Overview

Sebastien Erard and the firm that carried his name are seminal in the history of musical instruments. Erard's inventions - especially the double escapement for the piano and the double-action for the harp - have had an enormous impact on instruments and musical life and are still at the foundation of piano and harp building today. The recently discovered archives of the Erard piano and harp building firm are perhaps the largest and most complete record of musical instrument making anywhere, containing never-before-published correspondence from musicians including Mendelssohn, Liszt and Faure. These volumes present the archive's records and documents in two parts, the first relating to inventions, business, composers and performers and the second to the Erard family correspondence. In both the original French and with English translations, the documents offer fascinating insights into the musical landscape of Europe from the start of Erard's career in 1785 to the closure of the firm in 1959.

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9781107092914

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Reviews

'This new publication ... brings together in a compact form and in an attractive layout a substantial amount of the extant Erard archives. ... a significant contribution to musicological and organological literature and will certainly become a necessary reference source not only for those interested in the history of the piano and harp, but also in musical instrument manufacture and musical life in general from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries.' Panagiotis Poulopoulos, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 'This new publication ... brings together in a compact form and in an attractive layout a substantial amount of the extant Erard archives. ... a significant contribution to musicological and organological literature and will certainly become a necessary reference source not only for those interested in the history of the piano and harp, but also in musical instrument manufacture and musical life in general from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries.' Panagiotis Poulopoulos, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society

Author Information

Robert Adelson is an organologist and musicologist, and Curator of France's second largest collection of historical musical instruments, housed in the Musee du Palais Lascaris in Nice. He is the author of Women Writing Opera: Creativity and Controversy in the Age of the French Revolution (2001), and a critical edition of the opera Le Mariage d'Antonio by Lucile Gretry (2008). Alain Roudier is a pianist and organologist. Founder and Artistic Director of the Association Ad Libitum/Centre International du Pianoforte in Etobon, France, his books include Sebastien Erard: l'aventure du pianoforte (1995), Sebastien Erard ou la rencontre avec le pianoforte (1993) and Histoires de pianos (1990). Jenny Nex is an organologist and musician, and Curator of the Musical Instrument Museums in Edinburgh. Laure Barthel is a historian of the harp. She is the author of Au coeur de la harpe au XVIIIe siecle (2005). Michel Foussard, musicologist and organologist, recently retired as expert for instrumental cultural heritage, Ministere de la Culture (1999-2008). Prior to that he served as Directeur de l'Association Culturelle des Alpes Meridionales (Conseil General des Alpes-Maritimes) (1987-95), and curator of the historical musical instrument collection of the city of Nice (1975-87).

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