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See also:PIANOFORTE (Ital. piano, soft, and forte, loud)
.
The See also:group
of keyed stringed musical See also:instruments, among which the piano-
forte is latest in See also:order of See also:time, has been invented and step by
step See also:developed with the See also:modern See also:art of See also:music, which is based
upon the simultaneous employment of different musical sounds
.
In the loth See also:century the " organum " arose, an elementary
See also:system of See also:accompaniment to the See also:voice, consisting of fourths and
octaves below the See also:melody and moving with it; and the See also:organ
(q.v.), the earliest keyed See also:instrument, was, in the first instance, the
See also:rude embodiment of this See also:idea and convenient means for its
expression
.
There was as yet no See also:keyboard of balanced See also:
Aribo strenuously endeavoured to improve it, and " by the See also:grace of See also:God " invented a mono-chord measure which, on See also:account of the rapidity of the leaps he could make with it, he named a See also:wild-See also:goat (caprea)
.
See also:Jean de Muris (Musica speculativa, 1323) teaches how true relations may be found by a single-string monochord, but recommends a four-stringed one, properly a tetrachord, to gain a knowledge of unfamiliar intervals
.
He describes the musical instruments known in his time, but does not mention the clavichord or monochord with keys, which could not have been then invented
.
Perhaps one of the earliest forms of such an instrument, in which stoppers or tangents had been adopted from the organistrum, is shown in fig
.
1, from a See also:wood See also:carving of a See also:vicar choral or organist, pre-served in St See also:Mary's church, See also:Shrewsbury
.
The latest date to which this interesting figure may be
attributed is 146o, but the conventional See also:representation shows that the instrument was then already of a past See also:fashion, although perhaps still retained in use and See also:familiar to the See also:carver
.
In the See also:Weimar Wunderbuch,3 a MS. dated 1440, with See also:pen and See also:ink miniatures, is given a " clavichordium " having 8 See also:short and apparently 16 See also:long keys, the artist has drawn 12 strings in a rectangular See also:case, but no tangents are visible
.
A keyboard of balanced keys existed in the little portable organ known as the See also:regal, so often represented in old carvings, paintings and stained windows
.
See also:Vitruvius, De architectura, See also:lib. x. cap. xi., translated by See also:Newton, describes a balanced keyboard; but the key apparatus is more particularly shown in The See also:Pneumatics of See also:Hero of See also:Alexandria, translated by Bennet Woodcroft (See also:London, 1851)
.
In See also:confirmation of this has been the remarkable recovery at See also:Carthage' of a terra-See also:cotta See also:model of a Hydraulikon or See also:water. organ, dating from the 2nd century A.D., in which a balanced keyboard of 18 or 19 keys is shown
.
It seems likely the balanced keyboard was lost, and afterwards reinvented
.
The name of
2 See " Musica aribonis scholastici," printed by See also: 197; and in J . P . See also:Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, vol . 150, See also:col . 1307 . Grossherzogliche Bibliothek . See also Dr Alwin Schulz, Deutsches Leben See also:im xiv. and xv . Jahrhund . (See also:Vienna, 1892), p . 58, fig . 522 . ' For an See also:illustration of this important piece of See also:evidence, see under ORGAN: See also:Ancient History; and for description and illustration of balanced keys, see KEYBOAE.n . Monochord; Clavichord . regal was derived from the See also:rule (See also:regula) or graduated See also:scale of keys, and its use was to give the singers in religious processions the See also:note or See also:pitch . The only instrument of this See also:kind known to exist in the See also:United See also:Kingdom is at See also:Blair See also:Atholl, and it bears the very See also:late date of 163o . The See also:Brussels regal' may be as modern . These are instances of how long a some-time admired musical instrument may remain in use after its first intention is forgotten . We attribute the See also:adaptation of the narrow regal keyboard to what was still called the monochord, but was now a complex of monochords over one resonance See also:board, to the latter See also:half of the 14th century; it was accomplished by the 'substitution of tangents fixed in the future ends of the balanced keys for the movable See also:bridges of the monochord or such stoppers as are shown in the Shrewsbury carving . Thus the monochordiuin or" payre of monochordis " became the clavichordium or " payre of clavichordis "—pair being applied, in the old sense of a "pair 'of steps," to a See also:series of degrees . This use of the word to imply gradation was See also:common in See also:England to all keyed instruments; thus we read, in the Tudor See also:period and later, of a pair of regals, See also:organs, or virginals . Ed. See also:van der Straeten2 reproduces a so-called clavichord of the 15th century from a MS. in the public library at See also:Ghent . The See also:treatise is See also:anonymous, but other See also:treatises in the same MS. See also:bear See also:dates 1503 and 1504 . Van der Straeten is of See also:opinion that the See also:drawing may be assigned to the See also:middle of the 15th century . The See also:scribe calls the instrument a clavicimbalum, and this is undoubtedly correct; the 8 strings in the drawing are stretched from back to 'front over a long sound-board, the longest strings to the See also:left; 8 keys, 4 long and 4 short with levers to which are attached the jacks, are seen in a See also:horizontal See also:line behind the keyboard, and behind them again are given the names of the notes a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h .
In the Weimar Wunderbuch is a pen-and-ink See also:sketch of the " clavicimbalum "3 placed upon a table, in which we recognize the familiar outline of the See also:harpsichord, but on a smaller scale
.
