The Pianoforte Grows Up—The Ancestry of the Pianoforte
THE ANCESTRY OF THE PIANOFORTE
We feel so familiar with the Pianoforte that we call it piano for short
and almost forget that it is dignified by the longer name. We forget
too, that Scarlatti, Rameau and Bach played not on the piano but on its
ancestors, and that Byrd, Bull and Gibbon did not write their lovely
dance suites for the instrument on which we play them today.
The Pianoforte’s family tree has three distinct branches,—strings,
sounding board and hammers. First we know the piano is a stringed
instrument, although it hides its chief characteristic, not under a
bushel, but behind a casing of wood.
WHERE STRINGED INSTRUMENTS CAME FROM
We have seen the stringed instrument developed from the bow when
primitive man winged his arrow in the hunt, and heard its twang. Later
desiring fuller tone, the sounding board grew, when early peoples sank
bow-like instruments and reeds into a gourd which increased and
reflected the sound as the metal reflector behind a light intensifies
it.
Strings to produce sound, must be rubbed, like the bow drawn across
violin strings, plucked as the mandolin or the harp is plucked, or
struck with a hammer as was the dulcimer.
In the ancient times there were two instruments much alike, the
_psaltery_ and the _dulcimer_, both with a triangular or rectangular
sounding box across which are stretched strings of wire or gut fastened
to tuning pins. The difference between these two “relatives” is that the
_psaltery_ is plucked with fingers or a plectrum, and the _dulcimer_ is
struck with hammers. So the _psaltery_ is the grandfather of the
virginal, spinet, clavecin, and harpsichord, while the _dulcimer_ is the
remote ancestor of the pianoforte.
The first record we find of a _dulcimer_ is a stone picture near
Nineveh, of an Assyrian king in 667 B.C., celebrating a triumphal
procession. This _dulcimer_, suspended from the neck of the player, is
being struck with a stick in his right hand, while his left palm on the
string checks the tone. Here we have the first stringed instrument which
was hammered and muffled, two important elements in the piano.
In Persia the _dulcimer_ was called the _santir_ and is still used under
different names in the Orient and other places. In Greece and other
countries it was called the _psalterion_, and in Italy, the _dolcimelo_.
Later, the Germans had a sort of _dulcimer_ called the _Hackbrett_,
probably because it was “hacked” as the butcher hacks meat! We see the
_dulcimer_ in many shapes according to the fancy of the people who use
it. The word comes from _dulce_—the Latin for “sweet” and _melos_—the
Greek for “melody.”
As people grew wiser and more musical, they padded their hammers or
mallets; this gave the idea for the padded hammer of the piano for
checking the tone as our Ninevehan did with his left palm.
Should you ever listen to a gypsy band, you will hear the _dulcimer_ or
_cembalo_.
THE KEYBOARD
The third element in the making of the piano is the keyboard.
It is evident that the piano keyboard and the organ keyboard are
practically the same. The water organs of the Greeks and Romans had
keyboards, but as the Christian Church forbade the use of organs as
sacrilegious, keyboards were lost for almost a thousand years.
The keyboard seems to have developed from the Greek _monochord_ used in
the Middle Ages to give the pitch in convent singing. It was tuned with
a movable bridge or fret pushed back and forth under the strings and
fingers. First it was stretched with weights hung at one end. It was a
simple matter to add strings to produce more tones, later tuning pins
were added and finally a keyboard. This was the whole principle of the
_clavichord_. (We might say that the _monochord_ and _dulcimer_ are the
Adam and Eve of the pianoforte family.)
THE CLAVICHORD
In the clavichord, each key drove a metal tangent against a string and
was held there as was the bridge of the monochord. The tone was
dependent on the place where the tangent struck. The string vibrated on
one side of the tangent, but the other part of the string was deadened
by a strip of cloth. The strings were about the same length and often
two or three keys operated the same string so that it was possible to
make a very small instrument. In the 16th century, it usually had twenty
keys; in the 18th century, four octaves or fifty keys, but of course
there were less than fifty strings! Later, every key had its own string
and these were called _bundfrei_ or unfretted clavichords, while the
others were called _gebunden_ or fretted. The clavichord was usually
small enough to carry under the arm, although sometimes it was made with
legs. Should you be in New York you must see the collection of
beautifully ornamented clavichords and harpsichords at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in the Crosby Brown Collection.
