Piano and the Wheel

[ScriptChick]

Hello, I am writing a script and I'm trying to be as historically accurate as possible.

The story takes place in the mid-18th century France. I wanted to know if a piano in an upper/middle class home could have wheels. When did pianos start having them? It could be a harpsichord if that matters to the whole wheel issue.

I just thought it would be difficult for someone to realistically push a piano hard against a wall (three/four feet away) if it didn't have wheels. If you think the weight of an 18th century piano is small enough to still humanly accomplish this then that could work in my script too.

I already found out they didn't have metronomes back then (darn!), but I wanted to clear this up as well.

Thanks for your time.

[Bill Kibby]

Okay, I can't quite get the drift of the plot, but the first thing is that pianos don't usually have wheels, they have castors. Castors are different in that they allow movement to happen in any direction.

The first French pianos were made in 1777, there were virtually no pianos outside Germany in the mid-18th century, so a harpsichord is a better bet. This would be rather like the shape of a grand piano, or perhaps rectangular, but not an upright piano shape. Google images will show you lots of them, and I would guess that you won't find any castors.

These instruments are very much lighter than modern pianos, so if the legs or stand are attached, the whole thing can be moved by one person, but some have separate stands.

If you suddenly pushed it 3 feet, it would probably fall over, and as with a heavier piano, the normal way to move it is to have it lifted at both ends.

I can't say offhand how long metronomes have been around, perhaps 1814, but not early enough.

[ScriptChick]

could the harpsichord have castors on the bottom? It wasn't just a device invented to move pianos?

[Colin Nicholson]

I found a brief history about the metronome on this page >>

http://www.franzmfg.com/history.htm

I also found a couple of pictures of early square and grand pianos without castors, if it's of interest. (Dates are approximate)

A 1760 An early square piano in England would have either no legs or legs added later.

B 1780 Early grand pianos resembled harpsichords; often with 'trestle' or thin tapering
legs and squared-off ends.

[Bill Kibby]

Search google images for harpsichords, I don't think they ever had castors, but I am more of a piano man. I was perhaps taking "mid" too literally, and there were square pianos in England from the Seven Years War onwards. No castors. German and Austrian fortepianos (grands) would not have castors either, and hardly any grands were made in London until the 1780s.

[Gill the Piano]

You could ask an early piano specialist, like Lucy Coad. She often hires instruments out for filming, so she might know! She's on Google and based in the Bath area.