The keyboard shows See also: 454: regal with two See also:bellows, end of XVI . C . Compass E to See also:a2 . ' La Musique aux Pays Bas, i . 278 . ' See Dr Alwin Schulz, op. cit., fig . 524 . ' V . 410 and 414 . See See also:Ambros, Geschichte der Musik (1892), U . 226 . 6 L'Harmonie universelle (See also:Paris, 1636), livre TI I. p .
107
.
6 A
.
J
.
Hipkins, History of See also:Pianoforte (London, 1896), p
.
51.the Shrewsbury example
.
We quote the reference to it from Dr Ambros.' He says a carving represents See also:
The extent of this scale is exactly Guido's
.
Virdung's diagram of the chromatic is the same as our own familiar keyboard, and comprises three octaves and a note, from F below the See also:bass stave to G above the See also:treble
.
But Virdung tells us that even then clavichords were made longer than four octaves by repetition of the same order of keys
.
The introduction of the chromatic order he attributes to the study of See also:Boetius, and the consequent endeavour to restore the three musical genera of the Greeks—the diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic
.
But the last-named had not been attained
.
Virdung gives woodcuts of the clavichordium, the See also:virginal, the clavicymbalum and the See also:clavicytherium
.
We reproduce three of them (See also:figs
.
3, 6 and See also:r2), omitting the virginal
1Mmiii f IP.7 \__'°-See also:rein
.~i+~f1/~1~/Ilyl It -~8\011~ /If# ff.. gffM/Iff d/0.ff i
~iss~~rssssi~~s_1~s~n_ _u_ /(
as obviously incorrect
.
Writers on musical instruments have continually repeated these drawings withoutidiscerning that in the See also:printing they are reversed, which puts the keyboards entirely wrong, and that in Luscinius's Latin See also:translation of Virdung (Musurgia, sive praxis musicae, Strasburg, 1536), which has been hitherto chiefly followed, two of the engravings, the clavicimbalum and the clavicytherium, are transposed, another cause of See also:error
.
Martin See also: Still vulgarly known as monochord, Virdung's clavichord was really a See also:box of monochords, all the strings being of the same length . He derives the clavichord from Guido's monochord as he does the virginal from the psaltery, but, at the same time, confesses he does not know when, or by whom, either instrument was invented . We observe in this drawing the short sound-board, which always remained a peculiarity of the clavichord, and the straight sound-board bridge—necessarily so when all the strings were of one length . To gain an See also:angle of incidence for the tangents against the strings the keys were made crooked, an expedient further rendered necessary by the " fretting "—three tangents, according to Virdung, being directed to stop as many notes from each single group of three strings tuned in unison; each tangent thus made a different vibrating length of string . In the drawing the strings are merely indicated . The See also:German for See also:fret is Bund, and such a clavichord, in that See also:language, is known as a "gebundenes Clavichord" both fret (to rub) and Bund (from binden, to See also:hind) having been taken over from the See also:lute or See also:viol . The See also:French and Italians employ " touche " and " tasto," See also:touch . Praetorius who wrote a hundred years later than Virdung, says two, three and four tangents were thus employed in stopping . There are extant small clavichords having three keys and tangents to one pair of strings and others have no more than two tangents to a note formed by a pair of strings, instead of three . Thus seven pairs of strings suffice for an octave of twelve keys, the open notes being F, G, A, B flat, C, D, E flat, and by an unexplained peculiarity, perhaps derived from some See also:special estimation of the notes which was connected with the church modes, A and D are left throughout See also:free from a second tangent . A corresponding value of these notes is shown by their See also:independence of chromatic alteration in tuning the See also:double Irish See also:harp, as explained by Vincentio Galilei in his treatise on music (Dialogo della musica, See also:Florence, 1581) . Adlung, who died in 1762, speaks of another fretting, but it must have been an adaptation to the modern See also:major scale, the " free " notes being E and B . Clavichords were made with double fretting up to about the See also:year 1700—that is to say, to the epoch of J . S . See also:Bach, who, taking See also:advantage of its abolition and the consequent use of See also:independent pairs of strings for each note, was enabled to tune in all keys equally, which had been impossible so long as the fretting was maintained . The modern scales having become established, Bach was now able to produce, in 1722, Das woltltentperirte Clavier, the first collection of preludes and fugues in all the twenty-four major and See also:minor scales for a clavichord which was tuned, as to See also:concordance and dissonance, fairly equal . The oldest clavichord, here called manicordo (as French manicorde, from monochord), known to exist is that shown in fig . 4 . It will be observed that the lowest octave is here already See also:Ftc . 4.-Manicordo (Clavichord) d'Eleonora di Montalvo, 1659; Kraus Museum, Florence . " hundfrei " or fret-free . The strings are no longer of equal length, and there are three bridges, divisions of the one bridge, in different positions on the sound-board . Mersenne's " manicorde " (Harmonie universelle, Paris 1636, p . 115), shown in an See also:engraving in that See also:work, has the strings still nearly of equal length, but the sound-board bridge is divided into five . The fretted clavichords made in See also:Germany in the last years of the 17th century have the curved sound-board bridge, like a spinet . In the clavichord the tangents always form the second bridge, indispensable for the vibration, besides acting as the sound exciters (fig . 5) . The common damper to all the strings is a See also:list of See also:cloth, interwoven behind the tangents . As the tangents quitted the strings the cloth immediately stopped all vibration . Too much cloth would diminish the See also:tone of this already feeble instrument, which gained the name of " dumb spinet " from its use . In the clavichord in See also:Rubens's St Cecilia (See also:Dresden Gallery)—interesting as perhaps representing that r- painter's own instrument—the 2wr " ~iff1TTITif damping cloth is accurately FIG . 5 . —Clavichord Tangent. painted . The number of keys there shown is three octaves and a third, F to A—the same extent as in See also:Handel's clavichord now in the museum at See also:Maidstone (an Italian instrument dated 1726, and not fretted), but with the peculiarity of a combined chromatic and short octave in the lowest notes, to which we shall have to refer when we arrive at the spinet; we pass it by as the only instance we have come across in the clavichord . The clavichord must have gone out of favour in Great See also:Britain and the See also:Netherlands early in the 16th century, before its expressive See also:power, which is of the most See also:tender and intimate quality, could have been, from the nature of the music played, observed, —the more brilliant and elegant spinet being preferred to it . Like the other keyboard instruments it had no German name, and can hardly have been of German origin .
