REPORTS

OF THE

UNITED STATES COMMISSIONERS

TO THE

PARIS UNIVERAL EXPOSITION, 1867.

VOLUME I.

REPORT ON MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

PIANOS AND OTHER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION.

The French committee of admission of Group I, Class 10, musical instruments, subdivided and arranged the exhibition of objects in the class as follows: The products exhibited in Class 10 include eight principal series, viz: 1st, church organs; 2d, harmoniums; 3d, pianos; 4th, stringed instruments; 5th, wind instruments; 6th, percussion instruments; 7th, accessories for the manufacture; 8th, editions of musical works.
They observe in regard to the manufacture of musical instruments in France:

"Paris is the only important manufacturing place for organs, pianos, and harmoniums. Then follow, according to importance, Marseilles, Lyons, Nancy, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, where pianos are chiefly manufactured. Stringed instruments are made principally at Mirecourt; wind instruments, in wood, such as flutes, clarionets, hautbois, are more specially manufactured at Lacouture, (Eure.) All kinds of instruments are also made in Paris; Chateau-Thierry has likewise no specialty; nearly all kinds are manufactured there.
"The woods for musical instruments are produced from France, Russia, Norway, Brazil, St. Domingo, and Isle Bourbon. The native woods most frequently employed are oak, fir, lime, beach, maple, box and pear. These vary in price from 55 to 200 francs the cubic metre. Box is sold from 50 to 60 francs the 100 kilograms. The exotic woods most used are rosewood, mahogany, cedar, and cedrine, ebony and grenadille, which cost from 15 to 150 francs the 50 kilograms. Those more generally used are oak, fir, and beech for the heavy parts of pianos, organs and harmoniums ; cedar, lime, maple, and pear-tree for the mechanical parts ; rosewood and mahogany for veneering and ornamentation ; box, ebony and grenadille for wind instruments. Beech and mahogany are chiefly in use for bassoons. Ivory for piano keys is sold from 22 to 45 francs the set (50 keys.) The felt, woollen stuffs, skins, and glue for pianos are manufactured in France. Part of the felt comes from England. There is in France no manufacture of metallic cords. Those in steel are imported from England and Germany, and are worth about 8 francs per kilogram. The copper covering for strings is worht from 5 1/2 francs to 7 1/2 francs per kilogram. The metals most in use are iron, lead, copper, for wind instruments ; tin for organ pipes. The gut cords are manufactured in France.
"The tools employed for working the wood are the ordinary tools of the joiner and cabinetmaker. However, we must notice the profile machine for making panels, which is only an improvement of the parquetry machine ; and also the special steel perforators for wooden wind instruments. The only special tools in use for working metals are mandrils, employed in the manufacture of wind instruments. We must mention also, wheels for covering cords. All these tools were unknown in 1855, or rather have been very much improved since then.
"In Paris and all the large towns the men employed in the manufacture of musical instruments work together in the workshops ; scarcely any work at home. At Mirecourt, on the contrary, the men, about 250 in number, all work at home. Half the Paris workmen work by the piece ; the other half by the day. The salary varies from 3 francs 25 centimes for common workmen, and from 5 to 11 francs for the superior artisan. The musical instrument trade employs few women and children.
"Part of these articles are sold in France, and part to commission merchants, who buy for exportation; a third, perhaps the most considerable, is exported direct, to order, to all parts of the world. The small instruments are worth from 50 to 200 francs; harmoniums from 100 to 1,500 francs; violins and violoncellos from 200 to 500 francs; copper instruments from 80 to 400 francs; wind instruments, in wood, 80 to 300 francs; pianos, 500 to 4,000 francs; church organs from 2,500 to 100,000 francs. The profits of the manufacturers vary from 12 to 18 per cent. The manufacture of musical instruments represents a sum of 20,000,000 or 23,000,000 of francs per year. Raw materials are imported into France to the value of 5,000,000 or 6,000,000. About half the produce goes to foreign countries, and is exported to all parts of the world, but particularly to America, and chiefly to South America. The importation is inconsiderable."

In the class of musical instruments twenty nations were represented, which rank, with respect to the number of exhibitors, in the following order: First, France, Austria, Italy, England, Turkey, Portugal, Bavaria, and Belgium; second, Spain and Wurtemberg; third, the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Egypt; fourth, Holland and Denmark; fifth, Baden and Greece; sixth, Hesse; seventh, the Papal States. This order would be greatly different if the contributions were tested by their material value, or by their mechanical and artistic merits. The United States, for example, would take a much higher rank. Turkey would fall below Russia, and hardly take precedence of Egypt.
The annexed comparative table, while of interest as showing the variation in the number of exhibitors at the great Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862 in London, and of 1855 and 1867 in Paris, will also aid us in arriving at an approximate estimate of the relative importance of their contributions. The table is arranged in five sections, each of four columns. Each column answers to one of the four great competitive world's fairs; each section to a kind of instrument. The figures give the number of exhibitors. It is seen that there were in London, in 1851, 180 exhibitors, and in 1862, 335; at Paris, in 1855, 421, and in 1867, 473. If the following average is now made, which for the object in view is sufficiently accurate, viz: to each exhibitor of pianos, 2 instruments; to each exhibitor of organs, 1 instrument; to each exhibitor of stringed instruments, 6; to each exhibitor of wind instruments, 4. the following aggregates are obtained: pianos exhibited, 356; organs, 51; stringed instruments, 420; wind instruments, 656. Of all these instruments the piano merits our chief attention whether we regard it merely from an artistic point of view, or consider it in its social and even economic relations.

Designation for each country of the number of manufacturers in each specialty who were exhibitors.

Of all these instruments the piano merits our chief attention, whether we regard it merely from an artistic point of view, or consider it in its social and even economic relations.

History of the Invention of the Piano...p.6.

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