A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bord, Antoine

BORD, Antoine, pianoforte-maker, of Paris, was born at Toulouse in 1814. Apprenticed at the age of 13 to a cabinet-maker he soon learned the use of tools, and the small weekly payment he received from his master had to go into the family purse, Bord's parents being in straitened circumstances and he the eldest child of seven. The apprenticeship of three years over, he found employment in a larger business, and it so happened that he was required to make a pianoforte-case (on the model of Roller et Blanchet) for an amateur who was himself to complete the inside. His assisting in the internal work brought about the idea of his becoming a pianoforte-maker. As there was no business of the kind in Toulouse his father unwillingly let him go to Marseilles, where he obtained work as a key-maker. His desire to learn more than this led him to Lyons, where he was employed by a maker who was a Saint-Simonien, and who left Bord almost to his own resources in making a piano throughout. However, this instrument has become of a certain importance in musical biography, as Bord's master gave it to the composer Félicien David, who took it with him to the East. From Lyons, Bord, now 19 years old, went to Paris, and constructed a square piano for a pianino-maker, one M. Mercier. While in this employ he acquired as much proficiency in tuning as enabled him to 'rough up,' the technical term for the first tuning of a pianoforte. At 20 he began to manufacture upon his own account, but an engagement at Pleyel's soon after offering itself, he became a regulator, and afterwards travelling repairer to that firm. In 1843, Bord began that business in Paris which is now universally known by his name, and early introduced inventions, the more important of which are recorded under Pianoforte and Pianette. He died Mar. 10, 1888.

[ A. J. H. ]