Chickering and Sons was an American piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 manufacturer located in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, known for producing award-winning instruments of superb quality and design. The company was founded in 1823 by Jonas Chickering

Jonas Chickering

Jonas Chickering was a piano manufacturer in Boston, Massachusetts.Jonas Chickering was born in Mason Village, and raised in nearby New Ipswich, New Hampshire where his father Abner Chickering kept a farm and worked as a blacksmith...

 and James Stewart, but the partnership dissolved four years later. By 1830 Jonas Chickering became partners with John Mackay, manufacturing pianos as Chickering & Company, and later Chickering & Mackays until the senior Mackay's death in 1841, and reorganized as Chickering & Sons in 1853. Chickering pianos continued to be made until 1983.

Most Famous Piano

It was P.T. Barnum who persuaded Jenny Lind

Jenny Lind

Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...

 - the Swedish Nightingale - to make a concert tour of the United States. After her agreement, Barnum commissioned the Chickering company to manufacture a custom grand piano for her nationwide tour, ultimately involving 93 performances. The piano was completed by August of 1850; Lind arrived in September and the concert series began in Boston. Her pianist was Otto Goldschmidt

Otto Goldschmidt

Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt was a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces...

, whom she married at the end of her tour.

Coincidentally, as the tour began, Henry E. Steinway

Henry E. Steinway

Henry E. Steinway made pianos in Germany and the United States. He was the founder of the piano company Steinway & Sons....

 (Steinweg) and his large family arrived in New York as immigrants from Germany. Henry attended the opening night of the NYC concert series but showed little interest in the diva. His profound interest was in the Chickering piano, to which he dashed for such careful examination that he nearly had to be hauled away so the concert could begin.

On December 1, 1852, a massive fire destroyed Chickering's piano factory located at 336 Washington Street in Boston. One policeman was killed. The walls of the building collapsed, and set adjoining structures on fire. A new factory was built in 1853-54 at 791 Tremont Street in Boston, and this structure still stands today. It was renovated into artist studios in 1972.

Jonas Chickering made several major contributions to the development of piano technology, most notably by introducing a one-piece, cast-iron plate to support the greater string tension of larger grand pianos.

Chickering was the largest piano manufacturer in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century, but was surpassed in the 1860s by Steinway

Steinway & Sons

Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...

. In 1867, Jonas's son Frank Chickering had the Imperial Cross of the Legion of Honour, then one of the world's most prestigious non-military awards, bestowed upon him by Emperor Napoleon III

Napoleon III of France

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...

 for services to the art of music, one of more than 200 awards the piano manufacturer garnered over the years.

The company became in 1908 part of the American Piano Company (Ampico).

The Chickering name continues to be applied to new pianos today, as a brand name of the Baldwin Piano Company

Baldwin Piano Company

The Baldwin Piano Company was the largest US-based manufacturer of keyboard instruments, most notably pianos. It remains a subsidiary of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, although it ceased domestic production of pianos in December 2008.-History:...

.

External links

• Chickering in the grand piano-Photoarchive
• http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?832558
• http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?832848