See also:Holbein, in his drawing of the See also:family of See also:Sir See also: This answers the assertion which has been made that J . S . Bach could not have been See also:nice about tuning when he played from preference on an instrument of uncertain intonation . The next instrument described by Virdung is the virginal (virgin-ails, proper for a girl), a parallelogram in shape, having the same projecting keyboard and compass of keys the same as virginal. the clavichordium . Here we can trace derivation from the psaltery in the sound-board covering the entire inner See also:surface of the instrument and in the triangular disposition of the strings . The virginal in Virdung's drawing has an impossible position with reference to the keyboard, which renders its See also:reproduction as an illustration useless . But in the next drawing, the clavi- cimbalum, this is rectified, and the drawing, reversed on clavl cnnbalum . account of the keyboard, can be accepted as roughly representing the instrument so called (fig . 6) . There would be 1ARP1110 no difference between it and the virginal were it not for a peculiarity of keyboard compass, which emphatically refers itself to the Italian " spinetta," a name unnoticed by Virdung or by his countryman See also:Arnold Schlick, who, in the same year 1511, published his Spiegel der Orgelmacher (Organ-builders' See also:Mirror), and named the clavichordium and clavicimbalum as familiar instruments . In the first place, the keyboard, beginning apparently with B natural, instead of F, makes the clavicimbalum smaller than the virginal, the strings in this arrangement being shorter; in the next place it is almost certain that the Italian spinet compass, beginning apparently upon a semitone, is identical with a " short measure " or " short octave " organ compass, a very old keyboard arrangement, by which the lowest note, representing B, really sounded G and C See also:sharp in like manner A . The origin of this may be deduced from the psaltery and many representations of the regal, and its See also:object appears to have been to obtain dominant basses for cadences, harmonious closes having early been sought for as giving See also:pleasure to the See also:ear . Authority for this practice is to be found in Mersenne, who, in 1636, expressly describes it as occurring in his own spinet (espinette) . He says the keyboards of the spinet and organ are the same . Now, in his Latin edition of the same work he renders espinette by clavicimbalum . We read (Harmonie Universelle, Paris, 1636, liv . 3, p . 107—" Its longest string [his spinet's] is little more than a See also:foot in length between the two bridges . It has only See also:thirty-one keys [See also:marches] in its keyboard, and as many strings over its sound-board [he now refers to the illustra- tion], so that there are five keys hidden on account of the per- spective—that is to say, three diatonic and two chromatic [ feintes, same as the Latin ficti], of which the first is cut into two [a divided sharp forming two keys] ; but these sharps serve to go down to the third and fourth below the first step, C sol [See also:tenor clef C], in order to go as far as the third octave, for the eighteen See also:principal steps make but an eighteenth, that is to say, a fourth more than two octaves." The note we See also:call F, he, on his engrav- See also:ing, letters as C, indicating the pitch of a spinet of the second See also:size, which the one described is not . The third and fourth, reached by his divided sharp, are consequently the lower A and G; or, to See also:complete, as he says, the third octave, the lowest note might be F, but for that he would want the diatonic semitone B, which his spinet, according to his description, did not possess.' Mersenne's statement sufficiently proves; first, the use in spinets as well as in organs of what we now call " short measure," and, secondly, the object of divided sharps at the lower end of the keyboard to gain lower notes . He speaks of one string only to each note; unlike the double and triple strung clavichord, those instruments, clavicimbalum, spinet, or virginal, derived from the psaltery, could only See also:present one string to the See also:mechanical plectrum which twanged it . As regards the kind of plectra 1 A . J . See also:Ellis (History of Musical Pitch, p . 318) See also:sees the B in Mersenne's outline diagram.earliest used we have no evidence . The little See also:crow-auill points project from centred See also:tongues in uprights of wood known as " jacks " (fig . 7), which also carry the dampers, and rising by the depression of the keys in front, the quills set the strings vibrating as they See also:pluck them in passing, springs at first of See also:steel, later of bristle, giving See also:energy to the twang and governing their return J . C . See also:Scaliger in Poetices libri septem (1561, p . 51 . C . 1.) states that the Clavicimbalum and Harpichordum of his boyhood are now called Spinets on account of those See also:quill points (ab illis mucronibus), and attributes the introduction of the name " spinetta " to them (from See also:spina, a See also:thorn) . We will leave harpichordum for the present, but the early identity of clavicimbalum and spinetta is certainly proved . Scaliger's See also:etymology remained unquestioned until spinet . Signor Ponsicchi of Florence discovered another derivation . He found in a rare See also:book entitled Conclusione nel Buono dell' organo, di D . Adriano See also:Banchieri (See also:Bologna, 16o8), the following passage, which translated reads: " Spinetta was thus named from the inventor of that oblong form, who was one See also:Maestro Giovanni Spinetti, a Venetian; and I have seen one of those instruments, in the possession of See also:Francesco Stivori, organist of the magnificent community of Montagnana, within which was this inscription—Joannes Spinetvs Venetvs fecit, A.D . 