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         The History and The Culture of Chess



Thelcide's Érard
July 2006

  

   "Three or four times a week, a numerous assembly of artists, pertaining to almost every nationality, met at the house of that talented women whose supremacy they unanimously recognized. "C'est notre maitre á tous, (She is the master of all of us)", was their opinion, expressed by one of them, an old French musician.
   There were about forty-five music-stands at hand, in a closet adjoining the music-hall; and on the grand concerto-days, they were all taken out and grouped around the splendid
Érard, which had been manufactured especially for Mrs. Morphy and transported to her Louisiana home, with more solicitude than if it had been a priceless jewel. It was exceedingly simple in appearance, and destitute of a single ornament. It's value consisted entirely in it's wealth of sound, and resided within the plain rosewood frame, for the harmonies which issued from it were powerful and thrilling."

 Érard pianos circa mid 19th century

                    1836                                                                                           1840
   "There was a large and high music-hall in the house, so constructed as to be intensely sonorous, and it had been fitted up in a way that favored the reverberation of sound, which was not muffled and stifled by the thick carpets; heavy draperies and encumbering furniture. Besides the piano, it contained numerous light chairs, and a few massive music-stands of antiquated style. There was also a vast rosewood book-case, filled with all the master-pieces of classical music. When Herg, Thalberg and other celebrated artists came to New-Orleans, it was there only that they found various works which they had been unable to procure elsewhere in that city.
   All kinds of musical instruments stood up against the walls, or hung upon them in panophiles. Some of them were scattered pell-mell on the chairs."

all above text by Léona Queyrouze

                    Beethoven's Érard
Sébastien Érard was born in Strasbourg  April 5, 1752 and died  August 5, 1831. His pianos were considered among the best in the world and were used by such musicians as Liszt,  Beethoven, Verdi, Chopin, Liszt, Haydn, Herz,  Mendelssohn and  Moscheles. The pianos of Moscheles, Beethoven and Liszt can been seen today.

             In 1843 such a piano cost around 3000 francs.

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