had in making the timbre clearer in the top notes. He was clearly proposing the same ‘duplex scaling’
that was later patented and used for the first time practically on Theodore Steinway’s top register in 1872 (and which, in modern times, Fazioli has extended to
both ends of the string).63 The following is the related passage, whose importance has not been realised till now:64
Del resto noi siamo d’avviso che sul carattere delle voci e sulla sonorità dell’istrumento molto influisca anche la posizione
dell’archetto [= the bridge on the soundboard] che determina la lunghezza di
quella porzione di corda che oscilla per
l’urto immediato del martello. Ora troviamo che nell’ultimo strumento è troppo
breve la parte vibrante delle corde (agli
acuti) e che l’archetto inoltre poggia troppo vicino al punto di attacco di dette
corde.
At the same time, we are of the opinion that
the character of the sound and sonority of
the instrument is also greatly affected by
the position of the bridge [on the soundboard] that determines the length of that
portion of the string that vibrates under the
immediate strike action of the hammer.
Now we find that in the last instrument,
the vibrating part of the string is too short
(in the top notes) and that the bridge also
rests too close to the point at which the
strings are fixed.
62 Rivista, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xiii, 1855, pp. 213-4: 214 («internandola [the frame], e
imbrigliando la tavola armonica in guisa di farle perdere molto meno della sua risonanza, cioè
mettendola in pochi punti a contatto col ferro»).
63 On Steinway: Philip Jamison iii, Duplex scaling, in Enc1994, p. 114; Edward E. Swenson,
Aliquot scaling, in Enc1994, p. 24. Patrizio Barbieri, Fazioli, Paolo, in The New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians, London, Macmillan, 2001, viii, p. 632. Prior to 1881 the ‘duplex scala’ had
also been adopted by Erard and Pleyel: Chouquet, La musica all’esposizione di Parigi cit., p. 44.
64 Rivista, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xiii, 1855, p. 214.
164
È legge di acustica che quando una corda
si divide in due parti aliquote, e si fa vibrare una di esse per urto diretto, l’altra pur si
commuove spontaneamente e vibra producendo un suono correlativo alla sua lunghezza. Laonde se l’archetto, su cui poggiano le corde, fosse disposto in modo che
la loro lunghezza totale (negli acuti)
restasse divisa in parti eguali, e successivamente, andando verso il grave in parti
sempre più piccole nel rapporto di 1 a 2, di
1 a 3, di 1 a 4, la distanza fra l’archetto e le
spine, ossia la lunghezza della corda creduta morta, essendo massima agli acuti,
minima ai gravi relativamente alle lunghezze totali, avremmo per le voci acute
concomitante l’unisono: e successivamente gli altri suoni saranno accompagnati dall’ottava, dall’ottava della quinta,
dalla doppia ottava. Noi crediamo che
questa concomitanza di suoni armonici,
comunque deboli per rapporto al suono
principale, concorra a produrre la purezza
delle voci acute, la morbidezza delle voci
medie e la rotondità delle gravi: e che la
deficienza di detti suoni pei mancati rapporti di distanza dell’archetto conduca ai
notati difetti; dei quali trovasi liberato il
pianoforte d’abete [another instrument
presented by Colombo, without an iron
frame], avendo l’archetto stabilito prossimamente secondo le distanze volute
appunto dai succitati rapporti.
According to the laws of acoustics, when a
string is divided into two aliquot parts, and
one part is made to vibrate by direct striking action, the other also moves spontaneously and vibrates, producing a sound
corresponding to its length. Thus, if the
bridge, on which the strings rest, were
placed so that their total length (in the top
notes) were divided into equal parts and
subsequently proceeds towards the low
notes in increasingly smaller parts with a
ratio of 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, the distance between
the bridge and the hitch pins, i.e. the length
of string deemed ‘dead’, being maximum
in the top notes and minimal in the low
notes as compared to the total lengths,
would produce a doubling of the top notes
in unison. Subsequently, the other notes
would be accompanied by the octave, by
the octave of the fifth, and by the double
octave. We deem that this concomitance of
harmonic sounds, albeit weak as compared
to the main sound, contribute in producing
the purity of the top notes, the softness of
the middle notes, and the fullness of the
low notes. We also deem that defective
sounds due to the improper ratio of the distance of the bridge leads to the defects
noted; from which we find the fir-tree
piano entirely free [another instrument
presented by Colombo, without an iron
frame], since the bridge is placed according
to the distances required by the said ratios.
Not only was Colombo endowed with technological entrepreneurship, but also
with an industrial mentality. Indeed, the awards made by the Regio Istituto di
Scienze to the exhibitors also took into account, as did all similar institutions at
that time, the latters’ competitive aspect in the purely commercial sector. In 1853
«wealthy citizens» in Milan had offered to finance the setting up of a «grandiose
national factory», proposing the merger into a single company of the workshops
of Stucchi and Colombo. These two, however, jealous of their individual enter-
165
patrizio barbieri
prise, refused to merge. Despite this, from 1855 onwards, leadership in the
Milanese industry was decidedly taken by Colombo, who (1) went into partnership with Giuseppe Camploy, a wealthy piano dealer from Venice, who had also
invented a paint that made the soundboards highly resonant («assaissimo risonanti»), and (2) moved the carpentry section of the factory to Vimercate, where
labour was cheaper. Thus, between 1855 and 1857 he managed to double his number of workers (bringing them up to a total of 40, split between the two departments of Milan and Vimercate), producing, in the same period, about 150 pianos
at competitive prices (some with the ‘French system’, others – much cheaper –
with the ‘Viennese system’).65 Never weary of experiments, in 1859 he was also
among the first to develop the cross-strung model, of which he was erroneously
considered the inventor:66 in this §2.4 we have just seen that Colombo did not
however imagine the decisive importance that, together with the single iron
frame, this innovation would have assumed in the short term.
Among the Italian provinces still under Austrian influence, others gave rise to
their own industries. At Parma, capital of the duchy of the same name, by way of
example, the factory belonging to the Berzioli brothers was long active, founded
in 1836. In 1861, these manufacturers – remembered as the first, together with the
Paduan Gregorio Trentin, to introduce the industry to northern Italy – were
undergoing a slump, with a turnover of just four pianos per year, produced by a
total of six workers (two foremen, two carpenters and two boys).67
At Padua, the town where the above-mentioned Trentin had done his pioneering work, in about 1830 Nicolò Lachin set up his workshop. Two decades
later, the famous pianist Sigismund Thalberg publicly expressed such a positive
opinion of his instruments, both those with the Viennese system and those with
Pleyel-type action, that the number of factory hands had to be tripled to tackle
65 Rivista, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xiii, 1855, pp. 213-214; Rivista, «Gazzetta musicale di
Milano», xv, 1857, pp. 219-221.
66 Salvatore Farina, La musica all’esposizione industriale milanese, «Gazzetta musicale di
Milano», XXVI, 1871, pp. 325-328: 326-327.
67 Statistica del Regno d’Italia. Industria. Industrie manuali della provincia di Parma, anno 1861, Firenze, Tofani, 1865, p. xxxvii. This kind of data must however be viewed with caution, since even
then manufacturers’ tax returns were not always accurate.
166
the sudden increase in demand.68 Unlike France, in Italy cases of this kind were
almost unique. Lachin did not however take advantage of the occasion to become
a major producer at national level. We shall see, on the other hand, what happened to Vincenzo Maltarello, whose factory – set up at Rovigo in 1852 – became
highly important starting from 1859, in which year it was moved to Vicenza.
Unlike other Italian states, the foreign trade statistics for Lombardy-Veneto
for the years 1859-60 were not published, and were mostly kept in the Austrian
archives. We have, however, the data summary given in Table 1d.69
Table 1d. States of «Northern Italy» (limited to: Piedmont, Liguria, Sardinia, Lombardy,
Emilia-Romagna): imports (above) and exports (below) of «square, grand, and upright
pianos» («pianoforti a tavola, a coda e verticali»), year 1860.
The names of the single states are the original ones
Algeria
Austria
Francia
Inghilt.
Russia
1
-
101
-
454
-
5
-
6
S. Pontif. Svizzera
2
-
5
6
Vari
Total
2
-
570
12
2.5. Turin. The first public exhibition in this city took place in 1829.70 At subsequent ones, only a few sporadic artisans won any award, such as Luigi Alovisio
and the Viennese Francesco Weiss (at Turin), Carlo Panizza (at Alessandria),
Domenico Gregori (in the Department of Nice). Around 1850, Turin numbered
68 Cesare Trombini, Fabbricazione di strumenti musicali nel Veneto. Nicolò Lachin e Antonio
Pedrinelli, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xii, 1854, pp. 116-7; Errera, Storia e statistica delle
industrie venete cit., pp. 648-649.
69 These statistics are taken from Ministero delle Finanze. Movimento commerciale delle provincie dell’Italia settentrionale, e dell’Emilia nel 1860, Torino, Stamperia reale, 1863, pp. ix (which notifies
that Nice and Savoy are not included, having just been ceded to France), 100, 225. An earlier publication (Ministero delle Finanze. Movimento commerciale delle provincie dell’Italia settentrionale nel
1859 […], Torino, Stamperia reale, 1862, pp. ix, 92, 208) gives data only for the «Antiche provincie», i.e. the Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia (published in Table 2, year 1859): for Lombardy
the only one given is for musical instruments overall, without separating those only for pianos.
70 G[iuseppe] S[acchi], Prima esposizione pubblica de’ prodotti dell’industria piemontese, «Annali
universali di statistica», xxiii, Jan.-March 1830, pp. 223-224: 223.