1503." Scaliger's and Banchieri's statements may be combined, as there is no discrepancy of dates, or we may rely upon whichever seems to us to have the greater authority, always bearing in mind that neither invalidates the other . The introduction of crow-quill points, and adaptation to an oblong case of an instrument previously in a trapeze form, are synchronous; but we must accept 1503 as a late date for one of Spinetti's instruments, seeing that the altered form had already become common, as shown by Virdung, in another See also:country as early as 1511 . After this date there are frequent references to spinets in public records and other documents, and we have fortunately the instruments themselves to put in evidence, preserved in public museums and in private collections . A spinet dated 1490 was shown at Bologna in 1888; another old spinet in the See also:Conservatoire, Paris, is a pentagonal instrument made by Francesco di Portalupis at See also:Verona, 1523 . The Milanese See also:Rossi were famous spinet-makers, and have been accredited (La Nobilitd di Milano, 1595) with an improvement in the form which we believe was the recessing of the keyboard, -a feature which had previously entirely projected; by the recessing a greater width was obtained for the sound-board . The spinets by Annibale Rosso at See also:South See also:Kensington, dated respectively 1555 (fig . 8) and 1577, show this Kensington Museum . alteration, and may be compared with the older and purer form of one, dated 1568, by Marco Jadra (also known as Marco " See also:dalle spinette," or " dai cembali ") . Besides the pentagonal spinet, there was an heptagonal variety; they had neither covers nor stands, and were often withdrawn from decorated cases when required for performance . In other instances, as in the 1577 Rosso spinet, the case of the instrument itself was richly adorned . The apparent compass of the keyboard in See also:Italy generally exceeded four octaves by a semitone, E to F; but we may regard the lowest natural key as usually C, and the lowest sharp key as usually D, in these instruments, according to" short measure." The rectangular spinet, Virdung's " virginal," early assumed in Italy the fashion of the large " cassoni " or See also:wedding chests .
The oldest we know of in this See also:style, and dated, is the fine specimen belonging to M
.
Terme which figures in L' Art decoratif (fig
.
9)
.
Virginal is not an Italian name;
See also:Clavecin
.
the rectangular instrument in Italy is "spinetta tavola." In England, from See also: We learn from Praetorius that these little spinets were placed upon the larger ones in performance; their use was to heighten the brilliant effect . In the double rectangular clavisingel of the Netherlands, in which there was a movable octave instrument, we recognize a similar intention . There is a fine spinet of thishaving made such " spinets " during a period for which we have dates from 1664 to 1784 . See also:Pepys bought his "Espinette" from Charles Haward for 5, See also:July 13, 1664 . The spinets of See also:Keene and Player, made about 1700, have frequently two divided sharps at the bass end of the keyboard, as in the description by Mersenne, quoted above, of a spinet with short measure . Such divided sharps have been assumed to be See also:quarter tones, but enharmonic intervals in the extreme bass can have no See also:justification . From the tuning of Handel's Italian clavichord already mentioned, which has this peculiarity, and from Praetorius we find the further halves of the two divided sharps were the chromatic semitones, and the nearer halves the major thirds below i.e. the dominant fourths to the next natural keys . Thomas See also:Hitchcock (for whom there are dates 1664 and 1703 written on keys and jacks of spinets bearing See also:Edward See also:Blunt's name and having divided bass sharps) made a great advance in constructing spinets, giving them the wide compass of five octaves, from G to G, with very fine keyboards in which the sharps were inlaid with a slip of the See also:ivory or See also:ebony, as the case might be, of the naturals . Their instruments, always numbered, and not dated as has been sometimes supposed, became See also:models for contemporary and subsequent English makers . We have now to ask what was the difference beween Scaliger's harpichordum and his clavicymbal . Galilei, the See also:father of the astronomer of that name (Dialogo della musica antica e moderna, Florence, 1581), says that the harpichord was so named from having resembled an " arpa giacente," a prostrate or " couched" harp, proving that the clavicymbal was at first the trapeze-shaped spinet; and we should therefore Clavl Harpscyh~mbal ii . differentiate harpichord and clavicymbal as, in form, suggested by or derived from the harp and psaltery, or from a " testa di porco " and an See also:ordinary trapeze psaltery . We are inclined to prefer the latter . The Latin name "clavicymbalum," having early been replaced by spinet and virginal, was in Italy and See also:France bestowed upon the long harpichord, and was continued as clavicembalo (gravecembalo, or familiarly cembalo only) and clavecin . Much later, after the restoration of the Stuarts, the first name was accepted and naturalized in England as harpsichord, which we will define as the long instrument with quills, shaped like a modern See also:grand piano, and resembling a wing, from which it has gained the German appellation " See also:Flugel." We can point out no long instrument of this kind so old as the See also:Roman cembalo at South Kensington (fig . 11) . It was made by Geronimo of Bologna in 1521, two years before the Paris Portalupis spinet . The See also:outer case is of finely tooled See also:leather . It has a spinet keyboard with a compass of nearly four octaves, E to D . The natural keys are of boxwood, gracefully arcaded in front . The keyboard of the Italian cembalo was afterwards carried out to the normal four octaves . There is an existing example, dated 1626,. with the bass keys carried out without sharps in long measure (unfortunately altered by a restorer) . It is surprising to see with what steady persistence the Italians adhered to their See also:original model in making the instrument . As late as the epoch of Cristofori,i and in his 1722 cembalo at Florence,2 we still find the independent outer case, the single keyboard, the two unisons, without power to reduce to one by using stops .
