THE EVOLUTION OF THE PIANOFORTE.
While the present work is by no means intended to serve as an
elaborate analysis of pianoforte development, it seems that a proper
comprehension of the various principles that are laid down in the
course of our argument will be facilitated by a short survey of the
evolution of the instrument, undertaken from an historical viewpoint.
As we recognize in the pianoforte of to-day the culmination of the
musical-mechanical effort of ages, and as a complete study of the
results that have been achieved can best be introduced by a preliminary
knowledge of the manner in which the various steps towards latter-day
excellence have been attained, it seems that we cannot do better than
make an attempt to survey the field of pianoforte evolution in a manner
broad and general, though necessarily brief.
As was incidentally remarked in the last chapter, we may properly
consider the modern pianoforte as essentially the product of all
the ages. The origin of stringed instruments is lost in the mists
of antiquity, but Greek mythology has supplied us with a most
pleasing legend to account for the invention of that pioneer of all
stretched-string instruments, the classic lyre. We are told that
Hermes, walking one day along the shore, found lying at his feet the
shell of a dead tortoise. The intestines of the animal had been dried
in the sun and were stretched along the rim of the shell so that when
Hermes’ foot struck against one of them, a musical sound was given
forth and Lo! the lyre was born. Earlier still are the accounts, in
the shape of cuneiform or other inscriptions, that show a form of lyre
to have been in use among the Assyrians. The biblical descriptions of
various stringed instruments, such as the psaltery, or the harp of
David, are generally familiar.
While doubtless we need not consider it illogical to trace the
beginning of modern stringed instruments, whether they be of the
key-board variety or otherwise, to such misty and vague traditions,
we must look to more modern times for a true understanding of the
causes that operated to produce the key-board. This, the distinguishing
feature of the pianoforte family, first arose through the need for a
facile means of accompanying the voice in the then newly beginning art
of music which required the simultaneous sounding of different tones.
Instruments of the organ type were earlier in the field, for we have
accounts of the water-organ in the writings of the historians of the
later Roman Empire. The earliest form of key-board seems to have been
introduced in Europe in the latter part of the eleventh century A. D.
At about the same period we hear of a stringed instrument called the
organistrum, having three strings, one of which was in connection with
a number of tangents which were adapted to be pushed in upon it so as
to sound different segments and produce different notes. Later we find
that the ecclesiastical musicians were in the habit of using more or
less complicated monochords for the purpose of training their pupils in
the plain-chants of the church. These monochords gradually became more
complex and finally were mounted on a kind of sound board in groups
and thus became no longer monochords but trichords, tetrachords, or
polychords. The next step was obviously to furnish the instrument with
a set of balanced key-levers borrowed from the organ and with tangents
to connect the keys with the strings, these latter coming from the
organistrum. Thus we have at once the famous clavichord.
But this was not the only form of keyed instrument that was thus
early devised. We learn that the psaltery had contemporaneously been
fitted with keys. There were two forms of this famous instrument,
one trapezoid and one triangular. When both of these had been fitted
with keys there were two more distinct forms of keyed instruments;
differences which had a large influence upon the later development of
the type.
These three instruments were thus developed into the accepted forms
that were in general use during the seventeenth century and later;
becoming respectively the clavichord, harpsichord and spinet. It is
from these that the pianoforte is directly sprung. The harpsichord,
as its name implies, resembled a harp laid on its back and enclosed
in a case, while the strings were plucked, by quills set on jacks,
mounted on the keys. The natural shape of the harpsichord, therefore,
was similar to that of the modern grand pianoforte and it derived this
form from its direct relationship to the early keyed forms of the
triangular psaltery. The harpsichord had been a favorite for a long
time when Bartolomeo Cristofori, a maker of Florence, completed in
1709 the invention of a hammer action to replace the quilled jack at
the end of the harpsichord key. Thus was made possible the production
of dynamic effects, of which the harpsichord action had never been
capable except through the employment of various mechanical devices,
such as swells and double or triple banks of keys with jacks and quills
to match. The hammer-action of Cristofori as completed by him in 1726
shows a remarkable similarity to the mechanisms that are still to be
found in certain forms of square pianofortes. He succeeded in producing
an acceptable form of escapement and a damping device as well, although
as the date shows, not until after several years of experimenting and
improving upon the original design. Examination shows that Cristofori’s
action differs in no essential respect from the square pianoforte
actions that we have mentioned. There is the upper and under hammer,
the jack working on a groove in the key, the escapement device to
determine the travel of the jack, the back-check, and the damper.