167
patrizio barbieri
only two semi-artisanal factories for «cembali o pianoforti da tavolo».71 However, albeit the last to arrive, in twenty short years the city became the greatest
Italian manufacturer of pianos (mostly uprights). This transformation was
triggered by Giacinto Aymonino, who set up his factory in 1850, bringing qualified technicians from Paris.72 Following his example, 1850-52 – always at Turin
– saw the opening of the factories of the Berliner Carlo Roeseler, of Giovanni
Battista Berra and of Felice Chiappo. As a result, at the 1858 exhibition the following statement was made:73
In past years, although we had highly
skilled makers, capable of producing
excellent instruments, owing to lack of
capital, they were never able to compete
seriously with foreign industry, and consequently manufactured a very small number of pianos, fairly mediocre instruments
moreover […] just in the capital [Turin]
the number of pianos previously manufactured was about half those imported annually, whereas for several years now a successful attempt has been made to export a
certain number.
Negli anni addietro avevamo bensì artefici
abilissimi, capaci di eseguire eccellenti
strumenti, ma i quali per insufficienza di
capitali non poterono mai lottare in modo
serio coll’industria straniera, e non fabbricavano quindi che un piccolissimo numero
di pianoforti, e di più strumenti assai
mediocri. […] nella sola capitale [Torino]
si fabbricano già pianoforti in numero
uguale alla metà circa di quelli che ci
provengono annualmente dall’estero, e
che da alcuni anni si è già tentato con successo di esportarne una certa quantità.
In accordance with the data in Table 2 therefore, it can be stated that in 185860 production was around 250-300 pieces annually (Fig. 3).
71 Relazione illustrata della Esposizione campionaria, p. 187. In actual fact – from recent research –
their number was found to be slightly higher, albeit always limited to just a few pieces.
72 As for example Lorenzo Deschaux (égaliseur of Herz), Relazioni dei giurati e giudizio della R.
Camera di agricoltura e commercio della Esposizione nazionale di prodotti delle industrie seguita nel 1858
in Torino, p. 290.
73 Relazioni dei giurati cit., p. 284.
168
Fig. 3. Upright pianos manufactured at Turin and presented at the National Exhibition of industrial products held in that city in 1858. Note the pianino (a kind of cottage piano) by Giovanni
Berra: its greatly reduced height gave the same results described in the caption to Fig. 1, with
reference to the pianoforte inclinato; this was clearly an attempt to unite the advantages of the
square piano with those of the upright. From Album descrittivo dei principali oggetti esposti nel reale
castello del Valentino in occasione della sesta esposizione nazionale di prodotti dell’industria nell’anno 1858,
Torino, Ufficio dei Brevetti d’invenzione, [1858], Plate XII (opposite p. 56), detail
169
patrizio barbieri
The war with Austria, resulting from the well-known events of the Risorgimento, and the immediate market orientation toward the upright piano were
two factors that right from the start favoured the adoption – by all these firms –
of the French-type Stossmechanic. This proved to be a decisive advantage for
them. At the same time, the Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia gravitated naturally in the cultural orbit of France, whose piano industry – according to Cyril
Ehrlich – reached its height during the same period 1848-57.74
Table 2. Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia: imports (above) and exports (below) of
«square, grand, and upright pianos» («pianoforti a tavola, a coda e
verticali»), years 1852-59. The names of the single states are the original ones
STATE
1852
Francia
414
Austria - LombardoVeneto
57
2
Svizzera
1
4
Inghilterra
13
Ducati di Parma, Piacenza,
2
Modena, Toscana, Monaco e Mentone 4
Napoli
2
Zolverein (Associazione tedesca)
2
Romagna [Stati pontifici]
America meridionale
2
Russia (Mar Nero)
Spagna
Brasile
Tunisi e Tripoli
Turchia
Algeria
TOTAL
491
12
1853
425
28
2
13
2
2
1
1
471
3
1854
288
25
1
10
5
1
1
1
5
1
2
2
333
8
1855
423
26
1
18
1
3
1
1
2
471
5
YEAR
1856
532
2
21
2
20
1
3
7
3
1
6
577
21
1857
679
2
24
2
19
1
2
2
6
1
1
1
2
1
7
728
22
74 Charles Timbrell, France, Piano industry in, in Enc1994, pp.139-141: 140.
170
1858
465
2
23
1
25
2
3
1
2
2
12
1
1
2
1
17
1
520
44
1859
237
4
4
1
9
1
2
4
2
1
20
1
1
2
252
37
Table 2 provides a foreign trade summary for the Sardinian state in the
decade prior to unification.75 It shows that during this early phase the newly
set-up Turin industries managed only to raise exports from a few pieces to a
few dozen pieces, but that on the average they did not succeed in halting
imports, almost all of which from France. It also provides an overall view of
trade between the pre-unification states of Italy and Piedmont. Such surveys
appear to have been the only ones systematically published in the Peninsula
at that time, since the Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia – aware of the
importance of economic statistics – was the first to print such data annually,
establishing a model that was faithfully reproduced in subsequent years,
always published by the Ministry of Finance, the latter having in the meantime become that of the Kingdom of Italy.
§3. From Unification to the First World War: the industrialisation phase
Taken together, Tables 1a-b-c-d show that the trade balance of the pre-unification states surveyed in 1860 was disastrous: 681 imported pianos, against just
over 18 exported.
Up to mid-century, the Italian states’ participation in exhibitions abroad
had been almost zero: foreigners showed disbelief on being told that manufacturing exhibitions were also being organised in Italy.76 At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 the only states to take part were the Kingdom of Sardinia, Tuscany, the Papal States, and a few towns in Lombardy-Veneto (the
latter, however, under the denomination «Austria»): they presented mostly
75 The data in Table 2 is taken from Ministero delle Finanze. Movimento commerciale del [year], compilato per cura dell’Azienda generale delle gabelle (Torino, Stamperia Reale, [year of issue, as a rule
the one immediately after the year to which the data refers]). The series indicates only the years
from 1851 to 1859 included. In Table 2 the data for 1851 is not indicated, because not in line with
subsequent years (in 1851 the sole scanty exports are however only towards the ‘Duchies’). For
1858 note that, after the peak in 1857, piano imports decrease.
76 [G.F. Lencisa], Relazione sull’esibizione dei prodotti dell’industria fatta a Parigi nell’anno 1849 e sullo
stato dell’industria in Francia preceduta da cenni storici sulle esibizioni fatte nei diversi stati d’Europa e seguitata da uno studio economico d’applicazione al Piemonte, Torino, Stamperia Reale, 1850, pp. 31-35, 125-128.
171
patrizio barbieri
artistic objects, but no pianos.77 The outcome of this participation was summarised as follows:78
The mortifying reception given to our artisans and artists exhibiting art objects in
the palace at Hyde Park made them lose
any desire to risk attending any other public exhibitions.
La mortificante accoglienza che ebbero i
nostri artigiani ed artisti che esposero
prodotti d’arte al palazzo di Hyde Park ha
fatto ad essi perdere la voglia di arrischiarsi ad altre pubbliche mostre.
In the year of unification (1861), the first national exhibition was organised at
Florence, for the purpose of demonstrating the status of Italian industry which,
moreover, hardly shone for the number of its participants in the mechanical sector.79 Six piano manufacturers received awards (amongst whom Nicolò Lachin,
for a grand piano – as was emphasised – built wholly by him).80 In 1862 Italy was
however in a position to take part in the international exhibition in London: for
the piano, the conclusion was that «Italian factories are forced to limit their work
to assembling as best possible different components procured abroad».81
In order to stimulate growth in what was confirmed as the weakest sector,
import taxes for materials and accessories were raised to four times higher than
for the importation of an entirely pre-assembled piano.82 The above tax for the
latter was drastically decreased and brought to an average 3.5%, equal to the
value already in force in the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was among the lowest
77 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations 1851. Official descriptive catalogue, iii: Foreign States, London, Spicer Brothers & W. Clowes and Sons, 1851, pp. 1303, 1289, 1295-6 (Ducci
organ), 1285, 1006 (the Kingdom of Naples not shown); Gallo Martucci, Il conservatorio d’arti
e mestieri cit., pp. 99-100.
78 Le esposizioni industriali, «Annali universali di Statistica», series ii, xxxiv, 1853, p. 108.
79 Epicarmo Corbino, Cinquant’anni di vita economica italiana 1915-1965, a c. di Franca Assante
e Domenico Demarco, i, Napoli, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1966, p. 71.
80 La Esposizione Italiana del 1861 […], Firenze, Bettini, 1862, pp. 268-269.
81 Exposition Internationale de 1862. Royaume d’Italie. Catalogue officiel […], Paris, Renou et
Maulde, 1862, p. 285 («les fabriques italiennes sont obligées de borner leur travail à combiner dans
le meilleur mode possible les différentes pièces procurées à l’étranger, en les perfectionnant parfois, et en cherchant toujours d’en tirer le plus grand effet de sonorité, de douceur, ou de durée»).
82 Ruta, Storia critica cit., p. 185.
172
in Europe.83 In 1874, according to Betocchi, the import tax on any piano was
steady at lire «1.7 fixed charge, plus 5% of the value».84
Let us now analyse the developments triggered by these premises.
3.1. Naples. What we have just seen explains why this sudden wave of freetrade was ruinous for Neapolitan industry, also remembering that in 1859 the
piano import tax was around 15-16% (as can be deduced from the data in Table
1b), a value that in 1840 must have been even higher.85 It survived for a while
thanks to its grand pianos, but the market was by now decidedly orientated
toward the very middle-class and cheaper pianinos, as they then called low
upright pianos originally brought out by Pleyel in 1815 (characterized by vertical
stringing, in imitation of the English ‘cottage piano’). As early as 1860, these had
already replaced the ‘squares’ (known as «a tavolo» or «quadrati», from the
French piano carré), which also brought about a slump in Viennese production
itself (Fig. 4).86 The collapse of the Neapolitan market is quantified by the data
in Table 3, relating to the city’s customs; Alessandro Betocchi, who has provided
these figures, also recalls with regret the former «abundant exports to all the
Neapolitan provinces as also to the Sicilian; in short we had a market of about 9
million persons».87
83 Mangone, L’industria nel Regno di Napoli cit., pp. 23-24.
84 Betocchi, Forze produttive della provincia di Napoli, ii, p. 286 (liras «1.7 di diritto fisso, più 5%
sul valore»).