The Italians have been as conservative with their forms of spinet, and are to this day with their organs
.
The startling " piano e forte " of 1598, brought to See also:light from the records of the See also:house of D'See also:Este by See also:Count Valdrighi of See also:Modena,' after much See also:consideration and a See also:desire to find in it an anticipation of Cristofori's subsequent invention of the pianoforte, we are disposed to regard as an ordinary cembalo with power to shift, by a stop,
1 In the harpsichord Cristofori made for See also:Prince See also: 
About the year i600, when accompaniment was invented for monody, large cembalos were made for the orchestras to bring out the bass part, the performer See also:standing to play
.
Such an
instrument was called " archicembalo,"' a name also applied to a large cembalo, made by Vito Trasuntino, a Venetian, in 1606, intended by thirty-one keys in each of its four octaves—one hundred and twenty-five in all—to restore the three genera of the ancient Greeks
.
How many attempts have been made before and since Trasuntino to purify intonation in keyboard instruments by multiplying keys in the octave
?
Simultaneously with Father See also:
Until the last harpsichord was made by See also:Joseph Kirkman, in 1798, scarcely an instrument of the kind was constructed, except in Italy, without the octaves
.
The harpsichord as known throughout the 18th century, with piano upper and forte lower keyboard, was the invention of Hans Ruckers's See also:grandson, Jean Ruckers's See also:nephew, See also:Jan Couchet, about 1640
.
Before that time the double keyboards in Flemish harpsichords were merely a transposing expedient, to See also:change the pitch a fourth, from plagal to authentic and See also:vice versa, while using the same groups of keys
.
Fortunately there is a harpsichord existing with double keyboards unaltered, date 1638, belonging to Sir See also:Bernard Samuelson, formerly in the possession of Mr See also:Spence, of Florence, made by Jean Ruckers, the keyboards being in their original position
.
It was not so much invention as beauty of tone which made the Ruckers' harpsichords famous
.
The Ruckers harpsichords in the 18th century were fetching such prices as Bologna lutes did in the 17th or See also:Cremona violins do now
.
There are still many specimens existing in See also:Belgium, France and England
.
Handel had a Ruckers harpsichord, now in See also:Buckingham See also:Palace; it completes the number of sixty-three existing Ruckers instruments catalogued in See also:
To the three shifting registers of jacks of the octave and first and second unisons were added the " lute," the See also:charm of which was due to the favouring of high harmonics by plucking the strings See also:close to the bridge, and the " harp," a surding or muting effect produced by impeding the vibration of the strings by contact of small pieces of See also:buff leather
.
Two pedals were also used, the left-hand one a See also:combination of a unison and lute
.
This pedal, with the " See also:machine " stop, reduced the upper keyboard to the lute See also:register, the plectra of which acted upon the strings near the wrest-See also:plank bridge
" 1530 (See also:April)
.
See also:Item the vj daye paied to See also:
F1c
.
12.-Virdung's Clavicytherium (upright Harpsichord), 1511; (reversed facsimile)
.
11.-Roman
Clavicembalo by Geronimo of Bologna, 1521; Viet. and See also:Albert Museum
.
only; the lower keyboard to the second unison
.
Releasing the machine stop and quitting the pedal restores the first unison on both keyboards and the octave on the lower
.
The right-hand pedal was to raise a hinged portion of the See also:top or See also:cover and thus gain some power of " swell " or crescendo, an invention of See also:Roger Plenius,l to whom also the harp stop may be rightly attributed
.
This ingenious harpsichord maker had been stimulated to gain these effects by the nascent pianoforte which, as we shall find, he was the first to make in England
.
