HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

American Piano Company (Ampico) was an American
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
manufacturer formed in 1908 through the merger of Wm. Knabe & Co.,
Chickering & Sons Chickering & Sons was an American piano manufacturer located in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1823 by Jonas Chickering and James Stewart, but the partnership dissolved four years later. By 1830 Jonas Chickering became partners ...
, and Foster-Armstrong. They later purchased the
Mason & Hamlin Mason & Hamlin is a piano manufacturer based in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1854, they also manufactured a large number of pump organs during the 19th century. History 19th century Mason & Hamlin was founded in Boston, Massachusett ...
piano company as their flagship piano. The merger created one of the largest American piano manufacturers. In 1932, it was merged with the Aeolian Company to form Aeolian-American Co.


Reproducing pianos

From 1914, American Piano was one of the leading producers of
player piano A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern i ...
s, most notably their reproducing player known as the Ampico. The Ampico reproducing player piano was able to capture all the expression of the original performance, with dynamics and fine nuances other devices could not reproduce. Their main competitors in reproducing players were the Aeolian
Duo-Art Duo-Art was one of the leading reproducing piano technologies of the early 20th century, the others being American Piano Company (Ampico), introduced in 1913 too, and Welte-Mignon in 1905. These technologies flourished at that time because of th ...
(1913) and
Welte-Mignon M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte (1807–1880) in 1832. Overview From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical musi ...
(1905). The player piano and reproducing Ampico mechanism was originally designed by Charles Fuller Stoddard (1876–1958) with Dr. Clarence Hickman joining the company in the mid-1920s. Distinguished classical and popular pianists such as
Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
(1873–1943),
Leo Ornstein Leo Ornstein (born ''Лев Орнштейн'', ''Lev Ornshteyn''; – February 24, 2002) was an American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative ...
(1892–2002),
Ferde Grofé Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé, known as Ferde Grofé (March 27, 1892 April 3, 1972) (pronounced FUR-dee GROW-fay) was an American composer, arrangement, arranger, pianist and instrumentalist. He is best known for his 1931 five-movement tone poem, ...
(1892-1972),
Winifred MacBride Winifred MacBride (born before 1900 – died after 1975), later Winifred MacBride Thomas, was a Scottish-born concert pianist who achieved international acclaim in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly for her interpretations of t ...
,
Marguerite Melville Liszniewska Marguerite Melville Liszniewska (April 17, 1879 – March 7, 1935) was an American pianist, teacher, and composer. Early life and education Melville was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Charles W. Melville and Mary Theresa Hughes M ...
, and
Marguerite Volavy Marguerite Volavy, also known as Madame Volavy (1886 - 1951), was a pianist known for her recordings of Czech music and composers. Early life Volavy was born in Brno, Moravia, and studied at the Vienna Conservatory under Anton Door. She grad ...
(1886–1951), Adam Carroll, Frank Milne, and others recorded for Ampico, and their rolls are a legacy of 19th and early 20th century aesthetic and musical practice. By the end of 1932, Ampico suffered economic difficulties and was finally merged with the
Aeolian Company The Aeolian Company was a musical-instrument making firm whose products included player organs, pianos, sheet music, records and phonographs. Founded in 1887, it was at one point the world's largest such firm. During the mid 20th century, it surpas ...
, manufacturer of player pianos and organs. The combined company, known as Aeolian-American Corp., went through several ownership changes before declaring bankruptcy in 1985. The Ampico reproducing player piano system was discontinued in 1941. The last model introduced was the Ampico Spinet Reproducing Piano, which had all the functionality of a reproducing piano, and although having a low cost of $495, had modest sales. The first piano rolls specially coded for the Ampico were made by Rythmodik Music Corporation.


History

Originally named Despatch after the transportation company that spawned several dozen car shops in the area, the village of East Rochester was also home to a musical manufacturing giant for the better part of the 20th century. Nestled in between the New York Central Railroad tracks and Commercial Street, the 250,000 square-foot edifice designed by Henry Ives was the first industrial building in the United States to be constructed from reinforced concrete. Renowned for its fine craftsmanship, the American Piano Company was the largest distributor and manufacturer of pianos in the world by the mid-1920s. The instrument's popularity reached its peak that decade thanks to a growth in prosperity and an increased interest in music stimulated by phonographs and radio. Piano producers across the country would not fare as well the following decade. Over 347,000 pianos were purchased in the United States in 1923, .


Legacy

Ampico reproducing pianos, and their associated piano rolls were rediscovered by collectors in the 1960s who formed the
Automatic Musical Instruments Collector's Association The Automatic Musical Instruments Collector's Association (AMICA) was formed in 1963 by a group of collectors in the San Francisco area, committed to the preservation, restoration and enjoyment of vintage mechanical musical instruments that play ...
.


References

General references * Larry Givens: ''Re-enacting the Artist: A Story of the Ampico Reproducing Piano,'' Vestal, N.Y.: Vestal Press, 1970. * Elaine Obenchain: ''The Complete Catalog of Ampico Reproducing Piano Rolls,'' New York: American Piano Co., 1977
''History of Ampico,'' by The Pianola Institute, London, Accessed April 1, 2009
Piano manufacturing companies of the United States Mechanical musical instruments Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York (state) {{musical-instrument-company-stub