Guillaume-Lebrecht Petzold was a piano maker in Paris in the early 19th century.
Petzold was born 2 July 1794 in Lichtenhayn, a village in
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a ...
near
Meißen. His father, a Protestant minister, wanted him to learn an artistic trade and in April 1798 brought him to
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
where he apprenticed with Charles Rodolphe August Wenzky, maker of organs and pianos to the court. After five years, Petzold travelled to
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
with a letter of recommendation from Wenzky to
Walther
Walther is a masculine given name and a surname. It is a German form of Walter, which is derived from the Old High German ''Walthari'', containing the elements ''wald'' -"power", "brightness" or "forest" and ''hari'' -"warrior".
The name was fi ...
for whom he worked until departing for
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
December 1805. Petzold formed a partnership with J. Pfeiffer in April 1806, and their first products were a cabinet upright which Petzold called the ''harmomelo'', and a well received triangular piano, followed by an improved square. The partners established their own workshops in 1814, and the sound, regulation and construction of Petzold's subsequent instruments earned him a distinguished reputation.
The enlarged soundboard Petzold introduced in square pianos at the 1806 French National Exposition received little notice. Its purpose was to increase the amount of sound, but the arrangement increased the height of the strings and required greater action leverage than the English square action could provide. Petzold substituted a variation of an English grand action with a crank escapement and individual hammer flanges, but the heavier blows it allowed required heavier stringing, which in turn required stronger frames. These changes gave his squares an unprecedented fullness and capacity for expression, and indicated the direction of subsequent changes that would take place in the art of constructing, as well as writing for and performing on pianos.
Notes
# This was a vertically strung, full size upright with underdampers operated by a crank from the keys. (Harding. p248); Fetis mistakes it for a kind of upright grand.
References
*
Fétis, F. J. (1867, 1880) Biographie universelle des musiciens. Didot frères, Paris.
*
Harding, R. (1978) The Piano-Forte. Gresham Books. Old Woking, Surrey.
French musical instrument makers
Piano makers
Businesspeople from Saxony
People from Meissen
1794 births
Year of death missing
German emigrants to France
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