Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-01
STORY OF THE PIANO.
DEVELOPMENT FROM TIE sPINET
AND HARps4bHoaD.
What the Great Masters Have Played
on in the Past - The
Xavier ef;ss

The pianoforte today forms part of the
furnishings Of nearly AT Our homes. It is
necessary feature ofthe white House
music room, and in every palace over this
wide world not less SO in the farm house
of this generation, and in the homes of all
grades of men in the great cities of each
continent. 1t adapts itself to the perform
ance of the concert artist, but not less to
the Jingle of the dance and to the IA
miliar melody of the hymn tune, which
draws together the family In the winter
Sabbath evening.
From time to time we hear of s'tIme
wasted" of "better learn to cook than to
play the piano. nevertheless the number
of its students ever grows, and somehow or
other time is found both for the piano and
for the cooking school Does it often occur
to us that 1t has taken civilized men inst
500 years to produce The modern piano?
Each generation, in turn, has kept alive
the history of the instrument up to its
date. 1t is rather a laborious than a diff
cult matter, therefore, to mark the many
stages of it's development.
Even to this day one may see and try
the clavichord and harpsichord on which
Handel played the "well-tenpered Xavier
for which Father Bach composed his
preludes and fugues; the spinet used by
in old Versailles. the harpsichord made for
Frederick the Great, the first examples of
the ''piano forte used by Mozart and
Beethoven
Contrast in instruments.
Nothing is more impressive to the mu-
sician than the contrast between the adj
mirabie and often intricate music Of those
great masters and the poor and to us ru-
dlmentary instruments on which their
fugues and ggues. pastorals, suites and
sonatas were performed-genius triumphant
over obstacles.
1t may be possible to set out in Simple
language some idea of the stages which
have led up to the pianoforte of today.
The first stringed instrument played by
the striking on keys of which record re-
mains is the clavichord of 1404. 1t was a
light box in which the strings, of equal
length, thirty-nine in number, covering
three octaves in all, were strained over a
bridge obliquely set. which controlled the
pitch of the note. The keys moved levers
upward, in which pegs or quilts We're fixed,
to strike or CRATE against the strings. In
the original form there was provided a
means of 'fretting" or scratching the
string. as the strings of the violin are set
in action by the bow But about the year
1700 the fretting was discarded and indie
pendent pairs of strings substituted, and
for this "well-tempered Xavier the pre-
ludes and fugueS of Johann Sebastian Bach
We're written.
Another ancestor of our pianoforte was
the spinet This reSembled the clavichord
in form and in its three-octave compass.
The upward movement of the Jack or
block from the key struck by the per-
former caused the quill set ir the "jack'' to
strike the stretched string in passing. The
spnet belongs to the literature of the six
tenth century. In the England of Queen
Elizabeth one finds frequent illusions to
the ''vergnals," another name for the
spinet. The Oldest spinet extant is in the
Paris Conservatore, and is dated Verona,
1923 Samuel Pepys, the chronicler of the
commonwealth, notes in bis ,dlary that on
uly H. 1868. he bought his ''Espinette" from
Charles Harvard and paid fo for 1t.
This instrument was now set on its own
legs, and there is quite look of the mod
ern grand piano in its shape.
Great Frederick's Harpsichord.
London maker provided King Frederick
the Great with the harpsichord still in, the
new palace at Potsdanas Here the .harpsi-
chord showed its best development; its
compass was also enlarged.
So much for one of fhe grandparents of
the pianoforte of today. On the other side
it traces it's origin through the inventions
of Cristofori of Padua, in Italy. In 100.
The problem was to substitute. for the
"fretting" or the crossing by the quill OF
the stretched string a,stroke> ON the face
OF the string by some form of hammer.
which after the stroke should automatically
return to its place. The dulcimer probably
suggested the idea. Cristofori then devised
DdIduceu lever, operated ny tue hey,
which should set the hammer opposed to
each string of the spinet in action, so
strike the face of the. string, and then, by
the pressure of a light spring, be returned
instantly to its place, in readiness for an
other blow. The power Of the hammer in
setting the string vibrating was thus
regulated by the force of the stroke of the
finger on the keys. So appeared the piano
forte in all its essentials. Crstofori's
pianofortes of 1920 and 1926, in the Flor
ence museum his monuments The
German maker Stein of Augsburg in 1850
improved further by reversing the place of
the hammer so that its axis rose with the
key and supplied resting place for the
hammers rail running the whole
length Mozart met this instrument at
Augsburg in HI, praised and used 1t. Beet
hoven also adopted and performed on 1t.
The earliest appearance of the new name
was in play bill of the Covent Garden
Theater in London on May IS, 1857. as fol-
lows:
First Mention of Piano.
"At the end of act one Miss BrickIer will
sing favorite song from Judith accom-
panied by Mr.. Dibdn on new instrument
called Piano Forte
Since then there have been numberless
smaller improvements patented. but the
forms now in use have emerged by pro-
cess of natural selection. Until within the
past twenty-five years or so each well-known
maker made the component parts and as
sembled them in the complete instrument in
his own factory. But in this. as in so many
other industries, the making of the various |
parts of the piano has been undertaken each |
in separate Interpretations by one, keys
by another, cases by Others felt for the |
hammers separately, and so on. BY this
specializing great saving of cost has been |
gained, and if Mr.. Pepy's G5 for his espi- |
nette cannot be equaled, yet the prices to |
the public have been reduced. and the |
profits of the seller of the piano increased. |
1t seems to us that within the natural linn
itations imposed by the production of mu- |
steal sounds by the striking of stretched |
string the mechanism of the twentieth CEN
fury pianoforte has reached, if not abso- |
lutte, yet practical perfection. It's range of |
effect Is in very deed wonderful in view of |
its history-so varied it Is, but accessible |
In all its degrees to each grade of its fol- |