Every feature that is essential to provide escapement, repetition and
damping is found here. Cristofori was, however, obliged to make many
changes in the construction of his “gravicembalo col piano e forte” to
provide the increased stiffness necessitated by the different manner
of exciting the strings. His work, curiously enough, was not taken up
after his death by any other Italian harpsichord maker, and it remained
for a German to continue his experiments and bring them to a practical
and commercial success. Only two pianofortes by Cristofori are known to
exist, and one of these is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Gottfried Silbermann, who took up the work of Cristofori, built several
grand pianofortes towards the end of the first half of the eighteenth
century, and there still exist at Potsdam some of these that were
sold by him to Frederick the Great. These instruments appear to be
essentially founded upon the work of Cristofori, and the superior
workmanship and better adjustment of them do not serve to disguise
the evident fact that Silbermann, while improving in details, did not
discover any new principles either in action or otherwise.
Somewhat later we hear of Zumpe, who was apparently struck with the
idea of adapting the pianoforte hammer to the square-shaped clavichord,
which was not deep enough to take the Silbermann action, thus producing
a veritable square pianoforte. Zumpe’s device contained no provision
for escapement, which fault was afterwards corrected by the celebrated
inventor Stein. Mozart speaks of the merits of Stein and joyfully
describes how his mechanism prevented the blocking of the hammers.
Mozart used one of Stein’s pianofortes during the rest of his life.
The name of Stein is justly famous among the early pianoforte makers.
He was responsible, with the able assistance of his daughter Nanette,
for the Viennese type of pianoforte, which was for long such a favorite
over the heavier and more solid English style on account of its
surprising delicacy and lightness of touch. After her marriage, Nanette
Stein, in partnership with her husband Streicher, made many other
improvements, and her pianofortes were used by Beethoven and others.
The firm of Streicher still existed in Vienna a few years ago.
At this point, namely at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
we begin to hear of three revolutionary figures; a Frenchman, an
Englishman and an American. These are Erard, Broadwood and Hawkins.
Pierre Sebastian Erard settled in Paris during the latter part of the
eighteenth century as a maker of harps and harpsichords. Shortly before
the breaking out of the French revolution, Erard came to London and
began to make harps and pianofortes. In the meantime he was continually
working to improve his instruments and was responsible for many useful
inventions, such as the up-bearing to the strings by means of the
“agraffe.” His chief claim to the consideration of pianoforte makers
is due, however, to his invention of the “double repetition” action
which was perfected by him in 1821, after many years of unsuccessful
experiment. This action, with slight modification, is used at the
present day in all grand pianofortes, and its manifold excellences have
never been yet surpassed. Erard took out a large number of patents,
which were put into use by his successors, and the house founded by him
is still in existence and one of the most famous in France or indeed in
the world.
John Broadwood, the great English inventor and manufacturer, who also
has his name perpetuated in the continued and flourishing career of the
firm that he founded, was originally a workman in the shop of Tschudi
or Shudi, a London harpsichord maker. He rose from an apprenticeship to
the head of the house of Shudi and finally turned his attention to the
improvement of the pianoforte. He had early been the recipient of the
knowledge of Backers, the inventor of the so-called English action, and
when he came to build pianofortes on his own account, this experience
was made to bear practical fruit. Broadwood’s first achievement was
in the re-designing of the square piano of Zumpe. About the year 1780
he entirely altered its construction, set the tuning pins at the back
of the case, and added dampers and pedals. He next set about the
improvement of the grand, and divided the bridge, giving a separate
bass bridge and permitting the striking point of the hammers on the
strings to be adjusted with correctness, something that had never
been done before. This completed the divorce of the pianoforte from
the harpsichord. With the addition of the action invented by Backers,
Broadwood’s pianofortes became at once a standard of quality and
excellence and until the introduction of iron framing stood alone.
We now come to Hawkins. This remarkable man was an engineer of
Philadelphia, English by birth but American by adoption. In the year
1800 he produced an upright pianoforte, the first of its kind. This
instrument, though it was not a commercial success, was remarkable for
the fact that Hawkins in it anticipated so many of the ideas that have
since become essential to modern instruments. He had an independent
iron frame supporting the sound-board, a mechanical tuning device, and
metal action frames. His action, too, had many features that have since
been adopted. Unfortunately, the tone was so poor that the instrument
was a failure from the start. His ideas in regard to upright pianoforte
construction were not allowed to languish, however, and the labors of
Wornum, who followed Southwell, were at last successful in producing,
in 1826, a practical action which at once settled the destiny of the
upright. This action had as its peculiar feature the “bridle tape,”
which is now such a necessary element of the upright pianoforte. He
also introduced the centre pin and flange.