Bach liked the clavichord better than the harpsichord and the early
pianos that blossomed in his day. Because of the pressure of the
tangent, it was possible to get a delicately graded tone when the key
was pressed, a wavy, rocking, pulsating effect, which made each player’s
performance very individual, but to us, now, it sounds thin and
metallic. The word “clavichord” comes from _clavis_—a key, and _chord_—a
string. Clavichords and also virginals were often played in pairs, no
doubt for richer effect and for volume.
Large instruments developed slowly because before the 11th century,
wire-drawing (making) was not known, so all keyed string instruments
were strung with gut.
HARPSICHORD
128TH SONNET
SHAKESPEARE AND THE HARPSICHORD
How oft when thou, my music, music play’st
Upon that blessed wood, whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that my ear confounds,
Do I envy those _jacks_ that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand:
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness, by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gate,
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.
Since saucy _jacks_ so happy are in this
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
The harpsichord, we like to call the “Jack and Quill” instrument—for it
is played by keys, jacks and quills which pluck its strings, instead of
pressing or hammering. This is like a keyboarded zither, and is shaped
something like our grand piano.
Each key has a string. Pressing the key pushes a jack, from whose side
projects a small quill or spine which twangs the string. When the key is
released, the quill slips back into the first position and a damper
falls upon the string. The strings vary in length according to the pitch
for the harpsichord has no tangent to divide off the string as had the
clavichord and monochord. Thus the harpsichord on account of its long
and short strings is not square like the clavichord but is shaped more
like the harp and the grand piano.
Some one said that the harpsichord tone was “a scratch with a note at
the end of it.” And yet, when we hear Wanda Landowska play the
harpsichord today, it sounds very beautiful indeed. Smaller varieties
are called virginals and spinets. Perhaps the spinet is named for its
inventor Spinetti, or perhaps the word comes from “spinet” meaning
spine, a thorn or point. The virginal comes from the word
_virgo_—meaning maiden and was the popular instrument for the “ladies”
of the day. There were larger harpsichords, too, with two and three
keyboards and very many varieties, both small and large. The clavichord
and the harpsichord were known from the 15th century and were associated
with the organ until the 17th century, when the Ruckers family developed
harpsichord making into a fine art. The first mention of the
harpsichord, is in the “Rules of the Minnesingers” (1404).
THE FIRST PIANOFORTES
Early in the 18th century, music ceased to be just pretty sounds, and
musicians wanted instruments on which they could express deeper feelings
and began to look around for some way to make the harpsichord meet this
need.
It came about in this way. Pantaleone Hebenstreit, a fiddler at the
Saxon court played a dulcimer which he enlarged by adding to it a second
system of strings. He tuned it in equal temperament, as Bach had the
clavichord, and used hammers on it which produced very beautiful and
loud tones. Louis XIV saw this, and liking it, called it the Pantaleone.
But, shortly after this, Gottlieb Schroeter heard it and said, “only
through hammers can the harpsichord become expressive.”
So in 1721 Schroeter submitted to the King of Saxony his idea of a
harpsichord which could play soft and loud or in Italian _piano_ and
_forte_ (the _fortepiano_ or _loud-soft_ instrument). But as he had none
made he did not get credit for the invention until after much argument,
based on accounts in his diary. As always, when a thing is needed
someone will invent it.
The man who actually made the first pianoforte was an Italian,
Bartolomeo Cristofori (1653–1731) of Padua; and the Frenchman Marius,
and the German, Christoph Gottlieb Schroeter, followed suit. In 1709,
Cristofori exhibited harpsichords (_gravicembali_) with hammer action
capable of producing _piano_ and _forte_ effects. He advertised it in
the paper as a _gravicembali col piano e forte_. By 1711, the fame of
his invention had spread into Germany. In February, 1716, Marius in
France tried to improve the harpsichord with hammers which he called the
_clavecin à mallets_, and made two types.
