The Industrialisation of Instruments

How factories, patents and markets rebuilt instruments and the orchestra.

Related

RomanticModernPianoTrumpet

Instruments were once the work of craftsmen. In the nineteenth century they became factory products.

The question

Industrialisation made instruments louder, more accurate and cheaper, and changed who could play. Standardisation increased reliability, but what did it erase?

Historical arc

The Industrial Revolution brought cast iron, steam power and precision tools. The piano gained an iron frame and cross-stringing, and its volume could fill a hall; Liszt's virtuoso music was written for it. Sax patented his saxophone in 1846, the Boehm flute was fixed in 1847, brass gained valves, and military and amateur bands expanded. Sousa and his publishers turned the march into a mass commodity.

The turning point

Factories used model numbers, gauges and advertising to define a good instrument, and local differences were smoothed away. Instruments became more reliable and more alike. Colonial trade then carried European band formats around the world.

What to listen for

Hear the roar of Liszt's First Piano Concerto, the brass unison of Sousa's Liberty Bell, and the modern colour of the Saxophone Sonata.

Related

Instrument industrialisation belongs to Romantic and continues into Modern; its greatest beneficiary is the Piano, and its loudest calling card is the Trumpet.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Instrument making" — dates checked, not quoted
• Cyril Ehrlich, The Piano, A History (Clarendon Press) — background checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.