The piano became an enormous source of amusement in the houses and social events, as well as a symbol of status to the families who had the capacity to acquire them. This relationship between piano and social prestige naturally led to an increase in demand for pianos, a situation which lead to new business opportunities, having emerged during the 19th century several spaces for piano sale and rental.
In a fist stage, between 1840 and 1847, some data collected by Rui Magno Pinto on the journal O Defensor indicate that the purchase and sale of pianos was done mostly among private owners, as proved by some ads posted in those journals. For instance, we can find in 1841 several references to trades done between private owners for sale and for purchase. In March 20th, Mr. Roque Caetano Araújo is looking for «someone who has a piano for sale»; a few months later, in May 8th, we can find an opposite ad in which an announcement places «a good piano for sale».
In the same year, we find a type of trade that would become dominant in the second half of the 19th century: the piano rental. Thus, on October 23rd, we can find an ad with a piano for sale and another one «for rental».
Later, in 1842, we can find several ads that seem to suggest the beginning of a rather dynamic trade market. For example, in October 22nd and 29th of that year we can find several piano offers, for sale and for rental, existing some ads that offer more than one piano. At the «Casa n.º 7, Rua do Peru» it’s announced that there are «Pianos-forte»; «H. Freitas – Rua da Carreira» has a piano for sale; in the same journal, the company «A. Halley Office, Rua dos Mercadores» also has a piano-forte, although for rental. Mr. Innes, (another trader, as I recall) traded pianos in 1844. On the following year, it began to emerge the first piano sale or rental ads in english on the same journal, which clearly seems to suggest the increased demand of this instruments by the british community. But it wasn’t only the bristish community that began to demand pianos. The growth of the sale and rental market of these instruments in Madeira may probably been due the foreign communities which since the mid 19th century began to live in Funchal, during long seasons – months and sometimes years – for health reasons. This 19th century tourism, composed mostly by wealthy people who had plenty of time for leisure in Funchal, must have certainly led to a bigger demand for these instruments, as various documents of the time prove.
For instance, the british Ellen Taylor, in her book Madeira, Its Scenery and How to See it, says that her family brought a piano from England, but she repented to have brought it because, in Funchal, Mr. Clairouin rented good french pianos for a good price (Taylor, 1882: 190). By his turn, the zoologist James Johnson, in his book Madeira its climate and scenery, published in 1885, also considers relevant to refer the name of Cândido Henrique de Freitas as the person who rents pianos in the Rua das Murças (Johnson, 1885: 20viii), two cases that show that the piano rental possibility was considered important information for the foreign visitors in Madeira.
Another important fact that contributed for the growth of the piano market in Madeira was the enormous increase of the piano production in Europe. The piano construction industry improved widely along the second half of the 19th, when there was a huge increase of the production capacity and builders working in such market. Thus, if in the beginning of the 19 the piano was still something new, in the mid-century the piano building industry statistics are well demonstrative. In Paris at that time there were around 180 piano builders, and it was estimated that there were 60000 instruments in the french capital; in England, the numbers were yet even more meaningful, existing 300 building firms, that produced around 20000 instruments per year (Rothstein, 1990: viii). This phenomenon made naturally possible a bigger piano offer and a decrease of prices, which lead to the piano spread thru the European middle classes. I is known that the southern Europe countries, as Spain, Italy and Portugal, which were less industrialized and had a smaller bourgeoisie, produced less pianos and tended to import their instruments from Germany, France and England. Even so, the increase of the number of pianos was also very meaningful in the southern Europe countries in this period (Loesser, 1990: 591).
The increase of the number of pianos in Funchal led also to the emergence of a new profession: the Piano Tuner. If we consider that the nowadays pianos, built with advanced technology, constantly need maintenance, then it is easy to conclude the middle 19th century pianos needed an even more careful conservation for a regular use. In the Madeira particular case, the maintenance situation was further aggravated by the island’s high humidity, which led the pianos to rust quickly and require frequent tuning, as it is possible to confirm on documents of that time.
«pianofortes frequently require tuning; and the screws of various other instruments, as violins, guitars, etc., become so tight as to be almost immovable» (Bloxom, 1855: 45).
(So, it is natural that the piano tuners early emerged in Funchal. In 1846, we find the first reference to this profesion. On the 11th December meeting report of the «Meeting Board of the Society that keeps the Asylo Room» it is thanked to «Mr. Drolha [who] tuned for free the piano that served the concert» for the benefit of the school’s facilities (Menezes, 1849: 528-529). Mr. Drolha was probably the clarinet player Caetano Domingos Drolha, military musician of the 1820’s decade in Lisbon, and one of the virtuoso musicians in Funchal who was connected to the Philharmonic Society created in 1840 (Carita e Mello, 1988: 39).
The tuner profession also appears in the tourist guides about Madeira. Ellen Taylor, in her earlier here quoted guide about Madeira, thought that it was not only relevant to present on her book a person who rented pianos but also refer on the same book the name of a madeiran piano tuner, along with his address: «Nuno Rodriguez, 53, Rua Nova de São Pedro» (Taylor, 1882: 28).
We find the next piano tuner name in the 20th century: João Graceliano Lino (1885-1963), a descendant of Nuno Rodriguez, even though the name does not show so, which indicates that the profession may have passed from generation to generation in this family. Besides being a tuner, João Graceliano Lino was also a contrabass player, being referred by Luiz Peter Clode as a «distinguished piano tuner, [who was] the tuner for the Madeira Concerts Society, being praised by several international fame pianists that passed by Madeira» (Clode, 1983: 285).
In the beginning of the 20th century, the pianos were still responsible for a strong market and it was possible to fin these instruments in at least nine Piano Sales Stores, according to a counting made by the Porto da Cruz Viscount , in His book Aspectos Agrícolas e Industriais da Madeira (Agricultural and Industrial Aspects of Madeira) (Porto da Cruz, 1930: 83). These stores besides selling pianos seemed to also sell musical scores and other kind of instruments, as we can see on an ad from 1908 from the Armazém Bazar do Povo (“People’s Bazaar Store”), were it was made possible the to purchase a piano in several payments or yet benefit of a rental regime of this instrument:
«We finished the installation of this section with the famous “Pleyel” and “Ronisch” pianos. They are two builders who have the largest reputation in the whole world. They are sold in repayment or for cash with big discounts. They are rented and traded. Large assortment of music’s and instruments of all genres » (Sarmento, 1908: [IV])).
From the 30’s and 40’s, the piano market declined on the European stage. The stores that sold radios and phonographs began to discourage the families from the piano home practice, defending the advantages of these new Technologies towards the (Loesser, 1990: 608). The piano has remained until nowadays, but its place in the center of the houses was substituted first by the radios and phonographs, and today by television and the modern stereos.