Schroeter about this time made the two kinds also. The piano had little
standing, however, until Gottfried Silbermann took advantage of Bach’s
criticism of his pianos and made a _grand_ type.
The next experimenters in pianos were, Frederici of Gera (died in 1779),
who made the _square_. Spaeth, who made _grands_ and George Andreas
Stein in Augsburg, who was trained by Silbermann, invented the Viennese
action on which a light touch was possible and for this reason Mozart
used it.
Burkhardt Tschudi, a piano maker in London, had a Scotch assistant,
James Broadwood, who became his partner (1770). Later the firm became
John Broadwood and Sons, which it has remained. It was the first to use
the damper and the soft pedals. For some time they used Zumpe’s style of
square piano but later made their own. This house used the Cristofori
action which made a more solid and heavier tone than the Viennese
action, and was known as the English action, excellent for large rooms
and concerts. These actions suited the different methods of piano
playing.
Stein’s daughter Nanette Streicher, a marvelous player and a cultivated
woman, upon inheriting her father’s piano business moved to Vienna and
for forty years was considered an expert in the piano world. Thayer, in
his life of Beethoven says: “In May, Beethoven, on the advice of medical
men, went to Baden, whither he was followed by his friend Mrs.
Streicher ... who took charge of his lodgings and his clothes, which
appear to have been in a deplorable state.” Thayer says that Beethoven
always preferred the piano of Stein to any others. Beethoven wrote to
Nanette: “Perhaps you do not know, though I have not always had one of
your pianos, that since 1809 I have invariably preferred yours.”
So, you see a woman could keep house and be a manufacturer as well, even
in the early 19th century!
Then came Sebastien Erard (1752–1831) who made the first French piano in
1777. Erard invented many new things for the piano and formed a company
in England. This firm was advertised on the hand bill announcing Liszt’s
concert in Paris when he was twelve years old.
Added to these names is Ignaz Josef Pleyel (1757–1831), who also made a
piano with a very sympathetic tone which Chopin made famous from 1831.
The Pleyel and the Erard are still the leading pianos of France.
For some years the pianoforte went through many changes. As you are not
learning to make a piano, you will have to take it for granted that
there were many many steps taken from this time on to make the modern
piano. However, the thing that held it back was the all-wood frame which
could not stand the strain of the tightly drawn strings and it was a
long time before the makers gave up the beautiful wood for the sturdier
metal. About the time of Beethoven, playing the piano became a more
complicated thing than it had been, and a grown up instrument was
needed, so musical instrument makers had to “step lively” to keep pace
with the music. At every concert, and often in the middle of a piece,
the player would have to stop to retune the instrument on which he was
playing. Therefore, all energy was bent to making the frame of the piano
rigid, the strings more elastic and the pins firmer, and the metal frame
was used.
All these special things were accomplished in later years. Some of the
inventors were John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman, who patented the
upright pianoforte in 1800 in the United States, William Allen, a
Scotchman, who introduced metal braces in 1820 and Alpheus Babcock, who
patented the iron frame in a _single cast_, in Boston, in 1825. It was
an American, Jonas Chickering, of Boston, who invented the complete iron
frame for the concert grand, and at present, after many years, the
instrument which seventy-five years ago bent under the pull of the
strings, can now stand the strain of thirty tons! Chickering made pianos
as early as 1823.
After this there was much experimentation in pianos, culminating here,
in the pianos made by Steinway and Sons the ancestor of which was the
firm of Heinrich Englehard Steinweg, of Brunswick, Germany, starting as
organ makers. In 1848 Heinrich’s sons went to New York City and changed
their name to Steinway, where Theodore, the eldest, continued the firm
as Steinway and Sons.
Of course, the methods of stringing and tuning a piano have taken years
to develop—all of which we cannot go into in this book. Now, instead of
twenty strings, as we saw them in the clavichord, we have 243 strings to
produce 88 tones.