85 Betocchi, Forze produttive cit., vol. 2, p. 286: «under the previous regime, from 1840
onward, the tax paid on each pianoforte amounted to 507 lire» (an extremely high value, considering that a little further on we read: «with us, an upright costs a minimum of 880 lire, while
abroad it costs 600»).
86 Relazioni dei giurati e giudizio della R. Camera di agricoltura e commercio della Esposizione nazionale
di prodotti delle industrie seguita nel 1858 in Torino, Torino, Unione tipografico-editrice, 1860, p.
clvi: «Square pianos have almost fallen into disuse, and grands are reserved for Academies or
great concert halls. […] From the Paris factories come the best of the uprights, in making which
the workshops of Vienna had to succumb and imitate the French» («I pianoforti a tavolo sono
pressochè passati in dissuetudine, e quelli a coda sono riservati per le Accademie o per le sale di
grandi concerti. […] Dalle fabbriche di Parigi si hanno i migliori di que’ verticali, nella cui fabbricazione i lavori di Vienna dovettero soccombere all’emulazione Francese»).
87 Betocchi, Forze produttive cit., ii, pp.186, 288 (data in Table 3).
173
patrizio barbieri
Table 3. Pianos recorded by the Naples Customs, years 1864-1873
MOVEMENT
YEAR
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
Imported (N°)
192
118
11
118
81
177
169
152
-
-
Imported (Liras)
108,383 74,574 66,866 86,395 53,028 134,787 121,039 96,570 109,131 65,109
Exported (N°)
-
-
13
6
12
Exported (Liras)
-
-
10,375
7,025
11,400 3,800
8
17
14
10
11,950
10,000 -
7,550
Fig. 4. Models of pianos on sale in Italy in 1885. From Enciclopedia delle arti e delle industrie compilata colla direzione dell’ingegnere M.se Raffaele Pareto [...], iv, Torino, U.T.E.T., 1885, plate vii (p. 715)
174
As a result, in 1877 Neapolitan manufacturers of any substance had fallen to 13,
two of whom were winding up and four «limited to selling foreign pianos».88
Sievers, who in 1877 was left with just 12 workers, died in 1878, and shortly afterwards his factory was forced to close.89 Pasquale Curci – who for some time had
attempted to manage Sievers’ firm, but who will go down in history as the founder
of the famous publishing house of the same name – several years later obtained an
exclusive mandate for Southern Italy to sell pianos produced by Erard and Pleyel:
even later on, Neapolitan manufacturers – excluding a few pure artisans – fell to
seven in 1887, and to four in 1907, finally fading out shortly afterwards.90
That the causes of this were really the ones just mentioned is confirmed by
the Relazione [Report] of Luigi Nunneri, dated 1887: «The tax on raw materials
for manufacture that we have to order abroad, since our homeland lacks factories, is far higher than the cost of a piano». He also states that it was the high tax
on accessories – then classified by the Customs as «fine haberdashery» («merceria fina») – that led to the rapid increase in pianos imported from abroad and
marked the decline of the «arte del pianofortista», which «constituted the first
wealth of this our city».91 This also had repercussions on the production of barrel pianos, for which Naples was especially distinguished:92
I materiali di questi pianini sono per la massima parte provvenienti dall’estero; solo il
legname, il pioppo, è nostro […] come dall’estero vengono per mezzo d’una Casa
grossista di Milano, le felpe, i martellini, le
The materials for these pianinos for the
most part come from abroad; only the timber, the poplar, is ours […] just as from
abroad, through a Milanese wholesaler,
come the felts, hammers, strings, and even
88 Ruta, Storia critica cit., p.186. Betocchi, Forze produttive cit., i, plate I-B (opposite p. 96),
gives some data from the 1871 census: «106 lavoranti di chitarre o altri strumenti» (104 at Naples,
2 at Pozzuoli) and «51 lavoranti in pianoforti» (all in Naples).
89 On the affairs of this factory see Marco Tiella, Giacomo Ferdinando Sievers (1810-1878)
costruttore di pianoforti a Napoli, in Liuteria musica e cultura 1999-2000, a c. di Renato Meucci,
Lucca, LIM, 2001, pp. 43-53.
90 Ruta, Storia critica cit., pp. 186-187; I cento anni della Casa Curci, Milano, Curci, 1960, pp. 8-13;
Alessandra Cruciani, Curci, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, xxxi, Roma, Istituto della
Enciclopedia Italiana, 1985, pp. 412-415; Nunneri, Relazione cit., p. 5; H. Prestreau, Guida generale di Napoli e provincia, anno viii, Napoli, Gennaro & Morano, 1907, p. 985.
91 Nunneri, Relazione cit., pp. 7-8.
92 Betocchi, Forze produttive cit., ii, p. 289.
175
patrizio barbieri
corde, e perfino la colla di pesce, chè mal
riuscirono i tentativi di voler usare quella
che si produce a Caserta; i pianoforti non
reggevano né a lunghi né a corti viaggi.
the fish glue, since any attempt at using
what is produced at Caserta never succeeds;
the pianos would not survive any transport,
whether long or short.
It should be added that the Neapolitans did not consider any recourse to countermeasures like their Viennese colleagues under similar circumstances: seeing the
threat of growing imports of uprights from the then rapidly expanding German
industry, in 1873 the latter gathered together in the «First Viennese Production
Cooperative».93 To such forms of association, however, Italian individualism
remained impervious. The situation was eloquently summarised by the alreadymentioned Betocchi in his report to the Naples Chamber of Commerce in 1873:94
quest’industria che richiederebbe vasti
opifici e ricco capitale per fare utilmente
grosse forniture di legnami e di metalli, e
soprattutto grosso capitale per aspettare
con calma la vendita dei prodotti […] è
esercitata in modo, che un solo operaio o
due incominciano dal piallare il legname e
procedono man mano al lavoro di completamento e d’abbellimento.
Usano in Austria, che ad una Commissione
– Gewerbs Commission ovvero Meister
Zunft – composta de’maggiori fabbricanti
della capitale si presenti l’operaio che
voglia prendere a costruire pianoforti, e
sottoponga ad essi il suo lavoro, non solo
per valutare il grado della perizia, ma che
dimostri altresì avere egli i mezzi di poter
stabilire una fabbrica conveniente. Ed ove
questo non provi, il cembalo prodotto da
lui resta depositato in una apposita sala; la
Meister Zunft gli fissa il prezzo del piano,
al disotto del quale non può essere venduto. Si mira così ad impedire il pullulare di
this industry, which would require vast
factories and considerable capital to make
major supplies of timber and metals profitably, and more especially great capital to
wait calmly for the sale of its products […]
is carried out in such a way that just one or
two workers begin by planing the wood
and gradually proceed to the completion
and decoration of the work.
In Austria, it is the custom for a Commission – Gewerbs Commission or Meister
Zunft – comprising the major manufacturers of the capital to present any worker
who wishes to build pianos and submits
his work to them, not only to assess his
degree of skill, but also to demonstrate
that he has the means to set up a factory
properly. Should this not be proven, the
cembalo [= piano] produced by him
remains stored in a room set aside; the
Meister Zunft establishes the price of his
piano, below which it may not be sold.
This aims at preventing the proliferation
93 Huber, Austria cit., p. 33.
94 Betocchi, Forze produttive cit., ii, pp. 287-288.
176
nuovi industriali, impotenti a migliorare le
condizioni della produzione, capacissimi
invece di degradarla, col far più difficile il
còmpito de’ produttori esistenti.
Questo sistema, che ricorda tempi di un
odiato regolamentarismo, che ricorda le
Maestranze e i Capi d’opera, noi non
sapremmo certo desiderare che risorgesse
dalla sua tomba, però faremmo voti, che gli
operai si persuadano che vi sono certe produzioni, di cui non è possibile l’esercizio in
angusti limiti, e che ove non le sorregga il
copioso capitale, debbono man mano
intristire, fino a morire, trascinando nella
ruina chi si lusingò che potesse bastare il
buon volere e l’instancabile operosità.
of new industrialists, incapable of improving production conditions, and highly
capable on the other hand of degrading
them, by making the task of existing manufacturers more difficult.
Such a system, recalling the times of odious
regulation, recalling Workers and Foremen,
we certainly do not desire to resurrect from
its tomb, but we shall take a vow that the
workers may be persuaded that some types
of production cannot be carried out within
narrow limits and, if not supported by considerable capital, must gradually wilt and
die, dragging to ruin those who flattered
themselves that all that was necessary was
goodwill and untiring industry.
Betocchi adds that the great foreign industrial structure at Naples had also
caused a slump in violin and guitar making:
A nulla giova che il nostro acero sia eccellente, e le corde buone, e men care che per
gli stranieri; l’arte se n’è ita. La concorrenza che ci fa l’estero è invincibile, non solo
pel pregio delle opere ma per la tenuità del
prezzo. Un nostro artefice non potrebbe
produrre un violino a meno di 25 o 30 lire,
ed alla Mostra Universale di Vienna furono trovati abbastanza buoni quelli che
costavano sole 5 lire. Tanto può fare l’industria esercitata con forti capitali e col sussidio delle macchine!
It is to no avail that our maple is excellent,
[gut] strings sound, and less expensive
than for foreigners; the art has vanished.
Foreign competition is invincible, not
only for the value of the works, but for
their low prices. One of our artisans could
not produce a violin for less than 25 or 30
liras, and at the Vienna Universal Exhibition those that cost only 5 liras were found
to be pretty good. That is what industry
can do, backed with strong capital and
automation!
In northern Italy, on the other hand, the just emerging piano industry underwent
fewer traumas. Indirectly it also enjoyed some of the advantages common to the
remaining sectors of production, including:95
95 Corbino, Cinquant’anni di vita economica italiana cit., p. 72.
177
patrizio barbieri
•
being closer to the industrial areas of central Europe, with better communication networks;
•
more capital available and a more favourable attitude on the part of
credit institutions, which in actual fact also held a considerable part of the savings of southern Italy;
•
in 1861, out of a male population between 12 and 18 years from which
future skilled workers could be recruited, in Piedmont only 25% were illiterate
and in Lombardy 33%, whereas in the South the figure was closer to 80%.96
3.2. Milan and Florence. Starting from the mid-nineteenth century, virtuoso
playing aimed at achieving maximum sonority, exploiting arms and shoulders.
