Increasingly abandoned on street corners or offered for free on classifieds sites, old pianos have lost their former glory, replaced by digital instruments, which are less expensive and easier to house and move. You have to go back to the last century to understand to what extent the piano could occupy a place of choice in Quebec homes.
Piano tuner for more than forty years, Mario Bruneau is saddened to see old pianos being relegated to the sidewalk or ending their days in landfills because they are too bulky. Classifieds sites have several old pianos every day which, even if sold for free, do not find buyers. “Imagine the efforts and resources deployed at the beginning of the 20the century, by piano makers to develop magnificent pianos that are now abandoned on the side of the street! And what about the elephants slaughtered for their ivory tusks that cover the keys of these old abandoned pianos? he said.
Not all pianos are equal. A good piano has a lifespan of a hundred years, explains Mr. Bruneau. It is therefore not surprising to see, in recent years, many pianos abandoned because of their advanced age. According to him, some pianos made since the 1940s are of poor quality. After thirty years, they are no longer in good condition. “So out of 10 abandoned pianos, you will find only one piano worth restoring, with costs varying between $3,000 and $10,000. »
It is still necessary to be able to assess the value of these pianos. Mario Bruneau is retired, but helps clients find an instrument. He says he found a piano to give away on Kijiji of much better quality than the one his client was planning to buy for $2,000…
Pianos put up for adoption
The abandonment of pianos, André Lacombe knows that. The company he works for, L’As du piano, specializes in moving them. Time and time again, he has received calls for a piano left in an apartment by a former tenant or in a newly purchased house. “For some, when it’s out of their sight, it’s not their problem anymore,” he says.
Moving a piano is no small feat. Gone are the days when ordinary movers carried these behemoths that could weigh up to 1,000 pounds up Montreal stairs. Due to health and safety standards, specialized teams now have to take care of this.
Four years ago, André Lacombe created a program called Piano to the next in order to recover pianos and find them an adoptive family. The pianos are donated, but those who offer their instrument must assume the cost of transport to the warehouse located in Louiseville. Host families must do the same to obtain them. In four years, 67 pianos have been given a second life thanks to Piano to the Next.
Some pianos end up in music schools and CHSLDs, or are recovered by municipalities. André Lacombe says that, by pure chance, the piano once belonging to an elderly lady ended up, a few months later, in the CHSLD where she now lived.
These days, the warehouses of L’As du piano are full. Supply exceeds demand. “But I don’t have any ‘pichous’ in there. Sometimes, we have antique pianos, Dominions with superb woodwork, up to Wurlitzer apartment pianos that are still worth a good amount of money even today. »
A former piano capital
Montreal was a piano capital. This instrument was for a long time an integral part of family life. It is around him that many evenings are lived. Classical sheet music is selling well, as are notebooks The good song of Father Charles-Émile Gadbois.
Publicity campaigns are launched to arouse the interest of the piano. The instrument is first associated with the idea of a well-educated young girl, according to a conception of family life where the woman is responsible for entertainment. In religious institutions, many make it the center of their teaching. Augustine’s Passion (2015), a film by Léa Pool, testifies to this place occupied by the religious world in piano teaching.
In the 1930s, in Montreal, one household in five had a piano. In front of the appetite for this instrument, several manufacturers will be established in the area of Montreal, in particular in Sainte-Thérèse. By 1851, there were ten piano manufacturers in Montreal and three in Quebec.
It is still common to find Craig pianos, made in Montreal from 1856. The Craig Piano Company, long established on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in Mile End, has since been converted into apartments. The district will have two other manufacturers: the Ducharme and the Pratte. The company Les pianos Pratte will be the first to manufacture a Quebec grand piano. The concert model was launched with great fanfare in 1912, during a recital given at the chic Ritz-Carlton by pianist Victoria Cartier, niece of Sir George-Étienne Cartier, one of the Fathers of Confederation. But it is not only in cozy and bourgeois places that the piano triumphs.
Pratte was also the first Canadian to build a mechanical piano, a complex instrument capable of playing familiar tunes automatically. The Prattes distributed printed material to promote the popularity of music in general and of the piano in particular. For his instruments, Antonio Pratte will accumulate a multitude of patents, which make him a successful businessman.
Just before the war in 1914, approximately 30,000 pianos were manufactured in Canada, reports a study by Helmut Kallmann and Florence Hayes. It is these pianos, more and more, that we find abandoned on street corners.
The Sohmer amusement park, a must in Montreal life until 1919, owes its name to a brand of piano. The promoter of the park, a sort of La Ronde of its time, is the local distributor of New York pianos from the Sohmer brand. Around 1925, the piano industry employed 5,000 people in the Montreal region.
For decades, home interiors gave way to instruments made in Quebec. There are still, here and there, Quebec pianos from Craig, Foisy and Pratte, Lesage, Sénécal, Langelier or Quidoz, to name a few.
From the beginning of the XXe century, the quality of Quebec pianos is such that only expensive instruments continue to be imported. The market for expensive Steinway pianos will remain.
Mario Bruneau evokes the pianos of David & Michaud. “These pianos have nothing to envy to the Steinways and yet they went unnoticed in Quebec,” he explains. “Jérémie David and Oswald Michaud were true geniuses. A David & Michaud piano at the edge of the sidewalk? Quick, pick it up! »