Henri Pape

Jean-Henri Pape (German: Johann Heinrich Pape; * July 1, 1789 in Sarstedt ; † February 2, 1875 ) was a French piano maker of German birth in the early 19th century.

Pape came to Paris in 1811 and found employment with Pleyel , whose piano manufacturing company he ran for several years. In 1815 Pape founded his own piano manufacturing company. For almost forty years he improved his pianos with inventions every year. His first grand pianos followed the English system of John Broadwood & Sons and Tomkinson, but it wasn't long before Pape first improved the design and then completely changed the design principles.

View of the two-choir strings of a grand piano - the hammer heads below, the mutes above

Pape focused on shortcomings and errors in the panel pianos and wings on the hammer gap between pin block and soundboard open up. The solution of placing the hammers over the strings had been thought out by Marius, then Hildebrand and ultimately by Andreas Streicher in Vienna , but instead of levers and counterweights, Pape's arrangement used a spiral spring to move the hammer quickly and with almost no adverse effect on it To raise the stroke feeling. This system was very successful, but the wings lacked some lightness and subtlety. The changes he introduced to pianinos gave his instruments considerable power.

The work of this gifted piano maker was praised on September 19, 1832 with favorable reports by the French Society for the National Industry (“Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale”) and in 1833 by the l'Académie des beaux-arts de l ' institute de France . Pape received a gold medal at the world exhibition in 1834. Pape also received a medal from the Legion of Honor in 1839. Knowledgeable about every aspect of mechanics, Pape invented a machine to saw or peel wood or ivory into spirals and exhibited it in 1827. One of his pianos was veneered with leaves of ivory nine feet long and two feet wide.

A small pamphlet recalls his contributions to this instrument ( Notice sur les inventions et perfectionnements apportes par H. Pape dans la fabrication des pianos Paris, Loquin: 11 pages with three lithographs).

In 1875 Pape died in Asnières-sur-Seine near Paris, where he had spent his life researching piano construction. For a time a son and a nephew ran the factory Pape founded.

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• Fétis, FJ (1867, 1880) biography universelle des musiciens. Didot frères, Paris.
• Vahlbruch, Werner: In Paris a lot is reminiscent of a Sarstedt resident. Johann Heinrich Pape emigrated in 1811 - and as Jean-Henri Pape revolutionized the construction of modern pianos in France . In: home country. Journal for local history, nature conservation, cultural care . Hanover. 2013, pp. 42–46 ( PDF )

Web links

• Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale
• Cité de la musique, maker's entry