This caused a slump in instruments with sensitive action, like Vienna action,
which was increasingly affected by broken strings and hammer shanks that came
out of their hoppers or even broke.97 To provide louder sound, even the piano
structure based on English action had to be modified and strengthened: the
cross- and highly-strung strings, introduced for the purpose, necessitated a single cast-iron frame. All this contributed to the so-called «American system» of
construction, which Steinweg – who, on moving to New York, had anglicized his
name to Steinway – had launched in 1867 and which was immediately adopted by
the then-emerging German industry (see, for example, Bechstein).98 It was resisted, however, not only by the Austrians, but also by the English and particularly
the French, and became one of the main causes of the latters’ decline.99
96 Even ten years later the situation had still not changed. Out of a total population registered in
1871, the number of illiterates was, in fact, (in %): Piedmont and Liguria 28.79, Lombardy 34.37,
Veneto 48.99, Tuscany 60.22, Rome 67.58, Naples area 75.78, Sicily 80.21; data taken from L’Italia
economica nel 1873, Roma, Barbera, 1874, p. 125.
97 Eszter Fontana, Il suono del pianoforte nella Germania del Sud (o Viennese), typewritten
report presented on November 11th 2000 at Bologna, Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, International Symposium Il pianoforte nell’Ottocento e l’Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, p. 6.
98 Edwin M. Good, Steinway & Sons, in Enc1994, pp. 374-378: 375-6; Craig H. Roell, United
States, Piano Industry in the, in Enc1994, pp. 415-419: 416; Sandra P. Rosenblum, Overstrung, in
Enc1994, p. 256; Frederic Schoetter, Bechstein, in Enc1994, pp. 42-43.
99 Chouquet, La musica all’Esposizione di Parigi cit., p. 44, concerning the Steinway model
remarks: «English and French manufacturers are more reserved about using metal, and it seems
they do not apply cross-stringing except by way of a trial» («La fabbricazione inglese e la francese
hanno usato maggiori riserve nell’uso del metallo, e sembra che non applichino le corde incrociate se non come prova comparativa»); Rosenblum, Overstrung; Timbrell, France cit., p. 140.
178
In §2 we saw that Angelo Colombo was one of the first in Italy to introduce both
overstringing on an enlarged soundboard and the metal frame. However, in 1871 a critic on the «Gazzetta musicale di Milano» – the very same who mistakenly attributed
Steinway’s invention to him – took him to task for making pianos using the «French
system», which penalised the sound volume to the advantage of tone colour.100
Despite the fact that Milanese industry in the sector was fairly active at that
time (in 1875 Rodolfo Grimm’s 50 workers produced 300 uprights per year,
including the action), in 1900 it was reduced to rather modest dimensions: statistics for that year reveal that the four piano factories operating in Milan, amongst
these stand out Colombo and Angelo Norcini, employed a total of just 28 workers.101 Of the former Lombardy-Veneto, on the other hand, a solid nationwide
reputation was acquired by Maltarello (whose 100 workers, as early as 1871, produced 150 pianos per year, action included) and, starting from the early twentieth
century, Anelli (Fig. 5). Sound manufacturers were also found at Trieste, but this
town – up to 1918 – was still an integral part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Fig. 5. Upright overstrung piano made by the factory «V. Maltarello e Figli» of Vicenza. From
L’Esposizione teatrale (Esposizioni riunite - Milano 1894), «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», LIX, 1894, p. 355
100 Farina, La musica all’esposizione industriale milanese cit., p. 326 («col sistema francese, che
sagrifica alquanto l’effetto e la sonorità della voce alla pastosità inalterabile del timbro»).
101 Ministero di agricoltura, industria e commercio. Statistica industriale. Lombardia, Roma, Bertero,
1900, p. 452.
179
patrizio barbieri
At Florence, the firm Ducci revived momentarily (with Carlo, still active in
1888, also in London), while in 1875 the firm Brizzi and Niccolai launched into
major piano production that lasted up to the First World War.
3.3. Turin. Immediately after Unification, numerous factories were added to
the four set up in 1850-52. All of them went straight into the industrial production of upright pianos, at once coming up against the unsolved problem of
actions and accessories. As far as the former are concerned, an illuminating criticism was made with regard to an instrument presented at the Milan exhibition
in 1871, for which the Turinese Berra had built «even the actions, which most Italian manufacturers prefer to procure abroad, since with a slight increase in price
they are unchallengeably superior to those produced in Italy».102 Some manufacturers were supplied by Maltarello, but – as had already occurred abroad – a need
was felt for a specialist in the sector: the first in Piedmont was Carlo Perotti, who
in 1870 set up a firm that initially produced only actions. The situation at that
time is summarised by the merciless analysis of Salvatore De Castrone Marchesi,
the official Italian representative for musical instruments presented at the Vienna Universal Exhibition in 1873. On pianofortes, he says:103
Le poche e meschine fabbriche di questi
istrumenti, esistenti principalmente in
Napoli e Torino, non possono infatti chiamarsi tali, poiché esse ritirano da Parigi e
da Vienna quasi tutte le forniture intere
per i pianoforti, il feltro, i profili, le corde,
le armature in ferro, ecc., ecc., dimodochè
The few and wretched factories for these
instruments, located mainly at Naples
and Turin, cannot really be called such
because they procure from Paris and
Vienna almost all the whole supplies for
pianofortes, the felt, profili, strings, iron
frames, etc., etc., so that most of the
102 Farina, La musica all’esposizione industriale milanese cit., p. 327 («anche le meccaniche, che la
più parte dei fabbricanti italiani preferiscono far venire dall’estero, dove con poco aumento di
prezzo si hanno incontrastabilmente migliori di quelle che si fabbrichino in Italia»).
103 Salvatore De Castrone Marchesi, Istrumenti musicali, in Relazioni dei giurati italiani
sulla Esposizione Universale di Vienna del 1873, i, Milano, Regia stamperia, 1873, pp. 47-63: 59-60,
where he adds: «Italy is more backward in the manufacture of pianos than Spain, where at
Barcelona a certain Bernareggi, owner of a major complete factory, wholly equipped with steamdriven machinery and the most up-to-date tools, produces even the smallest items required for
their manufacture» («L’Italia trovasi per la fabbricazione dei pianoforti più indietro della Spagna,
la quale possiede in Barcellona un certo Bernareggi, proprietario di una grande fabbrica completa,
fornita di tutte le macchine a vapore, e degli utensili più moderni, e producente ogni cosa più
minuta necessaria a tale costruzione»).
180
una gran parte del danaro ch’esse ricavano
dallo scarsissimo numero degl’istrumenti
che fabbricano va all’estero.
L’unico fabbricante di profili, e di meccaniche di pianoforti e melopiani presentatosi a questa esposizione, è un tale Carlo
Perotti di Torino. Ancorchè i suoi lavori
siano imperfetti, e non possano quindi
sostenere vantaggiosamente il confronto
con quelli esposti dai grandi e provetti
fabbricanti in questo genere, [questa sua
attività dev’essere incoraggiata].
money they receive for the very modest
number of instruments they produce
goes abroad.
The only manufacturer of piano and
melopiano profili and actions present at
this exhibition is a certain Carlo Perotti
of Turin. Although his production is not
perfect and cannot to any advantage
sustain comparison with those exhibited by major proven manufacturers in
this sector, [his activity should be
encouraged].
The most serious problem concerned accessories, such as felts, cloths, strings,
tuning pins, ivory key-covers, and ebonies. Even before 1874 Maltarello had been
the first in Italy to manufacture felts, but his production was clearly inadequate,
since a commentator on the 1881 Milan Exhibition called for a reduction of taxes
on such products, noting that – even twenty years later – the onerousness of the latter had still not stimulated the setting up of industries in the sector.104 Just one year
after the said exhibition (1882) Perotti invented «a rapid machine for lining and
cutting hammers», introducing «into Italy the industry of felted hammers».105
For key-covers, at Naples several manufacturers had already employed mother-of-pearl (Kovats, 1836) and crystal (Helzel, 1853),106 but such materials, and
porcelain too, were found unpleasant to the touch. With the progress of industrial
chemistry, the problem would be solved autarchically, also for organs and harmoniums, by the use of synthetic materials such as synthetic ivory and bakerlite.107
104 Achille Montuoro, Esposizione nazionale di Milano 1881. Rapporto sugli istrumenti musicali,
«Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xxxviii, 1883, pp. 215-216: 215.
105 Esposizione universale di Anversa del 1885. Catalogo generale della sezione industriale italiana,
Roma, Fratelli Centenari, 1885, p. 170.
106 R. L., De’ saggi delle manifatture napoletane esposte nella solenne mostra del 1836, p. 93 (on
Michele Kovats); Sievers too says he used mother-of-pearl (Sievers, Il pianoforte cit., p. 183),
probably inspired by Kovats, whose employee he had been from 1834 to 1835: Tiella, Giacomo
Ferdinando Sievers cit., p. 46. As far as Egidio Helzel is concerned, on the other hand, we know that
at the 1853 exhibition he presented a pianoforte with a keyboard of «cristallo inciso»: «Gazzetta
musicale di Napoli», iii, 1854, p. 10; for this he applied for and obtained a ten-year patent:
Maione, Seller, Prime ricognizioni archivistiche cit., p. 26.
