72 P I A N F R T E maker, invented the square or table-shaped piano, the "fort bien" as he is said to have called it, about 1758-60. No square pian > by this maker is forthcoming, but M. Victor Fio. 15. SilbeiTnann Forte Piano; Stadtsc-hloss, Potsdam, 1746. Engraved by permission of H.T.II. the Crown Princess of Prusm. Mahillon of Brussels has acquired a Frederici " upright grand" piano, dated 1745, and contributes a diagram of the simple action (fig. 16). In Fredericks upright grand action we have not to do with the ideas of either Cristofori or Schroeter ; the movement is practi cally identical with the hammer action of a German 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 com mon in piano actions, and only now going out of use. Where are we to look for Schroeter s copyist, if not found in Silber- mann, Frederici, or, as we shall presently see, perhaps W T agner ] It might be in the harpsichord we have mentioned, which, made in 1712 by one Brock for the elector S of Hanover (after- ." ) wards George I. of p I(i _ m.Fredeiici s Upright Grand Piano Action, England) was bv l"^- Instrument now transferred to the museum of the Brussels C onservatoire. him presented to the Protestant 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 Mason, the friend of Gray, bought such an do with the invention of it 1 ) a square piano, which was to become the most popular domestic instrument. Burney tells us all about Zumpe ; and his instruments, still existing, fix the date of the first at about 1765. 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 de fect 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 simplest form is to be attributed to M. Mahillon, who has found it in a square piano belonging to M. Henri Gosselin, painter, of Brussels. The principle of this action is that which was later perfected by the addition of a good escapement by Stein of Augsburg, and was again later experimented upon by Sebastian Erard. Its origin is perhaps due to the contrivance of a piano action that should suit the shallow clavichord and FIG. IS. Schroeter s Model for an Action, 1721. permit of its transformation into a square piano ; a trans formation, Schroeter tells us, had been going on when he FIG. 19. Zumpe s Square Piano Action, 176(5. wrote his complaint. It will be observed that the hammer is, as compared with other actions, reversed, and the axis I FIG. 17. Hammer ari l Lifter of altered Haipsichord by rtrock. Instrument in the collection of Mr Kendrick Pyne, Manchester. instrument at Hamburg in 1755, with "the cleverest mechanism imaginable." It was only under date of 1763 that Schroeter pub lished for the first time a diagram of his proposed inven tion, designed more than forty years before. It appeared in Marpurg s Kritische Brief e (Berlin, 1764). Now, immediately after, Johann Zumpe, a German in London who had been one of Shudi s workmen, invented or introduced (for theie is some tradition that Mason had to FIG. 20. Old Piano Action on the German principle of Kscapemeiir. Square Piano belonging to M. Gossclin, lirussels. rises with the key, necessitating a fixed means for raising the hammer, in this action effected by a rail against which the hammer is jerked up. It was Stein s merit to graft the hopper principle upon this simple action ; and Mozart s 1 Mason really invented the "celestina," as we know from the cor respondence of Mary Granville. Under date of the llth January 1775 she describes this invention or improvement of the poet as a short harpsichord in form, 2 feet long, but played with the right hand only. The left hand controlled a kind of violin-bow, which produced a charming sostinente, in character of tone between the violin tone and that of musical glasses. Mason played upon it with great ex
pression.