So now we have the harpsichord with hammers “grown up” into the
pianoforte, with its myriad parts, no longer made by hand, but carefully
manufactured by machinery and the finest of them are American.
PIANO BUYING CREATED A HOLIDAY IN THE 18TH CENTURY
“When the pianoforte was completed and ready to be delivered at the
house of the impatient purchaser (in Germany) a festival took place; the
maker, was the hero of the hour, and accompanied the piano followed by
his craftsman and apprentices, if he had any. (In those days the pianos
took months and months to make, for they were made by hand and the
makers received cash in part payment and the rest was made up in corn,
wheat, potatoes, poultry and firewood!)
“The wagon which conveyed the precious burden was gaily decorated with
wreaths and flowers, the horses magnificently decked out, a band of
music headed the procession, and after the wagon followed the proud
maker, borne on the shoulders of his assistants; musicians, organists,
schoolmasters and dignitaries marching in the rear. At the place of
destination the procession was received with greetings of welcome and
shouts of joy. The pastor of the place said a prayer and blessed the new
instrument and its maker. Then the mayor or the burgomaster of the place
delivered an address,—dwelling at great length upon the importance of
the event to the whole community, and stating, perhaps, that the coming
of such a new musical instrument would raise their place in the eyes of
the surrounding country. Then followed speeches by the schoolmaster,
doctor, druggist, and other dignitaries, and songs by the _Männerchor_
(men’s chorus) of the place. Amidst the strains of the band, the
pianoforte was moved to its new home. A banquet and a dance closed the
happy occasion.” (From _Reminiscences of Morris Steinert_ by Jane
Marlin.)
“THE PIANO AND PNEUMATICS”
It is very difficult to know just when this important instrument first
was invented. It seems to have started with a mechanical organ and many
were the experimenters among whom was John McTammany, a soldier in the
Civil War who while disabled turned his mind to mechanics and became one
of the great pneumatic (air power) experts. And so, just as we arrive at
the beautiful instrument, the piano, comes another instrument far more
complicated, whose possibilities are still in its infancy. At present
the automatic piano is operated by bellows and pneumatic tubes (which
look together like a bunch of gray spaghetti) and through which the air
is exhausted and acts in such a way that the piano hammers fall against
the piano strings. Into these instruments are placed perforated music
rolls which travel over a tracker bar full of holes, each one having its
rubber spaghetti tube. When the bellows work and the perforation of the
roll passes over a perforation of the tracker bar, the air is released
and its exhaustion causes the hammer to fall on the strings. This sounds
simple,—but it is not!
There are three kinds of automatic players,—one, the _piano player_,
which is now practically extinct in this country, a cabinet which moves
up to the piano, and with a series of keys corresponding to the keys on
the piano which, when in action presses down the piano keys and the tune
starts.
Then we have the _player piano_. In this, whether it be an upright or a
grand piano, the machinery is inside the piano itself (instead of being
in the outside cabinet), so that one can hardly tell at first glance
whether it is an automatic instrument or not. The perforated roll is put
on inside the piano.
All these piano player bellows work either by electricity or by the
feet. So in the latter, one cannot help playing with “sole”!
The _reproducing piano_ is the third type of player. This is magical,
for it reproduces the player’s performance as he plays it himself.
Therefore we can entice Paderewski, Bauer, Rachmaninoff and all the
other great players into our own drawing rooms and hear them with their
superb skill. These are usually operated by electricity, yet the Æolian
Company and probably others, have a _reproducing piano_ which is
propelled by the pedals as were the old ones before the invention of the
electric player. Furthermore, some of the reproducing pianos have a
mechanism with which you yourself can interpret any piece you desire.
This gives the music lover who has been denied the study of music a
chance to enjoy interpreting great music.
It is an impossibility to overestimate the value of the player piano to
the young student, to increase his auditory repertoire, for the music of
the world is his for the turning of a lever!
THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO ART
For a long time, the mechanical player has been looked on as a
step-child, to be made fun of and scorned. Today, the great critics and
best musicians recognize its value which is not as a substitute for a
piano but as an instrument in itself. Sir Henry J. Wood of England says:
“I realize the value ... of the pianola ... for a good many of the
people in our audiences ... are acquiring by its means a closer
acquaintance with the great musical masterpieces.”
He says in another place, “It’s a foolish and a shortsighted policy to
despise any means by which we may add to the sum total of musical
appreciation.”
And Edwin Evans, English critic and writer, says: “The player piano
relieves the musician of the technical difficulties of the keyboard....
It does not relieve him from the duty of thinking musicianly, on the
contrary, ... it makes it a point of honor with him to give ... fuller
employment to his brain and sensibility.... There are dozens of scores
nowadays which it is an impossibility to read at the piano and very
trying to read on paper. Here the player piano is a boon and a blessing
for it unravels every mystery and solves every problem.”
Besides this, it can be played so skilfully by some that even musicians
can be fooled as to whether human or mechanical fingers are playing.
Gustave Kobbé said, in his _Pianolist_, something like this: “There are
only about five professionals who can play the piano better than an
accomplished pianolist.”
To prove its artistic worth further, Percy Grainger, Alfredo Casella and
Igor Stravinsky and other great moderns are writing music especially for
the player piano because they can use the whole eighty-eight notes with
full orchestral effects, without stopping to think of the meagre ten
fingers of man! So we see in the future the possibility of this becoming
one of the creative instruments.
OTHER “CANNED” MUSIC
Then we have the phonographs and radio. These cannot be considered
instruments in the same way as the player piano and reproducing piano,
but are invaluable means of musical education and are doing, with the
player piano, a marvelous work in introducing people to the great music
of the world. Of course, it depends upon the way all these music
carriers are used, for if you have poor music on them, it will mean
nothing to you, but if you hear the “wear evers” on them, you will have
a touch of heaven in your life, forever.
PIANISTS COME TO VIEW
As an outcome of the work of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, the piano
appeared because of the need of a more powerful instrument than the
harpsichord and clavichord. At this time there were two particular
schools of piano playing,—the Viennese, light and delicate in tone, and
the English school, producing a more solid and more brilliant tone.
The principal pianists of the Viennese school were Johann Hummel, who,
as a boy of seven, was a pupil of Mozart, Franz Duschek, Mozart and
Pleyel. Later Beethoven himself appeared, the profound pianist in this
group, but also an advocate of Clementi’s methods.
The Clementi School is named from Muzio Clementi (1752–1832), the
“Father of the Pianoforte.” He was a composer of piano pieces,
especially of sonatas which are still of musical value. Who of us has
not studied Clementi’s sonatinas? Besides being a great player, a
teacher and a composer, Clementi published a work called _Gradus ad
Parnassum_, piano studies, a form which sprang up because of the need to
develop a technic for the new instruments when the piano was young.
Clementi, at fourteen, went to England, where he lived all his life and
became interested in the making of pianos. He was associated with the
firm of Clementi and Company, later Collard and Collard, and it is said
that he gave the Broadwoods much advice in the making of their “grand”
piano. So we see Clementi as a founder of piano technic, and an
instrument maker! He lived eighty years, during the last years of Handel
and Scarlatti, and he survived Beethoven, Schubert and Weber. It is said
that Mozart took a theme from a Clementi sonata for one of his operas.
His pupils were quite famous: John B. Cramer, the composer of many
important piano studies still in use; Johann L. Dussek, one of the first
to invent and write down finger exercises, and there were many others.
There were two schools with Clementi at the head of one, and Mozart, of
the other. With Hummel, a pupil of Mozart, the Classic School closed,
and then Clementi’s ideas came to the fore in the new Romantic School.