107 Sievers, Il pianoforte cit., p. 183, tells us that one type of synthetic ivory, mainly based on
gutta-percha, had, «for several years already» been obtained by the Americans, but was deemed
too soft for the keys. Bakerlite, on the other hand, was only invented in 1909, also in the United
181
patrizio barbieri
It was steel strings however that caused the greatest headaches, even in
France.108 The best quality ones were produced in Austria and Bavaria: in the
mid-nineteenth century, the renowned firm Miller of Vienna was supplying
piano manufacturers throughout Europe, including Broadwood.109 The problem
was only solved – for Italy too – during the First World War, when the production of hardened steel wires expanded greatly as a result of their demand for the
nascent aeronautical industry, which used them for bi- and tri-planes.110
Thanks to all this, in 1881 Turin produced 800-900 pianos per year, rising to
about 1600 in 1898.111 In 1911 the same city numbered about thirty artisan-type factories, which rose to 48 a decade later, each producing an average of two or three
pianos per week; to these we should add a certain number of workshops that made
accessories.112 Some manufacturers were however of a certain size, as shown in
Table 4. The situation was thus no longer unbalanced, as at Naples half a century
earlier and, at the same time, the still craftsmanlike dimension of accessory suppliers prevented (meagre consolation) any problems of monopoly arising from the
said suppliers, problems that, on the other hand, did arise in Germany.113
States, by the Belgian chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland: Bakelite, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ii,
Chicago […], Benton, 1971, p. 1043.
108 Chouquet, La musica all’esposizione di Parigi cit., p. 61, writes (1881): «France successfully
produces copper strings, which it supplies cheaply, but it continues to be a tributary of England
and Germany for steel strings» («La Francia fabbrica con buon successo le corde di rame che fornisce a buon mercato; ma continua ad essere tributaria dell’Inghilterra e della Germania per le
corde di acciaio»). For English strings, he names the factory of William-Dick Houghton.
109 Alfons Huber, Wire, in Enc1994, p. 440. Sievers too, Il pianoforte cit., pp. 207-210,
names only the Viennese Martin Miller’s Sohn («celebre fabbricante di corde di acciajo») and
Poehlmann of Nuremberg (“fabbricante di corde di acciajo novellamente perfezionate”). On
Moritz Poehlmann, see Joel & Priscilla Rappaport, Strings / Stringing, in Enc1994, pp.
383-384: 384.
110 Taylor, England cit., p. 122. Very high carbon content steel (0.80-0.85 %), with the addition
of silicon (0.20-0.40%), manganese (0.15-0.20%) and phosphorus (0.03%): Henri Bouasse,
Cordes et membranes. Instruments de musique à cordes et à membranes, Paris, Delagrave, 1926, p. 4.
111 Guida tascabile descrittiva e commerciale di Torino […], 3rd edn, Milano, Guigoni, 1881, p. 134.
For 1898 the sum derives from the annual turnovers of each Turinese manufacturer indicated in
Gaetano G. Foschini, La musica all’Esposizione Generale Italiana di Torino 1898, «Rivista musicale italiana», v, 1898, pp. 786-836.
112 Il pianoforte italiano, «Strumenti e musica», March 1982, p. 66; Intervista con Antonio Cuconato,
accordatore, «Strumenti e musica», April 1978, p. 104.
113 Carsten Dürer, Germany, Piano industry in, in Enc1994, pp. 146-148: 147.
182
Table 4. Solidity of some piano manufacturers at Turin in the second half of the nineteenth century
MAKER
Aymonino
Berra
Chiappo
Clotz-Thibaux
Colombo F.
Marchisio frat.
Mola
Perotti
Roeseler
YEAR
N° PIANOS
PER YEAR
N°
WORKERS
1858
1873
1898
1858
1892
1892
1898
200
150
220
40
100
35
45-50
6
10
20
-
1858
c.1890
c.1870
1892
1900
1873
1885
1892
1898
12
160
250-300
500-1,000
actions
pianos + actions
250 + actions
4
25
50
more than 100
10
40-50
33
60
1858
1876
1878
1898
6
400
450-500
300
less than 4
70
65
Again, in 1892, even major producers suffered from the handicap of lack of
automation, only Mola being equipped with a steam engine (of only four horsepower). A survey carried out that year noted that «piano manufacturers in Turin
find it more convenient to have their timbers prepared at the sawmills owned by
other industrialists, so that they do not need mechanical engines or ancillary
machinery of any importance».114 In Italy, automation was to develop only dur-
114 Ministero di agricoltura, industria e commercio. Statistica industriale. Piemonte, Roma, Bertero,
1892, p. 288 («i fabbricanti di pianoforte in Torino trovano di loro convenienza far preparare i
pezzi di legname dalle segherie tenute da altri industriali, per cui non abbisognano loro motori
meccanici, né macchine accessorie di qualche importanza»).
183
patrizio barbieri
ing the «marvellous flourishing» («meraviglioso rigoglio») of industry from
1902-11,115 during which period Mola emerged as the top Italian manufacturer of
pianos and harmoniums, to the point of being included by Dolge in the chapter
on «Men who made the piano industry» (1911).116 In these years, Piedmont
assumed the importance that Naples had had half a century earlier, with the difference that its production – though inferior in quality – was no longer protected
by tariffs and most of its accessories were manufactured locally (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6. Comparison of the number of manufacturers of pianos, accessories and automatic
pianos, from 1820 to 1940, operating in the city of Naples and in the Piedmont Region (the
approximate trend is taken from statistics currently available). Note the sharp fall in Neapolitan
industry after 1861 (annexation to the Kingdom of Italy) and in Piedmontese industry after 1929
(the Great Depression, aggravated by the spread of radios, gramophones and small family cars)
115 Corbino, Cinquant’anni di vita economica italiana cit., i, p. 74.
116 Dolge, Pianos cit., p. 216. In 1880-90 the Mola factory was managed by the Berliner Wilhelm
Steuer: Hubert Henkel, Rapporti fra Italia e Germania nella costruzione di strumenti a tastiera nel
loro commercio nel secolo xix, type-written report presented on 11 November 2000 at Bologna,
Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, International Symposium Il pianoforte nell’Ottocento e l’Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, p. 5.
184
3.4. Automatic pianos and melopianos. The period from 1900 to 1930 saw the
widespread promotion of pianos driven pneumatically by perforated cards, either
on drums or folding cardboards. These ‘player pianos’, provided shortly after
their invention also with dynamic expression (‘expression pianos’), were developed mainly in the United States, where they were manufactured by most traditional piano factories (the ‘Pianola’ model of the Aeolian Company was to become
emblematic). These automatic devices, occasionally associated with mechanical
string instruments, also saw great technological evolution in Germany.117 The
industry also took root in Italy – see Racca of Bologna and FIRST (Fabbrica Italiana Rulli Sonori Traforati) of Milan –, but most were imported from the two countries mentioned above. In §4 we shall see the negative impact that habituation to
this kind of passive listening had on the traditional pianoforte.
In Italy, the poor relation of these instruments was invented and later developed in England and manufactured from the mid-nineteenth century to about
1940, for outdoor use: the small upright pianola (‘street piano’), often mounted
on a handcart, its hammers driven – using a handle – by a wooden barrel provided with appropriately arranged metal pins (and subsequently also by perforated
card, as already mentioned).118 Alessandro Betocchi – who in this connexion
indicates the factories of Giuliano (Naples) and Vosgien (Novara) – as early as
1874 states that «they are mostly of Italian manufacture, these pianini that in Italy
and abroad are dragged through the streets and made to play, little pleasing as
they are to those studying or the infirm».119 In 1911 Dolge would confirm that
«no doubt Italy produces more barrel and pneumatic street pianos than any
other country, but these noisy instruments are only intended to amuse children
on the public highways and cannot be classed with pianos».120 Besides these latter, widespread in Italy were also the barrel pianos, driven by a clockwork motor,
for indoor use, especially in cafés and other public venues. On this subject, OrdHume observes: «These last two categories are the ones most closely associated
with the Italians, both itinerant manufacturers and street musicians travelling to
117 Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume, Player Piano, in Enc1994, pp. 294-296.
118 Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume, Street piano, in Enc1994, p. 381.
119 Betocchi, Forze produttive cit., ii, pp. 288-289 («per la più parte, sono di fabbricazione italiana questi pianini che in Italia e all’estero son trascinati per le vie e fatti suonare con poco compiacimento di chi è studioso o infermo»).
120 Dolge, Pianos cit., p. 167.
185
patrizio barbieri
France, Germany, England, and America to produce them in large quantities”.121
This confirms the stereotype of the poor Italian organ-grinder and his organetto.122
Among pianos that – at the player’s command – could engage a clockwork
device to prolong the sounds by rapid hammering, we should also mention the
‘melopiano’ or ‘armonipiano’, perfected and manufactured at Turin by the engineer Luigi Caldera. It met with great success between 1870 and 1890, to the extent
that its action was adopted by Kirkmann in England and by Herz in France. In
1888 Sgambati even had the great concert Schiedmayer at Rome’s Conservatory
adapted in this way at the Milanese workshops of Messrs Ricordi & Finzi.123
3.5. The Results. The Unification of Italy – with the abolishing of internal customs, the rapid growth of the railway network, the increasing well-being of the
population and consequent formation of an ever-widening middle class – meant
that around 1880 several piano manufacturers had taken on a nationwide dimension. The protagonists of this period include Aymonino (Turin), Brizzi & Niccolai (Florence), Maltarello (Vicenza), followed by Colombo, Grimm (both
Milanese), Mola, Perotti, Roeseler, and Berra (the last four from Turin). This,
moreover, is also reflected by the mechanical industries generally speaking: as
compared to the Florence Exhibition in 1861, the one in Milan in 1881 showed
that their number had doubled, together with the number of workers employed
and the value of their turnover (Figs 7 & 8).124
121 Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume, Barrel piano, in Enc1994, pp. 41-42: 41.
122 In 1892, for example, the five firms at Novara also manufacturing pianos (Luigi Vosgien, Carlo
Pombia, Ottina e Pellandi, Società Italiana, Giovanni Colombo) were simply classified as manufacturers of «organetti»: Ministero di agricoltura, industria e commercio. Statistica industriale.
Piemonte, p. 202. On the subject see the most complete survey by Antonio Latanza, Il piano a
cilindro. Alla riscoperta di un’eredità musicale dimenticata, Roma, Aracne, 2009.