The first idea of pedals for the harpsichord to See also:act as stops appears to have been See also: It was formerly a custom with See also:kings, princes and nobles to keep large collections of musical instruments for actual playing purposes, in the domestic and festive music of their Crlstofori's courts . There are records of their inventories, Invention and it was to keep such a collection in playing order of the that Prince Ferdinand dei Medici engaged a Paduan Pianoforte. harpsichord maker, Bartolommeo Cristofori, the See also:man of See also:genius who invented and produced the pianoforte ? We fortunately possess the record of this invention in a See also:literary form from a well-known writer, the Marchese Scipione See also:Maffei; his description appeared in the Giornale dei letterati d'Italia, a publication conducted by Apostolo See also:Zeno . The date of Maffei's See also:paper was 1711 . Rimbault reproduced it, with a technically imperfect translation, in his History of the Pianoforte . We learn from it that in 1709 Cristofori had completed four " gravecembali col piano e forte "-keyed-psalteries with soft and loud—three of them being of the long or usual harpsichord form . A synonym in Italian for the original cembalo (or psaltery) is " salterio," and if it were struck with hammers it became a " salterio tedesco " (the German hackbrett, or chopping board), the latter being the common dulcimer . Now the first notion of a pianoforte is a dulcimer with keys, and we may perhaps not be wrong in supposing that there had been many attempts and failures to put a keyboard to a dulcimer or hammers to a harpsichord before Cristofori successfully solved the problem . The sketch of his action in Maffei's essay shows an incomplete See also:stage in the invention, although the See also:kernel of it—the principle of escapement or the controlled rebound of the See also:hammer—is already there . He obtains it by a centred See also:lever (linguetta See also:mobile) or hopper, working, when the key is depressed by the touch, in a small See also:projection from the centred hammer-See also:butt . The return, governed by a See also:spring, must have been uncertain and incapable of further regulating than could be obtained by modifying the strength of the spring . i Mace describes a See also:primitive swell contrivance for an organ 65 years before Plenius took out his patent (1741) . z The invention of the piano by Cristofori, and him alone, is now past discussion . \Vhat is still required to satisfy curiosity would be the See also:discovery of a Fort Bien or Frederici square piano, said to ante-date by a year or two Zumpe's invention of the instrument in London . The name Fort Bien was derived, consciously or unconsciously, from the Saxon German peculiarity of interchanging B and P . Among Mozart's effects at the time of his death was a Forte-Biano mil Pedal (see Vierzehnter jdhrlicher Bericht See also:des Mozarteum, " See also:Salzburg," Dec . 19, 1791) . Also wanted is the " old movement " for the long or grand pianos, sometimes quoted in the Broadwood day-books of the last quarter of the 18th century with reference to the displacement by the Backers English action . Moreover, the hammer had each time to be raised the entire distance of its fall . There are, however, two pianofortes by Cristofori, dated repectively 1720 and 1726, which show a much improved, we may even say a perfected, construction, for the whole of an essential piano movement is there . The earlier instrument (now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York) has undergone considerable restoration, the original hollow hammer-head having been replaced by a modern one, and the hammer-butt, instead of being centred by means of the holes provided by Cristofori himself for the purpose, having been lengthened by a leather See also:hinge screwed to the See also:block;' but the 1726 one, which is in the Kraus Museum at Florence, retains the original leather hammer-heads . Both instruments possess alike a contrivance for determining the See also:radius of the hopper, and both have been unexpectedly found to have the " check " (Ital. paramartello), which regulates the fall of the hammer according to the strength of the See also:blow which has impelled it to the strings . After this discovery of the actual instruments of Cristofori there can be no longer doubt as to the attribution of the invention to him in its See also:initiation and its practical completion with escapement and check . To Cristofori we are indebted, not only for the power of playing piano and forte, but for the See also:infinite See also:variations of tone, or nuances, which render the instrument so delightful .
But his problem was not solved by the devising of a working action; there was much more to be done to instal the pianoforte as a new musical instrument
.
The resonance, that most subtle
1875 by Cesare Ponsicchi
.
and yet all-embracing See also:factor, had been experimentally developed to a certain perfection by many generations of spinet and harpsichord makers, but the resistance structure had to be thought out again
.
Thicker stringing, rendered indispensable to withstand even Cristofori's light hammers, demanded in its turn a stronger framing than the harpsi-
chord had needed
.
To make his structure See also:firm he considerably increased the strength of the block which holds the tuning-pins, and as he could not do so without materially adding to its thickness, he adopted the bold expedient of inverting it; See also:driving his wrest-pins, harp-fashion, through it, so that tuning was effected at their upper, while the wires were attached to their lower, ends
.
Then, to See also:guarantee the See also:security of
the case, he ran an ;j
independent string-block See also:round it of stouter wood than had been used in
harpsichords, in which block the hitch-pins were driven to hold the farther ends of the strings, which were spaced at
3 Communicated by See also:Baron See also: S . Bach, according to his See also:pupil Agricola, pronounced failures . The trebles were too weak; the touch was too heavy . There has long been another version to this See also:story, viz. that Silbermann borrowed the idea of his action from a very See also:simple model contrived by a See also:young musician named Schroeter, who had left it at the electoral court in 1721, and, quitting See also:Saxony to travel, had not afterwards claimed it . It may be so; but Schroeter's See also:letter, printed in Mitzler's Bibliothek, dated 1738, is not supported by any other evidence than the See also:recent discovery of an altered German harpsichord, the hammer action of which, in its simplicity, may have been taken from Schroeter's diagram, and would sufficiently account for the condemnation of Silbermann's earliest pianofortes if he had made use of it . In either case it is easy to distinguish between the lines of Schroeter's interesting communications (to Mitzler, and later to Marpurg) the See also:bitter disappointment he See also:felt in being left out of the practical development of so important an instrument . But, whatever Silbermann's first experiments were based upon, it was ascertained, by the investigations of A . J . Hipkins, that he, when successful, adopted Cristofori's pianoforte without further alteration than the compass and See also:colour of the keys and the style of See also:joinery of the case . In the Silbermann grand pianofortes, in the three palaces at Potsdam, known to have been Frederick the Great's, and to have been acquired by that monarch See also:prior to J . S . Bach's visit to him in 1747, we find the Cristofori framing, stringing, inverted wrest-plank and action complete . Fig . 15 represents the instrument on which J . S . Bach played in the See also:Town Palace, Potsdam . Mahillon of Brussels, however, acquired a Frederici " upright grand" piano, dated 1745 (fig . 16) . In Frederici's upright grand action we have not to do with the ideas of either Cristofori or Schroeter; the movement is practically identical with the hammer action of a German See also:clock, and has its counterpart in a piano at Nuremberg; a fact which needs further elucidation . We note here the earliest example of the leather hinge, afterwards so common in piano actions and only now going out of use . Where are we to look for Schroeter's copyist if not found in Silbermann, Frederici, or, as we shall presently see, perhaps J . G . See also:Wagner ? It might be in the harpsichord we have mentioned, which, made in 1712 by one See also:Brock for the elector of See also:Hanover (afterwards George I. of England), was by him presented to the See also:Pro- testant pastor of Schulenberg, near Hanover, and has since been rudely altered into a pianoforte (fig .