At this point we begin to come to the great dividing line between the
early and the modern pianoforte. The introduction of metal framing
marks this division and it is from here that the American instrument
begins its independent and extraordinarily successful career. Indeed,
the development of American instruments is bound up with the almost
concurrent progress of ideas as to metal framing.
Although the first application of metal to pianofortes, not
considering the unfortunately abortive invention of Hawkins, may
be credited to William Allen, an Englishman, yet we must look to
the United States for the pioneer in the modern conception of metal
bracing. The man in question, Alpheus Babcock, was a Boston maker and
had been originally an apprentice of Crehore, who appears to have
made the first American pianoforte. Babcock applied his invention in
Boston in the form of a cast metal plate for a square pianoforte about
the year 1822 and this date is most memorable in that it marks the
epoch of the strictly modern conception of the instrument. Continuing
the consideration of this National school of design, we find that
the celebrated Jonas Chickering produced, in 1840, a cast-iron plate
for grand pianofortes, having the string-plate, agraffe-bridge and
resistance-bars cast solid in one piece. This revolutionary invention
unquestionably paved the way for the wonderful American productions
of later years and at once placed the American pianoforte upon a
plane of excellence that has never been altogether reached by its
competitors in other parts of the world. European makers were at first
slow to appreciate the eminently valuable nature of the invention of
Chickering, and until lately the solid cast plate was not extensively
used in Europe outside of Germany. The house of Collard and Collard,
which had the services of Stewart, the assistant of Chickering for
many years, was, however, most progressive in this respect and for
long was the only London firm which made grand pianofortes with the
iron plate cast in one piece. The celebrated house of Broadwood, after
much experimenting, produced a form of iron plate for grands that
was somewhat different in principle from that of Chickering. In this
type, the body of the structure was cast complete, but instead of the
multiplicity of braces, we find only two. One of these runs parallel
with the line of the vertically-strung bass strings at the extreme bass
end of the instrument, while the other crosses the plate in a diagonal
direction from near the middle of the agraffe-bridge to the point of
greatest tension. Both of these bars are cast separate from the body of
the plate and secured to it by means of bolts and nuts. Such a method
has usually been characteristic of European as opposed to American
methods, but the Broadwoods, about fifteen years ago, brought out a
decided novelty in their “Barless Grand.” This remarkable instrument
has a plate of cast steel and is entirely without braces or bars of any
kind, the necessary stiffness being gained through the tensile strength
of the metal employed and the use of a number of turned up flanges
along the sides of the structure, these being screwed into the case of
the pianoforte at equal intervals on its periphery.
As to the further development of the grand pianoforte, we may look
to the progress of the Chickerings and the Steinways in America and
to the Broadwoods in England, the Erards in France and the Bechsteins
and Blüthners in Germany. These makers are considered here because
they have all contributed in no small degree to the development of
the instrument as an artistic product and because they have all
been responsible for some radical improvement that has later become
essential to the make-up of a good pianoforte. We need only mention
the Steinway cupola plate, fan-like disposition of strings, overstrung
bass, duplex scale and capo d’astro bar to give the reader some idea
of the many inventions that have sprung from the fertile brains of the
members of this house. The other houses, notably that of Chickering
in this country, and Broadwood in England, have been prolific in
improvements, and the development of the grand pianoforte has
consequently been rapid and successful from the musical and scientific,
no less than from the commercial view-point. The history of the type in
more recent years is familiar to all, however, and it is unnecessary to
enlarge upon it here.
If we have seemed, hitherto, to have neglected proper consideration of
the upright and square forms of pianoforte, the fault is more apparent
than real. For there are two good reasons why discussion of these types
should have been delayed. In the first place, the square is already
obsolescent if not obsolete, while on the other hand the development
of the upright into a commercially successful and largely produced
instrument has only come about in recent years. This sketch would, of
course, be incomplete without brief consideration of them and we shall
therefore devote some space to this end.
As has already been indicated, the square piano may be considered
as having a genesis quite distinct from the grand or upright. It
was developed, as we know, by Zumpe, whose purpose was to fit the
hammer action to the body of a clavichord. Thus, when we consider the
different roots from which the clavichord and spinet-harpsichord types
were themselves evolved, and the direct descent of the grand pianoforte
from the latter, the entirely separate and distinct growth of the
square is easily discerned. This distinction is most interesting at the
present day, when the glory of the square has departed and its days are
numbered.