123 Varietà. Esposizione Universale di Vienna. Sezioni di strumenti musicali, Gruppo XV. Italiani premiati, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xxviii, 1873, pp. 255-6; Chouquet, La musica all’esposizione di Parigi cit., pp. 59-61; L’armonipiano, «Gazzetta musicale di Milano», xliii, 1888, p. 153;
Soffredini, L’armonipiano Caldera della Casa Ricordi e Finzi alla Reale Accademia di Santa Cecilia in
Roma, idem, pp. 73-74. On the rise and decline on this kind of instrument, see Barbieri, Violicembalos and other Italian sostenente pianos cit.
124 Corbino, Cinquant’anni di vita economica italiana cit., i, p. 71.
186
Fig. 7. Pianos and organs at the Milan Exhibition of 1881. On the left, beside the upright pianos,
are the display cabinets containing wind instruments by the famous Milanese firm Pelitti.
From L’esposizione italiana del 1881 in Milano illustrata, Milano, Sonzogno, [1881], p. 92
Fig. 8. The «Galleria dei pianoforte» at the Turin 1884 Exhibition. From Album-ricordo della
Esposizione nazionale del 1884 in Torino, Milano, Treves, 1884, part ii (G. Robustelli,
L’eposizione industriale), table opposite p. 66
187
patrizio barbieri
From the vague production data available (4000-6000 pianos annually) and, on
the other hand, the accurate foreign trade tables, it can be assumed that, in the
decade prior to the First World War, Italian industry managed to satisfy at least twothirds of domestic demand for pianos. Production was not however quantitatively
high, considering that the Turin area compensated almost entirely for former activity in Naples, which earlier supplied the whole of continental southern Italy. Owing
to limited spending, sales were largely restricted to upright pianos, whereas in the
United States, for example, sales of uprights and grands were almost equal.125
Table 5a. Kingdom of Italy: imports (above) and exports (below) of «square, grand, and upright
pianos» («pianoforti a tavola, a coda e verticali»), years 1864-1876. The names of the single
states are the original ones
STATE
America Meridionale
Austria (Lomb. Veneto)
Egitto
Francia
Grecia
Inghilterra
Roma (Province romane)
Spagna
Svizzera
Tunisi e Tripoli
Turchia
Zollverein
(“Germania” from 1873 )
altri
TOTAL
1864
6
202
7
1,354
9
12
9
2
5
39
4
-4
30
5
1,646
42
YEAR
1866 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876
9
40
47
18
146 245
371
558
279
453
8
12
29
49
30
23
-2
-10
708 799 1,093 1,076 501 886
5
19
26
47
2
12
6
5
14
-6
46
2
4
9
9
12
5
12
131
28
11
22
- 23
17
6
6
4
-76
-44
-3
-6
44
154
41
25
70
18
1
41
909 1,108 1,652 1,681 810 1,446
245
64
70
179 124 104
125 Pianoforte, in Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti, xxvii, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1935, pp. 108-120: 119 (in 1929 the highest world producer was the United States,
188
Table 5b. Kingdom of Italy: imports (above) and exports (below) of upright pianos (together
with those of the square type) and grands
(in Table: upright-grand, in that order), years 1880-1914.
In these Ministry publications, pianos are split into uprights and grands starting from 1878
STATE
YEAR
1864
10-0
70-52
27-7
1885
14-0
-12-0
409-96
12-4
1891
13-0
408-26
10-1
1897
14-0
41-0
166-10
18-0
1902
6-0
21-0
129-9
24-2
1905
1-0
20-1
61-0
243-10
139-2
1910
14-0
1-0
88-1
281-11
5-2
1914
36-1
35-6
43-0
11-0
18-0
617-134
83-4
226-28
-
15-0
14-0
525-59
60-0
674-85
-
3-0
246-22
60-1
647-66
-
2-0
13-0
7-0
2-0
103-8
23-1
772-86
6-0
2-0
28-0
2-0
4-0
86-19
25-7
952-81
31-3
18-0
7-0
2-0
115-14
26-1
1,690-120
91-0
24-0
12-1
37-0
0-1
7-0
1-0
149-13
52-0
3,707-170
7-1
4-0
8-0
5-0
19-0
46-11
35-0
3,026-119
14-0
Giappone, Cina,
India and others
Gran Bret. e Irl.
10-0
-
41-3
-
7-0
6-2
2-0
3-0
5-2
2-0
11-0
14-0
4-0
1-0
82-1
2-0
98-7
2-1
Grecia, Russia
e Montenegro
Spagna + Gibilt.
0-0
5-0
0-0
17-4
923-214
160-15
-8-0
2-2
4-0
6-1
18-2
11-1
2-0
1,057-109
169-4
12-0
42-5
36-0
-7-0
4-0
1,216-116
205-12
America merid.
(others)
Argentina
Austria-Ungheria
Belgio e
Paesi Bassi
Brasile
Egitto
Eritrea, Cirenaica
e Tripolitania
Francia
Germania
Stati Uniti
Svizzera
Tunisi, Algeria,
Malta e altri
Turchia e Cipro
TOTAL
11-0
3-0
36-0
17-2
8-2
11-1
1,700-243 1,318-116
131-6
107-3
-4-1
-3-0
14-0
5-0
60-1
3-0
1-0
37-0
105-5
195-1
4-0
3-2
7-0
46-6
13-2
8-0
37-1
34-1
34-1
2-0
13-0
2-0
16-1
6-0
4-1
10-0
2,151-150 4,424-204 3,423-138
444-6
272-9
246-10
which however met «domestic demand almost entirely»: of the 130,012 pianos produced that
year, 69,135 were uprights, 60,877 grands). In Germany, on the other hand, 1928 production
included 28,000 uprights and 10,000 grands.
189
patrizio barbieri
Tables 5a-b show that between 1864 and 1914, piano exchanges with other
countries increased on the average, but the export-import ratio remained fairly
low, fluctuating around 5-10%.126 Italy’s modest exports were mostly limited to
the markets of the eastern Mediterranean and South America (see, for example,
Aymonino, F. Colombo, Grimm, Maltarello, Mola, Roeseler, Turconi). As early
as 1868, however, the Italian Economic Yearbook published by Pietro Maestri
noted, perhaps somewhat hastily, a decrease in imports and an increase in
«domestic work».127
The said tables also reveal, starting from about 1875, an inexorable decline in
imports from France (whose industry had for some time begun to rest on its laurels) and from Austria (owing to the no longer up-to-date Prellmechanik and to
the loss, in 1918, of the Empire’s remaining provinces). Their place was progressively occupied by a decidedly expanding Germany after the proclamation of the
German Empire (Versailles, 1871), whose production in the early twentieth century even invaded the Italian market. The German piano industry, like the Italian, was a family business (1681 firms in 1907, most of which with fewer than 20
employees), but of much higher quality, also as a result of domestic suppliers of
accessories and actions (it suffices to mention Renner, founded in 1882 and still
world leader of the sector).128 Italian manufacturers were still some way from
achieving this quality, as witnessed by the awards – on the average not superlative – obtained at the principal international exhibitions (Table 6, which shows
that only Mola – and only in 1900 – managed to obtain a gold medal).129 As far as
126 The data in the said tables is taken from Movimento commerciale del Regno d’Italia […], for the
year: 1861-70 Torino, Stamperia reale; 1871-78, Milano, Stamperia reale; after 1879: Roma,
Tipografia Elzeviriana.
127 Pietro Maestri, L’Italia economica nel 1868, Firenze, Civelli, 1868, p. 238, indeed states:
«Whereas some years ago the value of piano imports exceeded one million liras, in 1866 it was
only 474,000 lire» («Mentre qualche anno addietro il valore dell’importazione dei pianoforti
oltrepassava il milione di lire, nel 1866 non fu che 474.000 lire»). Table 5a, however, raises the
objection that Maestri reached this hasty conclusion solely on the basis of a year that was exceptionally favourable to Italy.
128 Dürer, Germany cit., pp. 146-7; Lloyd W. Meyer, Renner, Louis GMBH & Company, in
Enc1994, p. 322.
129 Another gold medal was, however, obtained by Luigi Magrini of Trieste, when the town was
still under Austrian sovereignty: kindly communicated by Dr. Marta Finzi, of the Museo Teatrale
“Carlo Schmidl” of Trieste, a museum that possesses an «L. Magrini & Figlio», a splendid upright
in liberty style, whose trade-mark advertises a «Goldene Medaille Wien 1892» and «Torino 1898».
190
mere mass production is concerned, it may be that the Italian piano industry
lacked that stimulation provided for Fiat, for example, by the dramatic production requirements of the critical war situation in 1917, as the result of which the
Turin firm in 1920 found itself «the largest car works in Europe».130
Table 6. Awards received by Italian piano manufacturers at major international exhibitions
in the second half of the nineteenth century
MAKER
EXPOSITION
PRIZE
Alessandroni (Rome)
Vienna 1873
Medal for Merit
Aymonino (Turin)
Vienna 1873
Honourable Mention
Brizzi & Niccolai (Florence)
Paris 1878
Paris 1889
Caldera (Turin)
Vienna 1873
Paris 1889
De Meglio Giovanni (Naples) London 1870
Vienna 1873
De Meglio Leopoldo (Naples) London 1862
Bronze Medal
Silver Medal
Medal for Merit
Silver Medal
Second Class medal
Medal for Merit
Honourable Mention
Fusella Francesco
Vienna 1873
Honourable Mention
Giuliano fratelli (Naples)
Vienna 1873
Honourable Mention
Lifonti (Palermo)
Paris 1878
Bronze Medal
Magrini Luigi (Trieste)
Vienna 1892
Gold Medal
Mola (Turin)
Paris 1867
Vienna 1873
Paris 1878
Chicago 1893
Paris 1900
“Prize-winner”
Medal for Merit
Bronze Medal
First Class Diploma
Gold Medal
Roeseler (Turin)
Paris 1878
Bronze Medal
Sievers (Naples)
Vienna 1873
Medal for Merit
Volpi Gustavo (Florence)
Paris 1889
Bronze Medal
130 Corbino, Cinquant’anni di vita economica italiana, p. 78 («il più grande opificio automobilistico d’Europa»).
191
patrizio barbieri
In Tables 5a-b, the United States are poorly represented, despite the
giddy numerical development mentioned in the introduction to this study.
