Chickering & Sons
| Chickering & Sons
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Public company under US law, a subsidiary of Baldwin |
| founding | 1823 |
| Seat | Boston, Mass., USA |
| Branch | Piano construction |
Chickering & Sons was an American piano manufacturer based in Boston , known for manufacturing award-winning instruments of outstanding quality and design. The company was founded by Jonas Chickering and James Stewart in 1823 , but the partnership ended four years later. In 1830 Jonas Chickering took on John Mackay as a partner and renamed Chickering & Company , later Chickering & Mackay until his death Mackay sr. 1841. In 1853, Chickering reorganized the company as Chickering & Sons . Chickering pianos were made until 1983.
Most famous piano
It was Phineas Taylor Barnum who persuaded the singer Jenny Lind - the "Swedish nightingale" - to go on a concert tour through the States. Barnum ordered a special piano for this, which was used for the 93 concerts. The piano was completed in August 1850, Jenny Lind arrived in September, and the concert series began in Boston. Her pianist and companion was Otto Goldschmidt , whom she married at the end of the tour.
At the same time as the tour began, Henry E. Steinway (Steinweg) and his large family arrived in New York as immigrants from Germany. Henry attended the New York Lind concert, but showed little interest in the singer. Instead, he looked very closely at the Chickering grand piano, so intensely that it had to be thrown off the piano at the beginning of the concert.
On December 1, 1852, a heavy fire destroyed the Chickering piano factory, located at 336 Washington Street, Boston. One policeman was killed. The walls of the factory collapsed and adjacent buildings also caught fire. In 1853/54 a new factory was built at 791 Tremont Street in Boston; this building is still standing today. It was divided into artist studios in 1972.
Jonas Chickering made some important contributions to the development of the piano. An essential element was the introduction of the one-piece cast iron plate in order to be able to absorb the high forces of the string system of larger grand pianos.
Chickering was the largest piano maker in the United States in the mid-19th century, but was overtaken by Steinway & Sons in 1860 . In 1867 Jonas' son Frank Chickering received from Napoleon III for his services to piano art at the world exhibition in Paris . the “Emperor's Cross” of the French Legion of Honor , at that time one of the world's most prestigious awards in the non-military field. This was one of more than 20 awards the piano maker has won over the years.
This award and other prizes, along with the gold medals distributed in Paris, were part of the "piano wars" in the USA that culminated nine years later at the World's Fair in Philadelphia : the East Coast press gave the East Coast press an interpretation of which medals were worth more USA material for reporting on years. Both the medals won by Steinway and Chickering can be found on the facades of the concert halls in New York to this day. Back then, everyone involved claimed to build the best piano in the world.
The Chickering company became part of the American Piano Company (Ampico) in 1908 .
The name “Chickering” continues to be found on pianos from the Baldwin Piano Company .
Web links
- Chickering in the grand piano photo archives
- http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?832558
- http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?832848
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- ↑ Chickering Piano Works Fire on the CelebrateBoston.com website