THE NEW ROMANTIC SCHOOL
One of the earliest of these new Romanticists was John Field, who was
born in Ireland, visited London, had quite a career in Russia and
foreshadowed Chopin in his playing. Then there was Ferdinand Ries, son
of Beethoven’s early friend and teacher, Franz Ries; but the most famous
of this period were Ignaz Moscheles and Frederick Kalkbrenner, a fluent
composer and writer of studies. He was the first pianist to teach
Clementi’s _Gradus ad Parnassum_.
Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870) was a Bohemian and from about 1815, the most
brilliant pianist in Germany, France, Holland and England. He was
Mendelssohn’s teacher. Chopin wrote three études (studies) on an order
from Moscheles. He is a _very_ important figure in the growing up of
piano music.
Carl Czerny (1791–1857) was another _very_ important pianist and one of
the few pupils of Beethoven. He was a follower of Hummel and Clementi
and won great fame as a teacher in Vienna, where he lived. He wrote a
great many pieces, about a thousand in all, making many arrangements of
orchestral works and many piano studies, which we still use today.
Beethoven encouraged him to make a piano version of his _Fidelio_.
Czerny was the teacher of many able musicians.
Frederick Chopin, you will find out later (Chapter 24) changed piano
music from the bravura to a poetic and deeper style. His touch and tone
were so enchanting that he created a completely new fashion in piano
playing which has not been lost. (See page 322.)
Clara Schumann (1819–1896), the wife of Robert Schumann, was the leading
woman pianist of the day, in fact, of many days.
In the times of Mozart and of Liszt, improvising (before audiences and
at parlor entertainments), was very popular and a part of a musical
education; around 1795, after the Paris Conservatory was founded, it
seemed to die out. However, organists today often improvise while
waiting for the church service to begin. Dupré, one of the famous French
organists, who has played in the United States, improvises whole sonatas
on given themes.
After Chopin, Schumann and Schubert there was a great love of the short
piano piece and as the piano was being developed more and more, it was
natural that pianists should become numerous. So piano playing was heard
in the concert hall and in the parlor where it was, to be sure, often
light and frivolous and yet quite often,—serious and delightful. The
light and decorated pieces were usually called _salon music_ and today
many are written which are classed as _salon pieces_. Cécile Chaminade,
as delightful and clever as her pieces are, is a typical _salon_
composer, Rubinstein, also, with such pieces as _Melody in F_, is a
writer of salon pieces, and there are countless others.
Among the people who were prominent as pianists and composers in that
day, especially in Poland, where Chopin was born, were Alois Tausig, a
pupil of Thalberg and Josef Wieniawski, who was the teacher of the “Lion
of Pianists,” Ignace Jan Paderewski.
Around Paris gathered many pianists among whom were Ignace Leybach an
organist and composer at Toulouse, Henry Charles Litolff the famous
publisher, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and the author of
_The Last Hope_, and Eugene Ketterer. The following, with many others,
centered around Vienna: Joseph Löw, Theodore Kullak, Louis Köhler,
Gustav Lange and Louis Brassin.
DASHING PLAYING
A little later, due to the improvements of the piano, another school
grew up called by some, the Bravura Pianists, because the pieces for
these pianists were written to show off brilliant technic. Most of the
people were flashy pianists, yet there were some very marvelous
performers, for among them, Liszt himself figures and Thalberg, a Swiss,
who was Liszt’s rival for piano honors.
Another set of pianists and composers was Henry Herz, Alexander
Dreyschock, Emil Prudent and Adolph Henselt, a Bavarian, who was an
amazingly poetic and beautiful player.
Practically all these pianists were prominent composers in their day.
About this time we see women coming into great prominence as
professional pianists. The first one to interest us is Marie Felicité
Denise (Moke) Pleyel, who was Miss Moke, the beloved of Berlioz and the
lady whom he intended to kill but changed his mind! She was an inspiring
teacher, a pupil of Herz, Moscheles and Kalkbrenner and was admired by
Mendelssohn and Liszt.
