Pleyel et Cie

Pleyel pianos were the choice of composers such as Chopin, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, de Falla and Stravinsky and of pianists and teachers Alfred Cortot, Philip Manuel and Gavin Williamson.

[5] Nineteenth-century musicians involved in the company's management included Joseph O'Kelly and Georges Pfeiffer.

Around 1815, Pleyel was the first to introduce the short, vertically strung cottage upright piano, or "pianino" to France, adapting the design made popular in Britain by Robert Wornum.

The company's success led them to invest in experiments, resulting in the double piano in 1890, invented by Hungarian composer Emánuel Moór.

In 1913, Pleyel built the "Jungle Piano" for use by Albert Schweitzer in his hospital in Lambaréné (French Equatorial Africa – now Gabon).

It was fitted with pedal attachments (to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard) and built with tropical woods that would acclimate to conditions there.

They built a new factory in the south of France and started making a line of newly designed and improved pianos.