Revival & Restoration

Mr. Langshaw was in the vanguard of a popular music revolution that gave many people access to the pleasures of music-making, both in private and in sociable harmony.

The piano maker John Broadwood was a business man of genius who saw that pianos could be made in a range of styles to suit the social distinctions and aspirations of the day. He was the first to produce pianos in serious commercial numbers, by industrial methods.

M.Clementi, Sonata Op.25, No.5, Second Movement (1790)

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The relationship between the musician, Mr. Langshaw and John Broadwood was a microcosm of the way the piano culture helped to shape modern English life. As it became both a musical and a commercial success it drew many different people into its harmonious ambit and became a cultural commodity and an instrument of socio-cultural democracy.

Through musicians like Mr. Langshaw pianos found their way out of the Court and the drawing-rooms of a privileged few, into the middle-class parlour, the schoolhouse and public house and eventually into the front rooms of an industrialised nation.

The evidence for this Quiet Revolution is in the manufacturer's records. The story of Mr. Langshaw and his square piano is contained in long-forgotten letters, sketchbooks and scrapbooks scattered in archives throughout northern England, and North America.

The square piano he bought in 1807 has been restored and has plenty of life left in it.