Indeed, their production, also because it was better adapted to the great
changes in climate over their vast territory, was largely restricted to domestic consumption (as already seen in fn 125). Its growth, however, was based
on a managerial mind-set still lacking in Italy, which availed itself of (1) a
high degree of automation, (2) widespread distribution networks, including
the new ‘department stores’, (3) funding strategies that even then made purchases possible on credit and by correspondence, (4) greater investments by
manufacturers in the musical education and advertising sectors. For mass
production, their partnership strategy proved decisive: in 1914 just 25 corporations and holdings produced 74% of the annual total of 320,000 pianos
then manufactured.131
§4. Between the Two Wars: the ‘commercial’ piano and the Great Depression
Immediately after the Great War, an operation was attempted at Turin to set
up something similar to the above-mentioned American holdings, resulting in
the incorporation of Fip (Fabbrica Italiana Pianoforti), which was to merge all
the small workshops in the city. As had already occurred in the U.S., its policy
extended to the educational and advertising sectors, with the foundation of
the magazine Il pianoforte and the organisation of periodic piano recitals.132
Initially producing 800 instruments per year, in 1925-27 Fip managed to reach
an annual production of 3000, with 800 workers. It was thus aiming at reproducing the Fiat success story in the piano sector (even the style of its brand
name recalled that of the car works), but, just one decade after it opened, it lost
its sponsors and was forced to close.
In the post-war period, the Anelli factory became an important stabilizing
factor. Its success started only in 1896, the year in which Cremona was selected as its permanent base. Among its patents, the 1912 one – making it possible
131 Roell, United States cit., p. 417.
132 «Il pianoforte. Rivista mensile della Fabbrica Italiana Pianoforti (F.I.P.)»: the first edition
came out in January 1920.
192
to regulate the touch of the keyboard was highly successful, meeting with the
approval of the Königliche Hochschule für Musik of Berlin Carlottenburg, the
most important German conservatory. In 1918, the Cremona factory was producing five pianos per day, and in 1923 had 300 workers; in 1961, instruments
with the ‘Anelli’ mark totalled 21,000 (almost all uprights).
Again in Lombardy, in 1922 Anelli was joined by Zari (Bovisio, Milan), an
important firm set up in 1869, among the first to introduce woodworking
machinery, which up to then had been restricted to producing wooden flooring.
At Turin, Fip’s bankruptcy accentuated the manufacturers’ tendency to
fragment and thence to the marketing of what Dolge had already called the
‘commercial’ piano, a phenomenon that did not spare the United States,
with the ‘stencil piano’.133 The wide popularity of German pianos (see Table
7 and Fig. 9)134 also meant that most Italian instruments were marketed
under anonymous Germanic-sounding trade-marks, whereas in 1871 they
had still been French-sounding.135 This change of approach was also the
result of preferences expressed by the best-known Italian composers: whereas Verdi rejected highly interesting proposals so as not to be parted from his
old Erard, Puccini and Mascagni on the other hand preferred instruments of
German manufacture.136
133 Roell, United States cit., p. 417. Such instruments were of medium-low quality, manufactured
anonymously by many factories and sold to retailers, who applied a fantasy trademark (stencil) to
the lid of the keyboard.
134 Data taken from Movimento commerciale del Regno d’Italia, for the year.
135 Farina, La musica all’esposizione industriale milanese [dated 1871] cit., p. 325: «many Italian –
highly Italian – pianos enter the market baptised as French» («molti pianoforti italiani, italianissimi entrano in commercio col battesimo francese»).
136 On Verdi: [De Rensis], Cento anni di Casa Anelli cit., pp. 101-102; on Puccini and Mascagni:
La Casa Musicale G. Ceccherini cit., pp. 12-14.
193
patrizio barbieri
Table 7. Kingdom of Italy: imports (above) and exports (below) of upright pianos
(together with those of the square type) and grands (in Table: upright-grand,
in that order), years 1919-1938. The names of the single states are the original ones
STATE
America merid. (others)
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgio e
Paesi Bassi
Brasile
Ceco-Slovacchia
Egitto
Francia
Germania
Gran Bret. e Irlanda
Grecia
Jugoslavia e altri
Libia, Africa Or. It.,
Dodecanneso
Stati Uniti
Svizzera
Tunisia, Algeria,
Marocco
Turchia e Cipro
TOTAL
YEAR
1920
34-0
66-0
5-0
196-71
18-0
20-0
3-0
1-0
10-0
164-42
82-3
1925
15-0
27-3
2-0
124-46
1-0
1-0
1-1
36-0
75-13
1-0
10-0
71-19
14-1
1930
6-0
5-1
75-15
0-1
14-0
1-0
1-0
8-0
1-0
2-0
40-26
1-0
1932
1-0
0-1
1-1
1-0
22-6
1-0
0-1
1-0
1-0
6-0
2-3
1935
83-36
2-0
1-0
3-0
1938
1-0
1-0
0-1
-
261-53
6-5
2-2
20-0
2-0
2,150-263
0-2
18-3
1-0
11-0
2-0
20-8
2,285-184
33-0
3-0
1-0
9-4
348-57
1-1
4-1
5-0
8-3
251-87
0-1
1-0
3-1
4-1
182-112
0-6
2-0
1-0
8-1
14-0
31-2
3-1
31-2
34-1
45-0
1-0
30-0
712-175
367-7
1-0
24-0
19-0
19-6
6-3
3-0
6-0
1-0
4-0
25-2
2-0
2-0
4-1
9-0
1-0
1-0
2,465-350 2,470-228
197-17
60-7
28-0
4-0
2-1
1-2
4-0
385-66
56-11
23-0
1-1
340-125
32-2
70-7
1-0
2-0
185-112
83-15
194
Fig. 9. Trend of piano imports in Italy from 1861 to 1940, per state of origin (data taken from
Tables 5a-b and 7). Note the two drastic falls corresponding to the First World War and the following Great Depression of 1929, the latter aggravated by other concomitant factors
Occasionally, manufacturers included in their fantasy trademarks some more or
less subtle reference to their own name: Carlo Perotti (still under French influence), for example, produced ‘P. Charles’, the engineer («ingegnere») Cesare
Berra, «Baer Berlin – I.C.B.», Antonio Fea, «F.E. Anton», Biancotto, «Weisschen», Rodolfo Griffini, «G. Rudolf», Merula, «Merual», Antonio Fabio,
«Faber». Often they even used deformations of the names of famous German
manufacturers (such as «Rudinbach e Sonn» for «Rud. Ibach Sohn», «Sidmayer» for «Sciedmayer», «Bekstain» for «Bechstein», «Blutmann» for «Blüthner»),
which, as early as 1924, raised formal protests from the German Piano Industrialists’ Association. At the end of the ’twenties – in the famous «Page of Italian
Shame» (Pagina della vergogna italiana), published as a booklet with an edition of
15,000 copies – Pietro Anelli pointed out to the public the names of as many as 40
Italian manufacturers, at least 25 of whom in Turin, using fantasy trademarks.137
137 [De Rensis], Cento anni di Casa Anelli cit., pp. 110-112. Pietro Anelli, Chi non sente l’orgoglio
del suo nome nel proprio lavoro non ha patria. Le marche false sui pianoforti italiani: un problema di
moralità, Cremona, Società Anonima Anelli, 1930. A copy of the said Pagina was given me some
time ago by Giovanni Doria, of «Strinasacchi s.n.c.» (Verona), whom I wish to thank.
195
patrizio barbieri
At a meeting of specialists in 1932, the Turinese Vincenzo Restagno – chairman of the national association of musical instrument manufacturers – reported
that 90% of the manufacturers then operating in Italy were applying pseudoGermanic trademarks to their pianos. Since such instruments were marketed
anonymously, the manufacturer had no incitement to safeguard his name in any
fashion, but aimed solely at beating down competition by saving on materials.
Restagno reported soundboards and bridges that cracked owing to the «absolute
lack of seasoning of the timber», and even wrest planks that – instead of being
made of solid beechwood – were made of poplar and veneered with beechwood,
with easily imagined repercussions on the tightness of the tuning pins fixed to
them.138 The disastrous consequences of the commercial piano were summarised in the report of Giulio Pasquali, also presented at the 1932 meeting, concluding indignantly: «Is it necessary to recall the 22,000 German pianos sold in a
single year in Argentina against 9 from Italy?».139 This phenomenon was only
partly stemmed starting from 22 June 1933, when a law, pressed for by Pietro
Anelli, made it obligatory to mark each instrument with the manufacturer’s
name and the location where it had been produced.140
For the piano worldwide, however, the deepest slump was to arrive with the
Great Depression that followed the Wall Street crash in October 1929. Concomitant causes included: the increasing diffusion of radio transmissions (starting in
Italy in 1924), the advent of talking movies (starting in the United States on an
industrial scale in 1926, which made piano accompaniment superfluous), and the
increasingly accessible price of the car, a consumable that – as a status symbol –
started to replace the piano in middle-class families (in Italy, the various models
of the popular ‘Topolino’ started on the production line in 1936). An important
role was also played by the spread of the automatic piano, which had habituated
the public to passive enjoyment of music, so that it was soon found easier and
economically cheaper to switch to the radio and gramophone.141 Within a single
year (1930), this led automatic pianos to near extinction (Table 8), as well as
138 Vincenzo Restagno, Pianoforti, in Artigianato degli strumenti musicali. Atti della riunione di
esperti tenutasi in Napoli il 25 e 26 giugno 1932-X, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1933, pp. 13-15.
139 Giulio Pasquali, Esportazione e importazione, in Ivi, pp. 71-75: 74.
140 [De Rensis] Cento anni di Casa Anelli cit., p. 113.