17)
.
There is an
altered harpsichord in the museum at Basel which appears to have been no more successful
.
But an attempted combination of harpsichord and pianoforte appears as a very early
intention
.
The English poet See also:Mason, the friend
of See also:
Inside is inscribed: " See also:Friedrich See also:Hildebrandt, Instrumentenmacher in Leipzig, Quergasse," with four figures
' For arguments in favour of Schroeter's claim to the invention of the pianoforte see Dr Oscar Paul, op. cit. pp
.
85-104, who was answered by A
.
J
.
Hipkins in Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians
.
' Mason really invented the " See also:celestina " (known as See also:Adam See also: z This translation, published at See also:Hamburg and reproduced in extenso, may be read in Dr Oscar Paul's Geschichte des Claviers (Leipzig, 1868) . I' almost illegible . Paul de Wit refers the instrument to the middle of the 18th century . It has all the See also:appearance of being a reduced copy of a well-established type, differing very little from the later models, except that it has no dampers . It seems probable that this small instrument is a converted clavichord, and that the action may have been suggested by Schroeter's model, left in 1721 at the Electoral Court of Saxony . See also:Burney tells us all about Zumpe; and his instruments still existing would See also:fix the date of the first at about 1765 . See also:Fetis narrates, however, that he began the study of the piano on a square piano made by Zumpe in 1762 . In his simple " old man's head" action we have the nearest approach to a realization of Schroeter's simple idea . It will be observed that Schroeter's damper would stop all vibration at once . This defect is overcome by Zumpe's " mopstick " damper . Another piano action had, however, come into use about that time or even earlier in Germany . The discovery of it in the stun. simplest form is to be attributed to V . C . Mahillon, who found it in a square piano belonging to See also:Henri Gosselin, painter, of Brussels . The principle of this action is that which was later perfected by the addition of a See also:good escapement by See also:Stein of See also:Augsburg, and was again later experimented upon by Sebastian See also:Erard . Its origin is perhaps due to the contrivance of a piano action that should suit the shallow clavichord and permit of its transformation into a square piano; a transformation, Schroeter tells us, had been going on when he wrote his complaint . It will be observed that the hammer is, as compared with other actions, reversed, and the See also:axis rises with the key, necessitating a fixed means for raising the hammer, in this action effected by a See also:rail against which the hammer ment . Square Piano belonging to M . Gosselin, Brussels . is jerked up . It was Stein's merit to See also:graft the hopper principle upon this simple action; and Mozart's approbation of the invention, when he met with it at Augsburg in 1777, is expressed in a well-known letter addressed to his See also:mother . No more " blocking " of the hammer, destroying all vibration, was henceforth to vex his mind . He had found the instrument that for the See also:rest of his short See also:life replaced the harpsichord . V .
C
.
Mahillon secured for his museum the only Johann Andreas Stein piano which
is known to remain
.
It is from Augsburg, dated 178o, and has Stein's escapement action, two unisons, and the knee pedal, then and later common in Germany
.
Mozart's own grand piano, preserved at Salzburg, and the two grand pianos (the latest dated 1790) by Huhn of Berlin, preserved at Berlin and See also:Charlottenburg, because they had
Dresden
.
action in an instrument made by Johann Gottlob Wagner of Dresden in 1783
.
This interesting discovery of Mahillon's introduces us to a rude See also:imitation (in the principle) of Cristofori, and it apnears to have no relation whatever to the clock-hammer See also:motion seen in Frederici's
.
Burney, who lived through the period of the displacement of the harpsichord by the pianoforte, is the only authority to whom we can refer as to the introduction of the latter instrument into England
.
He tells us,l in his gossiping way, The piano. that the first hammer harpsichord that came to forte is
England was made by an English See also: Plenius produced his lyrichord, a sostenente 1 See also:Rees's New Cyclopaedia, art . " Harpsichord." b 568 harpsichord, in 1745 . When Mason imported a pianoforte in 1755, Fulke Greville's could have been no longer unique . The Italian origin of Father Wood's piano points to a copy of Cristofori, but the description of its capabilities in no way confirms this supposition, unless we adopt the very possible theory that the instrument had arrived out of order and there was on one in London who could put it right, or would perhaps divine that it was wrong . Burney further tells us that the arrival in London of J . C . Bach in 1759 was the See also:motive for several of the second- See also:rate harpsichord makers trying to make pianofortes, but with no particular success . Of these See also:Americus Backers (d . 1776), Backers. said to be a Dutchman, appears to have gained the first place . He was afterwards the inventor of the so-called English action, and as this action is based upon Cristofori's we may suppose he at first followed Silbermann in copying the original inventor . There is an old play-See also:bill of Covent See also:Garden in Messrs Broadwood's possession dated the 16th of May 1767, which has the following announcement: "End of Act 1 . See also:Miss Brickler will sing a favourite song from See also:Judith, accompanied by Mr See also:Dibdin on a new instrument call'd Piano Forte." The mind at once reverts to Backers as the probable maker of this novelty .
