Tag Archives: Ric Overton

Guest blog: Ric Overton – Collard and Collard

October 19, 2011

| Author: Vintage & Rare

Our own piano enthusiast Ric Overton is back with his second blogpost for the Vintage & Rare blog. This time the main focus is Collard and Collard pianos. Enjoy.

Collard and Collard

Among the pianos that I love and adore Collard and Collard would be one of my favorites, mostly because of the absolutely exquisite cabinetry and design. Collard and Collard are certainly among the nicest pianos with the most respected name in the industry world-wide.

F.W. Collard was baptized in 1772. The actual year of his birth is unclear. In or around 1786, he moved to London and at the age of fourteen he began working for a music publisher and pianoforte builder known as Longman, Lukey and Broderip.

Unfortunately, in the later part of the 1700’s Longman, Lukey & Broderip began to suffer some levels of financial problems and were forced to sell their interests to other investors. By the later part of 1800 a new company had emerged, owned by Muzio Clementi, Josiah Banger and F.W. Collard with a portion also going to David Davis. The new firm was known as Muzio Clementi & Company. The reason this name was chosen was that by this time Clementi had risen to substantial fame and notoriety as a composer and performer not to mention that he had also become quite wealthy.

It is not clear when David Davis left the company but it has been noted that Banger left in 1817 and William Frederick Collard came in. In 1831 the partnership between the Collard brothers and Clementi expired and in 1832 the company was renamed to Collard and Collard.

In 1842 William Frederick Collard retired and F.W. Collard became the owner of the company. He in turn took F.W. Collard Jr. (his brothers son) and Charles Lukey Collard (another nephew) in as partners of the firm.

Among the many changes that were made during the transition that the next few years would bring, is that Collard & Collard decided to completely divest themselves of the publishing business and concentrate mostly in piano building. One problem that arose is that they had a contract with India to provide bugles, drums and other musical instruments until the government of India was transferred to the Queen which left the family firm free to turn their collective energies solely to the manufacturing of pianos.

Over the years Collard and Collard were met with many successes. They won numerous design awards because of F.W.’s considerable talent as an engineer and good fortune smiled on them in several situations where they simply saw an opportunity and were able to react to the needs of the demands of their time.

Of course, along with the great accomplishments also came two devastating fires, one in 1807 which destroyed the Tottenham Court Road factory and again in 1851 when the newest factory on Oval Road in Camden Town was also completely destroyed.

In 1860 the firm announced the passing of F.W. and again the passing of W.F. in 1866. Interestingly, F.W.passed away in the same house on Cheapside where he arrived at the age of 14 and lived until he was 88.

The company was among the most celebrated piano companies in all of Europe. It was finally purchased by Chappell Piano Company of London in 1929 and remained in production until sometime in 1960.

Once you have the opportunity to see and experience Collard and Collard you will also see why this would rank among my favorite pianos of all times.

Ric Overton

Ric@PianoSD.com
PianoSD.com

Guest-blog by Ric Overton of PianoSD.com

October 3, 2011

| Author: Vintage & Rare

At Vintage & Rare we are not just into vintage guitars. We’re also into other instruments. Therefore we are lucky to have the piano enthusiast Ric Overton write guest blogs for us. He has been so kind to share how he fell in love with the piano and what he is doing today. We welcome Ric in our community and look forward to his many blog post in the future.

Passionate about the Piano!

It’s hard for some people to understand how I could have fallen in love with an instrument, but, I am in love with the piano. Of course, I like piano music and I enjoy practically every style of music under the sun, but, I love the piano itself. Let me explain:

Several years ago I worked for Baldwin Piano Manufacturing in Arkansas, United States. My first week of training I was asked to work in the factory so that I could capture the story of how Baldwin pianos were made and the steps that we went through to get the finished product and that is when it all began. I was instantly smitten with the process of how it started all the way to the finished product. There are an incredible amount of hours of labor that go into the making of the piano, the hardwood cabinets, the action, stringing, plate, etc. and to think that a person and not a machine actually has to touch each and every part made me realize that what I was playing on would have been touched by perhaps a hundred people or more. These people had families and lives of their own and while they would most likely never be heard of outside of their community, the world would hear their work.

That began my quest to understand how we arrived at where we are today in piano building and where it all first started.

Since Cristofori’s invention in around 1700 there have been vast improvements. Today, we have changed the construction of the plate, integrated new details for the strings, and changed the hammers as well as bits and pieces of the action model. But since the later part of the 1700’s and going into the early part of the 1800’s very little has been altered from the basic original design. Of course we have changed and updated some things because it is more feasible to create and the tone change is dramatic, but, for the most part the piano of today is very close to Cristofori’s first design.

In the early 1800’s we had builders who are still making pianos to this day. That list would include such names as Sauter (my personal favorite), Steinway, Grotrian, August Forester, Bluthner not to mention Bosendorfer and several others that are to long to list. However, these guys knew how to build pianos that would last and have kept the integrity of piano building that would last for generations to come.

I operate a small retail piano store in Nipomo a small piano shop on the Central Coast of California. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be in this business. To see young musicians that are just starting out and entering their formidable years is fun and exciting. I try and explain to each of them the heritage that has shaped the piano building process and where we are today.

Of course, as is with any product on the market, we have products on the market today such as digital pianos that can mimic the piano but there will never be a duplicate of the original.

I look forward to explaining some of the details of the great piano builders of our time and hope to hear comments and questions.

Ric Overton

Ric@PianoSD.com
http://PianoSD.com