141 Roell, United States cit., p. 418.
196
inducing several manufacturers to change-over to producing wirelesses (in Italy,
for example, the Turinese Chiappo started on wireless production in 1928, and in
1930 stopped producing pianos, including automatic models).142
Table 8. Kingdom of Italy: imports (above) and exports (below) of automatic pianos, uprights
and grands (in Table: upright-grand, in that order), years 1920-1938. The names of the single
states are the original ones
STATE
America Meridionale
Austria
Cecoslovacchia
Egitto e Turchia
Francia
Germania
Gran Bretagna e Irlanda
Libia e altre colonie italiane
Stati Uniti
Svizzera
altri
TOTAL
YEAR
1925
1930
1932
1935
1938
13-0
28-1
24-0
2-0
3-0
416-30
2-0
17-4
4-0
202-2
2-2
8-0
2-8
0-3
1-2
69-9
3-0
4-0
0-1
1-1
37-2
8-0
5-6
2-0
5-1
-
0-1
1-0
4-0
-
0-3
3-0
-
10-7
2-0
4-1
1-0
3-3
-
690-37 112-13
8-20
31-2
142 The data in Table 8 is taken from Movimento commerciale del Regno d’Italia, for the year. As
regards Chiappo, see Annarita Colturato, L’industria dei pianoforti a Torino nell’ Ottocento, in
Miscellanea di studi cit.
197
patrizio barbieri
Even the traditional instrument suffered a collapse: in 1930, Italian production amounted to 6000 pianos (always insufficient for the domestic market,
since in that same year imports numbered almost 2700 pieces), but in 1937 was
reduced to about 1000 (Table 9a-b).143 Furthermore, even abroad, things were
no better: from 1927 to 1932 in the United States, production dropped from
250,000 to 25,000 pieces per year, and in Germany from 100,000 to a miserable
6000.144 In that decade, the Italian industry relied in particular on Anelli, Zari
and Schulze & Pollmann, founded in 1928 near Bolzano, which soon became the
producer of the best Italian grand pianos of the time.
Table 9a. Pianos officially manufactured in Italy for the year 1937
TYPE
FACTORIES
(N°)
Upright
Grand
Player piano
PIANOS
(N°)
1,026
43
5
26
4
3
VALUE
(Liras)
3,100,561
288,305
17,015
Table 9b. Distribution per region of upright pianos officially manufactured in Italy for the year
1937. The names of the single regions are the original ones
REGION
PIANOS
(N°)
Piemonte
585
VALUE
(Liras)
1,605,661
Lombardia
Venezia Tridentina
Venezia Giulia e Zara
TOTAL
126
280
5
1.026
499,400
980,000
15,500
3,100,561
143 Pianoforte, in Enciclopedia italiana, xxvii, p. 119. The data in Table 9 is taken from ISTAT. Censimento industriale e commerciale 1937-1939. Vol. vii: Industrie varie e fono-cinematografiche. Servizi
industriali, Roma, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1949, pp. 30-31.
144 Ehrlich, Pianoforte cit., p. 709.
198
§5. The Second Post-War period: the invasion of Asian industry and the birth of
‘Fazioli’
The post-war period was characterised by progressive growth in imports, which
had seen an obligatory halt during the previous period of «autarchy»
(«autarchia»). Among supplier countries, West Germany was soon joined, especially for studio pianos, by several East-European countries (Table 10); in 1960,
for example, East Germany and Czechoslovakia covered 44% of all orders.145 In
around 1962 Japan joined the fray, followed, roughly ten years later, by South
Korea. Starting from 1993-94 the latter was practically supplanted by the Peoples’ Republic of China, a prime exporter of uprights. Taken together, these three
countries appropriated increasing slices of the Italian market (see also Fig. 10):
0.3% (1962), 4.3% (1970), 5.6% (1972), 22.8% (1980), 54.8% (1988), 55.1% (1997).
Again, in 1997 Japan alone provided 38% of Italian imports of grand pianos, a
market sector traditionally dominated by Germany. This also changed one of the
features noted by Pietro Anelli in a speech in 1923: «only countries located
between the 40° and 50° degree of latitude north produce pianos for all the rest
of the world» (nowadays, ‘40°’ should be corrected to ‘30°’).146
Fig. 10. Trend of piano imports in Italy from 1950 to 1997, per state of origin (data taken from Table 10)
145 The data in Table 10 is taken from Movimento commerciale, for the year.
146 [De Rensis], Cento anni di Casa Anelli cit., p. 108.
199
patrizio barbieri
Table 10. The Italian Republic: imports (above) and exports (below) of new pianos, uprights
and grands (in Table: upright-grand, in that order), years 1951-1997.
Starting from 1990 the Istituto Centrale di Statistica (ISTAT) tables only provide data with a
certain consistency, so from that year on the table the symbol / replaces the missing data).
The names of the single states are the original ones
STATE
America
centro-mer.
Austria
Cecoslov.
Cina
Corea del
Sud
Francia
Germania
R. Democr.
Germania
R. Federale
Giappone
Gran Bret.
Paesi Bassi
Spagna
Stati Uniti
Svizzera
U.R.S.S.
and Polonia
others
TOTAL
1951
16-2
30-25
93-17
20-10
65-107
0-5
-
1960
11-0
56-17
0-1
246-76
6-2
0-2
204-57
244-163
1-4
-
1962
2-1
27-19
358-173
1-0
1-1
251-76
434-136
1-0
33-31
-
1970
0-2
1-8
55-4
1056-251
1-5
9-0
70-3
21-6
974-114
3053-1021
12-2
308-72
-
84-9
1-0
1-2
-
157-57
16-1
1-1
14-3
213-45
17-0
3-1
0-1
2-0
0-11
762-47
0-1
68-0
1-1
0-1
1-0
1-1
1-1
3-5
296-171
20-13
YEAR
1975
2-0
12-15
85-39
6-0
1613-104
2-0
283-0
248-123
6-31
129-132
2340-117
57-2
3991-596
393-79
1729-393
7-0
1980
0-1
0-4
89-58
6-33
2890-160
0-6
793-98
2306-120
0-2
148-116
31-627
7067-252
4-0
2709-993
606-164
4391-1438
-
1990
/
/-2
/-22
/
2006-/
/
/
/
4467-1604
/
/
1,014-38
1421-/
/
2012-393
249-149
2501-1293
/
1997
/
/
/
/-12
/
/
2804-/
/
471-94
/
/
429-5
/
/
1548-362
161-17
3749-543
/-13
5123-2802
7-0
190-0
51-22
54-0
144-10
0-1
3384-4538
3-5
144-0
352-1
6-36
647-147
33-146
/
114-7
/
172-2
/
135-/
/
/
/
/
776-317
48-4
/
213-/
/
/
31-16
107-59
296-37
180-33
/
/
2-3
7-2
2-4
38-47
90-98
/-102
57-/
99-0
572-3
1095-1
2232-47
/
/
41-0
/
/
24-0
48-0
174-13
519-122
1203-49
/
/
62-66
43-273
/
/
21-13
21-4
8-17
954-374 1513-496 7155-1592 17664-4375 28183-8049 15319-3816 12465-1447
49-26
36-21
140-42
818-364 1174-1395 2172-326
1538-153
200
As far as Italian production is concerned, exports – which had always been
modest – grew progressively up to 1992, the year in which they reached their historical maximum of 3,157 instruments (with as many as 390 grand pianos),
shipped in particular to France, Spain, and Germany.
In the last decades of the century, Italian commercial production was located
almost entirely in the Marche and in Trentino, manufactured mainly by the following firms:
• Farfisa (Ancona), an accordion factory that, from 1960 up to its closure in
December 1998, also made upright pianos (3600 per year in 1978).
• Generalmusic, set up in 1983 at Saludecio, Forlì (3000 uprights in 1985).
• Clement, set up at Bolzano in 1937, closed in 1991 (600 uprights per year from
1983-87).
• Schulze Pollmann, mentioned above.
• Steinbach, set up in 1935 at Turin (200 uprights per year in 1991).
Starting from 1992, however, a steep decline began worldwide in the production of upright pianos, marking the worst slump in the sector after 1929. Causes
are many, in particular the accentuated competition of other forms of recreation
(satellite television, the internet, videogames) and – in the musical sector – digital techniques (midi virtual keyboards and real electronic ones, downloading
programs with real-time listening).147 Currently (2010), most Italian production
in the commercial sector is restricted to Schulze Pollmann, which in June 1998
moved to Fermignano, Pesaro, and was taken over by Generalmusic (1500-2000
instruments produced in 2002, including grands). After the closure of Generalmusic, as a result of the worsening global slump mentioned above, Schulze Pollmann have continued activities in the Republic of San Marino. On the other
hand, as far as accessories are concerned, since 1991 Enrico Ciresa s.r.l. (Tesero,
Trent) has been supplying some of the most far-off world factories with soundboards made of the celebrated red spruce from the Val di Fiemme in the Western
Italian Alps, the same once used by Stradivarius.
Going on to concert grands, Cesare Augusto Tallone, the former technical
manager at Zari (1923), in about 1940 set up his own personal workshop. After
twenty years of experimentation – encouraged by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, whose personal tuner he was – he managed to produce his «piano with an
147 See also Roell, United States cit., p. 418.
201
patrizio barbieri
«Italian sound» («pianoforte dal suono italiano»), presented at the Milan Conservatory in 1967. Tallone however produced on the whole not more than 300
pianos, each of which may be considered a prototype.
Lastly, special mention must be reserved for Paolo Fazioli, a Roman engineer
and pianist who, in 1981 – at Sacile, Pordenone (60 km northeast of Venice) – set
up a handcraft factory for highly selected concert grands, which in a very short
time ranked with the very best at international level. Currently he produces
about 100 pianos per year, and has built about 1850 up to 2010, 95% being exported. In more than a century and a half of activity, it seems that Italian industry has
finally managed to produce a concert piano renowned worldwide, with its own
particular characteristics.
202
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