THE GROWTH OF VIOLIN MUSIC
The same things seem to have happened to violin playing and violin music
at this time as happened to the piano. There was always the competition
between writing fine, deep music and showy, spectacular music, which,
when played, would please an audience. But the violin was the same then
as it had been for years,—the only advance it had made was the
perfecting of the bow by François Tourte, assisted by Giovanni Battista
Viotti, Pugnani’s greatest pupil. We use his bow today. It has about one
hundred white horsehairs, the tension of which is controlled by a screw
at the nut in the finger grip. But the thing that did affect violinists
and violin playing was the fact of the rise in the 19th century of the
orchestra and chamber music. From the time that madrigals were first
accompanied by instruments, we have heard about _Chamber Music_, but the
string quartet in sonata form as we know it today, had as its father,
Haydn, and Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) as a godfather. The link between
the Corelli School of violinists and this school was Viotti who was one
of the first men to write a violin concerto in sonata form.
The violinists of this period were also given to bravura playing as were
the pianists. This was a safe thing for great violinists like Paganini
to do, but for the less gifted, it often developed into, not music at
all, but musical calisthenics. Here is the group which appeared in the
early 19th century: Rudolph Kreutzer, to whom Beethoven dedicated his
famous _Kreutzer Sonata_; Andreas Romberg (1767–1821) who knew Haydn and
Beethoven at Vienna and took Spohr’s place as concert master at Gotha.
He wrote music somewhat in the style of Mozart. Then comes the “Wizard
of the Bow,” Nicolo Paganini, standing alone and belonging to no school.
He was born in Genoa and began to play in public in 1795, when he was
thirteen years old. A very pretty story is told of Paganini and the
spider:
When Nicolo was a very poor and lonely student, he had a pet spider that
used to listen to him practise. Every time Nicolo would touch the bow to
the strings, out came Mr. Spider to listen attentively. Now there was a
little girl, the daughter of a shop-keeper near by; she adored the
great, tall, slender youth who spent most of the day and most of the
night playing on his violin. She fell ill and died, and by a curious
coincidence, the spider was killed. Paganini was so overcome by the loss
of his admiring comrades that he left home at once and wandered from
place to place, playing the guitar when he could not get work with his
violin.
Later he played all over Europe and had the crowd with him for his
matchless brilliancy in rapid work, his deep pathos and exceptional
beauty of tone. He has probably never been surpassed in double stopping,
chromatics and his _pizzicati_ (plucking the strings). Isn’t it too bad
the greatest violinist in the world lived before the gramophone was
invented, so we have no records of his playing as we have of Mischa
Elman, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Albert Spalding and Maud Powell!
In this period, Ludwig Spohr was of great importance. He was a friend of
Mendelssohn and, curious enough, was an admirer (one of the early ones)
of Wagner. He had been an intimate of Weber and played with Paganini at
Rome and knew Rossini. His rank as a violinist was acknowledged. He did
not stand for “fire works” but demanded fine music. He was always a
classical musician, for his early love was Mozart. You will meet him
again in the next chapter. He traveled all over Europe and met many
great men and his autobiography is a rich store of anecdotes and
interesting facts.
At this time too, there were many great violinists in France, Austria,
Germany and Italy. We would like to write a whole volume on the
brilliant pianists of the late 19th and 20th centuries such as
Paderewski, De Pachman, Godowsky, Busoni, Rosenthal, Harold Bauer,
Gabrilowitsch, Hofmann, Rachmaninov, Teresa Carreño, Myra Hess, Guiomar
Novaes, Katherine Bacon, John Powell, Percy Grainger, Levitski and
innumerable others!
MORE ABOUT RADIO
1927 witnessed the broadcasting of enchanting concerts by the Boston
Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky, The New York Philharmonic Orchestra
under Willem Mengelberg, The New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch,
Children’s Concerts under Ernest Schelling and many other organizations.
The important broadcasting companies maintain superb musical
organizations and there is growing up a valuable radio musical field for
pleasure as well as for education. Mr. Damrosch’s musical lectures on
the Ring have elicited nearly one million letters, from all parts of the
world!
1929 sees the capitulation of Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia
Orchestra to the value of radio in a series of broadcasts.
On many programs are heard the world’s greatest artists.