AMERICUS BACKERS

Early attempts to popularise the fortepiano in England met with little success. The first person to make such an instrument in London was Rutger (alias Roger) Plenius, a harpsichord maker residing in South Audley Street, who constructed at least two examples, taking as his inspiration an Italian pianoforte alledgedly made by 'an English monk in Rome'. The date of Plenius' Piano Forte would be about 1748. Two Piano Fortes were among his unsold stock when he was declared bankrupt in 1757. Plenius was born in Orsoy, on the Rhine in the Duchy of Cleves, but was orphaned at six years old and spent most of his early life in Amsterdam, living with his uncle. It does not appear that he ever learned musical instrument making as an apprentice in that city. None of his instruments are reported to have survived, although his work was widely admired in England during the eighteenth century.

At the time of Plenius' bankruptcy another migrant harpsichord maker, Frederick Neubauer arrived from Hamburg, and he probably acquired some of Plenius' stock, but whether this included any pianos is not known for certain. Neubauer assuredly was a highly competent professional maker and made Piano Fortes, to various designs, advertising them unequivocally in London during the years 1761 to 1768. Unhappily none of Neubauer's instruments have survived, and there is no exact description to fill the void.

But there is no doubt about the nature of fortepianos made by Americus Backers, which were played by the foremost musicians of the day. He too came from the Netherlands (according to James Shudi Broadwood) and archival documents first confirm his residence in Jermyn Street, just round the corner from the Royal Opera House, in 1763. His only surviving harpsichord is a double-manual dated 1766 ,fitted with a 'nag's head swell' which once belonged to Tenducci, a very famous castrato singer and friend of John Christian Bach.

Backers may have been making fortepianos about 1768 or earlier, judging by the serial numbers of his later output. Examples finished by him in 1770 were exhibited for several weeks at the Thatched House in February 1771, attracting much attention. They have several features that are very significant in the historical development of the grand piano. His were, it is believed, the first pianos to have a sustaining pedal, lifting off the dampers ad libitum to create a full resonant tone. This was worked by the player's right foot, a convention that has been followed ever since on concert instruments. Similarly, the left pedal, then as now, operated a 'soft pedal', again an innovation by Backers. In his instruments this moved the keyboard slightly to the right so that each hammer struck only one of the unison strings for that note, allowing the others to vibrate sympathetically. Such an effect, with its unique tone colour, cannot be replicated on modern pianos, though the concept of a 'soft pedal' has been retained.

There is just one known fortepiano by Backers extant today. It has long been on loan to the Russell Collection in Edinburgh. Dated clearly 1772, with serial number 21, it is by far the oldest English grand piano. The hammer mechanism is truly a breakthrough in design. It is not only simple and reliable, but has the great advantage over all other actions of the period that it may be adjusted and kept in good order through a series of set-off screws easily accessible by simply removing the nameboard. Backers therefore had invented all the essential features of what became known as the 'English Grand Action' cetainly by 1772, and probably a good deal earlier. Unfortunately for his posthumous reputation, Henry Fowler Broadwood, privately publishing a little booklet promoting the Broadwood company in 1861, makes mischief by suggesting that his grandfather John Broadwood, together with his then assistant Robert Stodart, played some essential role in helping Backers to perfect this mechanism. Hence many derivative publications repeat this apocryphal and posthumous tale, frequently suggesting that the invention of this important action should be attributed to the three men jointly, though the writers who say this do not appear to have ever examined the 1772 hammer mechanism, or to have considered why HFB might have been motivated to alter his father's testimony on this subject. (James Shudi Broadwood, 1772-1851, always credited Backers with the invention of the English grand piano.)

There is further widespread misinformation about Americus Backers and his instruments on the internet, and also in printed formats. One of the most misleading statements is that he was an apprentice of Gottfried Silbermann in Freiberg, Saxony. There is absolutely no documentary evidence to support this. (The names of Silbermann's assistants/apprentices were reported in 1982 by Werner Mueller, a careful German scholar, and his research did not find any of the later London piano-makers engaged in any capacity.) Furthermore, anyone who carefully compares a Silbermann piano with Backers' instrument of 1772 will see at once that there are few if any similarities. Contrary to popular belief Gottfried Silbermann did not fabricate a hammer mechanism based on the crude drawing of Cristofori's design published by Mattheson in Germany in 1725. On the contrary, the interior of Silbermann's piano scrupulously copies many details of the earlier Florentine work, reproducing it so accurately that every competent observer has conceded that these features must have been copied directly from an actual Italian instrument. Likewise Silbermann copied the design of wrestplank [as seen in the 1726 Cristofori piano now in Leipzig] with its inverted configuration [the strings being attached to the underside], and he also copied Cristofori's hollow cylindrical hammer heads. These important features are also replicated in the pianos made by his nephew Jean Henri Silbermann, during the 1770s, but not in Backers' pianos. If Backers ever saw a Silbermann piano he chose to do otherwise.

Backers' 1771 exhibition was evidently a great success because his 'Forte Pianos' were played by many influencial musicians, notably including the foremost professional player of the period, Johann Samuel Schroeter, whose delicate touch and expressive style was praised by all who heard him. A newspaper item, found by Dr Margaret Debenham, has also revealed that Marie Antoinette, Dauphinesse of France, ordered a fortepiano from Backers soon after the exhibition referred to above, and she was followed by Empress Maria Theresa, to whom another was dispatched for Vienna in April 1773.

So successful was Backers at this time that his 'Forte Piano' was not only copied (which was permissible as he had not patented it) but counterfeits were also offered for sale in music shops, fraudulently inscribed with Backers' name. He was understandably furious. In newspapers he offered a reward to anyone who would identify the forgers. This counterfeiting activity is almost certainly the origin of an eighteenth-century grand piano at Fenton House, Hampstead, (National Trust) which is inscribed as the work of Americus Backers, though it has many internal features which, when compared with the 1772 fortepiano in Edinburgh, reveal significant discrepancies. It plainly must be a counterfeiter's work. Nevertheless, it is an interesting and well made instrument.

At the pinnacle of his fame in 1777 Americus Backers fell ill and he died on 8 January 1778, leaving two children, Charles and Christiana, seven and six years old respectively. Despite the misleading wording of their father's will these children were not illegitimate [as previously suggested] but were born to Backers' wife, Philadelphia, whose existence was previously unknown. As she is not mentioned in Backers' will it is presumed that she died prematurely, perhaps soon after she gave birth to a third child, Amelia who was baptised in 1772, but died in infancy. As orphans Charles and Christiana may have faced a bleak future, but it is not known what became of them. [My thanks to Dr Margaret Debenham who found the previously undiscovered baptismal records of these children at St Dunstan-in-the-West, dating from 1770, 1771 and 1772.]

After Backers' untimely demise instruments reputedly made by him, but probably finished by an apprentice, continued to be sold from his house in Jermyn Street, and were advertised for sale until at least April 1780, fully two years after their putative maker was laid to rest. These public notices include the following sentence: The several crowned heads who have been pleased to order them, the numbers of persons of the highest rank and fashion in this country who are possessed of some of them, together with the approbation of the most eminent music masters, sufficiently show their excellence ... they need only to be heard to be approved. [Morning Post]

His pioneering work was of the utmost importance for the future of the grand piano manufacture in Britain as the principal makers from the following period, Robert Stodart [late 1770s] and John Broadwood [from 1784] developed Backers' design rather than the Silbermann tradition. Sebastien Erard, who began making grand pianos in Paris c.1792, also took the basic English grand piano as his model, but added to it extra pedals or mutation stops to cater for the French taste of the period.

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