Broadwood and Sons
John Broadwood & Sons is the name of an English piano construction company that in 1728 Burkhardt Tschudi ( born March 13, 1702 Schwanden; † August 19, 1773 in London) founded and in 1772 by his son in law, John Broadwood (* October 6, 1732 was † July 17, 1812 in London), performed and produced instruments from the 18th century to today, in Cockburnspath, Berwickshire.
History
In 1718, the 16 -year-old Burkhardt Tschudi came from the Swiss Schwanden to London and became an apprentice of the country's leading ethnic German harpsichord maker Hermann table. 1728 opened Tschudi, the anglifizierte his name in Burkat Shudi later, his own workshop, in which in the 1750s who came from the Frankish Fürth Silbermann pupil Johann Christoph Zumpe ( 1726-1790 ) and in 1761, originally from the Scottish Cockburnspath and in Oldhamstocks grown furniture and cabinet-maker John Broadwood as an apprentice entered. 1769 married Broadwood Shudis youngest daughter Barbara Shudi ( 1749-1776 ), and 1770 made him this for business partners in the growing and increasingly successful company. 1771 transferred Shudi management to his son of the same Burkhat Shudi ( 1738-1803 ) and his daughter Barbara and her husband John Broadwood, to which went over the company after his death in 1773. From 1772 Broadwood ran the business alone.
1777 John Broadwood joined with the English piano maker Robert Stodart, and Dutch - English piano maker Americus Backers and developed an instrument with hammer action, as the fortepiano ( fortepiano) increasingly supplanted the harpsichord from the market.
1795 John Broadwood made his eldest son James Broadwood sharer and signed his instruments henceforth with John Broadwood and Son in 1808 as well as the younger son of Thomas Broadwood went into the business, the company John Broadwood & Sons called.
The two sons James Shudi Broadwood ( born December 20 1772 † August 8, 1851 ), from his first marriage, and Thomas Broadwood, from his second marriage, the business led by John Broadwood death in 1812 continues. 1818 gave Thomas Broadwood Ludwig van Beethoven a fortepiano. 1836 rose Henry Fowler Broadwood, the eldest son of James Broadwood, from his first marriage, in the business a. In 1848 the company Frédéric Chopin three instruments for his UK tour available. Meanwhile, the annual production had risen to over 2,500 instruments. 1886 also played Franz Liszt during his last visit to London a Broadwood piano.
Classification of the work of John Broadwood
John Broadwood was - together with the Englishman Robert Wornum - the first piano maker whose workshop was transformed to the factory, where a Taylorist division of labor achieved the shift from production principles of instrument building and a massive reduction in production costs. His work marks the beginning industrial piano construction.
Importantly, the work of John Broadwood and his English contemporaries is also in so far as their instruments of mechanics with plungers, as they already Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco initially used them against the South German or Viennese action ( bounce mechanics) helped to long-term break - albeit currently Broadwood the English Repetition was still not perfect, what was achieved only in the 1820s Sébastien Erard in Paris. The work of Broadwood showed that wing with plunger mechanism could be louder than Viennese grand and so were able to enjoy a more and more growing middle-class audience in increasingly large concert halls - an advantage which also Ludwig van Beethoven led to his progressive deafness, a Broadwood grand piano happy to accept as a gift.
Fortepiano by John Broadwood were among the top products of the keyboard instrument making in their time. Previously, this was true for the harpsichord of Antwerp instrument maker Ruckers family and for pianos in the southern German instrument maker Johann Andreas Stein, then, inter alia, by Broadwood for the Austro- French manufacturer Ignace Joseph Pleyel and the Franco-German instrument maker Sébastien Erard, and since the late 19th century for the German -American piano construction company Steinway & Sons. Therefore, include Broadwood piano undoubtedly one of the icons of the historical music performance practice and also the collector.
2000s
2003, the production of Broadwood pianos in a small factory was in Moss, Norway, where.
In 2008, the company of Dr. Alastair Laurence was purchased, a piano builder and engineer, back deep family links to Broadwood to the year 1787. In connection with the change of ownership, new capacity for the restoration and conservation of Broadwood instruments in Finchcocks ( Goudhurst, Kent, England) were built. The production of the famous high- pianos with green frame is shifted from Moss after Finchcocks and continued with traditional methods. The John Broadwood & Sons Ltd.. since the cessation of production of Schwelmer RUD. IBACH SOHN GmbH & Co. KG in 2007, the oldest continuously producing piano construction companies in the world.
Since May 2008 Broadwood & Sons holds as a manufacturer of pianos again a title as purveyor to the British Royal Family. Broadwood restored for the royal house of a Broadwood piano from Buckingham Palace.