The evolution of the square pianoforte in America has been recorded
with faithful detail by Spillane in his “History of the American
Pianoforte,” and the reader will find in that work an abundance of
material to satisfy any curiosity that may possess him. Incidentally
it may be remarked that the idea of cross-stringing the bass had been
applied to clavichords as early as the time of Händel; so that the
overstringing of the square pianoforte came about quite naturally,
especially after the improvements of John Broadwood the First. On the
other hand, this principle was for long overlooked in the design of
the other popular types; so much so, in fact, that European grands
and uprights are still to be found in plenty with straight stringing
throughout.
The chief reasons for the gradual decline in the popularity of the
square may be traced almost as much to social and economic as to
artistic and mechanical causes, although these latter had the greater
influence in shaping the ultimate destiny of the type. The square was
developed in the United States until the native American product left
all imitators and rivals far behind, but even at that the fundamental
defects of construction could never be overcome entirely. The great
gap in the middle of the structure, required for the passage of the
hammers, entailed dangerous weakness, against which no reasonable
weight of iron bracing has ever seemed to prevail. Again, the fact
that the bass keys, where the strength of the blow and the leverage
of the action need to be greatest, were the shortest of all, while
the extreme treble keys were longest, always tended to destroy the
touch proportions and entailed much counter-balancing and other
operations which were, however, but makeshifts at the best. Moreover,
the development of the grand type led to rivalry among those makers
who confined themselves chiefly to the square, with the result that
the latter was made more and more heavy and cumbrous in an effort to
catch up with the fundamental advantage which the grand pianoforte
possessed on account of its superior design. Besides, the square was
never a thing of beauty, and its increasing size was by no means an
advantage in this respect, so that when the rapidly growing population
of the great American cities began to make living room continually
more valuable, the claims of the small, powerful, elegant, and
moderate-priced upright soon were successfully asserted. As a last
consideration, it should be mentioned that the makers of square
pianofortes were never able to apply to it a mechanism having the
elasticity and rapid repetition that belong to the Erard grand action
or the tape-check device of Wornum, which is universal in the upright.
In view of all these disadvantages, it is no longer a matter for
wonderment that the upright pianoforte succeeded the square as a bidder
for domestic favor, while the larger and more highly evolved grand
remained the choice of professional musicians.
The commercial development of the upright pianoforte, as we have
remarked, began at a comparatively recent period. In this country,
owing to the popularity of the square, we find that the upright was
late in coming into favor. Its development, however, had been going on
in Europe since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The “cabinet”
piano of Southwell and the “upright grand” of Hawkins were examples of
early attempts in this line, but it remained for the genius of Robert
Wornum to place the upright instrument on a truly practical footing.
This was accomplished through his invention of “the tape-check action,”
which at once put the upright pianoforte upon an equal plane of
efficiency with the prevailing types and assured its rapid adoption. By
the end of the first half of the nineteenth century the upright piano
had become firmly established as the home instrument throughout Europe,
and about the same time began to appear among American products. As
soon as American manufacturers took hold of it, they set about making
vast improvements upon European models; and we may properly date the
modern development of the upright from this time. Americans were
responsible for the adoption of overstrung iron-framed scales, and for
the increase in size and power which now makes our best instruments of
this class equal, if not superior, to the grands of a few years ago.
The later history of the upright, not less than of the grand, is a
simple record of continuous improvement in details of workmanship and
material, in beauty of case design and in scientific construction of
scale. It is not necessary, for the purpose of this short sketch, to
enter into the familiar modern history of manufacturing the various
types of pianoforte, either in this country or abroad; but we may note,
incidentally, that European makers have adopted more and more American
inventions and improvements, so that the modern, up-to-date pianoforte
owes a great part of its present efficiency to the genius of the great
American makers, although these, of course, have worked along the great
principles that Broadwood, Chickering, Steinway, Weber, Knabe, Erard
and others laid down.
Thus we have surveyed, though truly in a somewhat hurried manner, the
interesting history of the growth and development of the pianoforte of
to-day. The reader will forgive the brief and sketchy nature of this
bird’s-eye view, when he recollects that our purpose in this book is
to lay down the correct principles of modern design, rather than to
analyze those principles from an historical standpoint. Some of the
laws that we shall have occasion to expound have already been noted
here. In the succeeding chapters these and others will be considered in
the light of their scientific and practical application.