Pleyel after Pleyel. The instruments of Auguste Wolff and Gustave Lyon at Universal Exhibitions (1855-c.1905)

Abstract

The article provides an overview of the Pleyel company during a fifty-year period, starting at the time of the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris and the death of the well-known piano maker Camille Pleyel. During this period, the famous French firm was directed by Auguste Wolff (from 1855 to 1887) and Gustave Lyon (from 1887 to the beginning of twentieth century). The entrepreneurial talents, scientific abilities and musical skills of Pleyel’s two successors made this company the biggest and most innovative French piano producer of the second half of the nineteenth century. Both Wolff and Lyon played leading roles on the occasion of universal exhibitions in which they promoted their renowned pianos as well as many of their new inventions which are described in the article: the piano à double percussion, the piano-pédalier, the clavier transpositeur, the pédale tonale, the harpe éolienne, the new-designed clavecin, the piano-double, the harpe chromatique, the harpe-luth, the Pleyela.