Backers's "Original Forte Piano" was played at the Thatched House in St See also: John Broadwood took this domestic instrument first in hand to improve it, and in the year 178o succeeded in entirely reconstructing it . He transferred the wrest-plank and pins from the right-hand side, as in the clavichord, to the back of the case, an improvement universally adopted after his patent, No . 1379 of 1783, expired . In this patent we first find the damper and piano pedals, since universally accepted, but at first in the grand pianofortes only . Zumpe's action remaining with an altered damper, another inventor, John Geib, patented (No . 1571 of 1786) the hopper with two separate escapements, one of which soon became adopted in the See also:grasshopper of the square piano, it is believed by Geib himself; and Petzold, a Paris maker, appears to have taken later to the escapement effected upon the key . We may mention here that the square piano was developed and continued in England until about the year 186o, when it went out of fashion . To return to John Broadwood—having launched his reconstructed square piano, he next turned his See also:attention to the grand piano to continue the improvement of it from the point where Backers had left it . The grand piano was in framing and resonance entirely on the harpsichord principle, the sound-board bridge being still continued in one undivided length . The strings, which were of See also:brass See also:wire in the bass, descended in notes of three unisons to the lowest note of the scale . Tension was left to See also:chance, and a reasonable striking line or place for the hammers was not thought of . Theory requires that the notes of octaves should be multiples in the ratio of 1 to 2, by which, taking the treble clef C at one foot, the lowest F of the five-octave scale would require a vibrating length between the bridges of 12 ft .
As only half this length could be conveniently afforded, we see at once a See also:reason for the above-mentioned deficiencies
.
Only the three octaves of the treble, which had lengths practically ideal, could be tolerably adjusted
.
Then the striking-line, which should be at an eighth or not less than a ninth or tenth of the vibrating length, and had never been cared for in the harpsichord, was in the lowest two octaves out of all proportion, with corresponding disadvantage to the tone
.
John Broadwood did not venture alone upon the path
most advanced virtuosi
.
John Broadwood and See also:Robert Stodart were See also:friends, Stodart having been Broadwood's pupil; and they
towards rectifying these faults
.
He called in the aid of professed men of See also:science—Tiberius See also:Cavallo, who in 1788 published his calculations of the tension, and Dr Gray, of the See also:British Museum
.
The problem was solved by dividing the sound-board bridge, the lower half of which was advanced to carry the bass strings, which were still of brass
.
The first attempts to equalize the tension and improve the striking-place were here set forth, to the great advantage of the instrument, which in its wooden construction might now be considered complete
.
The greatest pianists of that epoch, except Mozart and Beethoven, were assembled in London—See also:Clementi, who first gave the pianoforte its own character, raising it from being a See also:mere variety of the harpsichord, his pupils See also:Cramer and for a time See also:Hummel, later on John See also:
In 1799 Clementi founded a pianoforte manufactory, to be subsequently developed and carried on by Messrs Collard
.
The first square piano made in France is said to have been constructed in 1776 by Sebastian Erard, a young Alsatian
.
Erard
.
In 1786 he came to England and founded the
London manufactory of harps and pianofortes bearing his name
.
That eminent mechanician and inventor is said to have at first adopted for his pianos the English models
.
However, in 1794 and 18o1, as is shown by his See also:patents, he was certainly engaged upon the elementary action described as appertaining to Gosselin's piano, of probably German origin
.
In his long-continued labour of inventing and constructing a double escapement action, Erard appears to have sought to combine the English power of gradation of tone with the German lightness of touch
.
He took out his first patent for a " repetition" action in 18o8, claiming for it " the power of giving repeated strokes without missing or failure, by very small angular motions of the key itself." He did not, however, succeed in producing his famous repetition or double escapement action until 1821; it was then patented by his nephew See also:Pierre Erard. who, when the patent expired in England in 1835, proved a loss from the difficulties of carrying out the invention, which induced the House of Lords to See also: The first to see the importance of See also:iron sharing with wood (ultimately almost supplanting it) in pianoforte framing was a native of England and a See also:civil engineer by See also:Hawkins. profession, John See also:Isaac Hawkins, known as the inventor of the ever-pointed See also:pencil . He was living at See also:Philadelphia, U.S.A.,'when he invented and first produced the familiar cottage pianoforte—" portable grand " as he then called it . He patented it in See also:America, his father, Isaac Hawkins, taking out the patent for him in England in the same year, 1800 . It will be observed that the illustration here given (fig . 28) represents a See also:wreck; but a draughtsman's restoration might be open to question . There had been upright grand pianos as well as upright harpsichords, the horizontal instrument being turned up upon its wider end and a keyboard and action adapted to it . William See also:Southwell, an Irish piano-maker, had in 1798 tried a similar experiment with a square piano, to be repeated in later years by W . F . Collard of London; but Hawkins was the first to make a piano, or pianino, with the strings descending to the See also:floor, the keyboard being raised, and this, although at the moment the See also:chief, was not his only merit . He anticipated nearly every m1 .TRI IIIIO1xIIMIIWIAMUI WxUINNlnli .t.11l uINIIWpIxY~ cr_ '111111111111111111111 InIu1111IIi11Mill 111111111111111115r,:11 I I .I See also:Ill r,. nli llrill e l a 1111111/1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 w . |
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