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 top or cover and thus gain son1e power of “swell” or crescendo, an invention of Roger Plenius,1 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 act as stops appears to have been John Hayward's (?Haward) as early as 1676, as we learn from lIace's Mnsick's M onument, p. 23 5. The French makers preferred a kind of knee-pedal arrangement, known as the " genouillere, ” and sometimes a more complete muting by one long strip of buff leather, the “ sourdine ” As an improvement upo11 Plenius's clumsy swell, Shudi in 1769 patented the Venetian swell, a framing of louvres, like a Venetian blind, which opened by the movement of the pedal, and becoming in England a favourite addition to harpsichords, was early transferred to the organ, in which It replaced the rude “ nag's-head ” swell. A I~rench harpsichord maker, Marius, whose name is remembered from a futile attempt to design a pianoforte action, invented a folding harpsichord, the “ clavecin brisé, ” by which the instrument could be disposed of in a smaller space. One, which is preserved at Berlin, probably formed part of the camp baggage of Frederick the Great
It was formerly a custom with kings, princes and nobles to keep large collections of musical instruments for actual playing purposes, in the domestic and festive music of their ¢, ., s, ,, f, ,, ., »s courts There are records of their inventories, Invention and it was to keep such a collection in playing order Z; 'he t that Prince Ferdinand dei Medici engaged a Paduan anon" e' harpsichord maker, Bartolommeo Cristofori, the man of genius who invented and produced the pianoforte? We fortunately possess the record of this invention in a literary form from a well-known Writer, the Marchese Scipione Maffei, his description appeared in the Giornale dei letterati d'Ilal1a, a publication conducted by Apostolo Zeno. The date of Maiiefs paper was 1711. Rimbault reproduced it, with a technically imperfect translation, in his Hzslory of the Pzanoforte. We learn from it that in 1709 Cristofori had completed four “ gravecembah 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 hackbrelt, 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 llaffe1's essay shows an incomplete stage in the invention, although the kernel of it-the principle of escapement or the controlled rebound of the hammer-is already there. He obtains it by a centred lever (lznguetla mobile) or hopper, working, when the key is depressed by the touch, in a sniall projection from the centred hammer-butt. The return, governed by a spring, must have been uncertain and incapable of further regulating than could be obtained by modifying the strength of the spring. 1iace describes a primitive swell contrivance for an organ 65 years before Plenius took out his patent (1741). 2 The invention of the piano by Cristofori, and him alone, is now past discussion What is still required to satisfy curiosity would be the discovery of a Fort Bien or F redcrici square piano, said to antedate by a year or two Zum e's1nvention of the instrument in London. The name Fort Bien was derived, consciously or unconsciously, from the Sa'<on German peculiarity of interchangmg B and P. Among Mozart's effects at the time of his death was a Forte-Bzano mit Pedal (see Vzerzehnter jahrlzcher Bench! des Mozarleum, “ 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 act1on. Moreover, the hammer had each time to be raised the entire distance of its fall. There are, however, two pianofortes by Cristofori. dated repect1vely 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 MetroPol1tan Museum, New York) has undergone considerable restoration, the original hollow hammer-head having been replaced by a n1odern one, and the hammer-butt, instead of being centrel by means of the holes provided by Cristofori himself for the purpose, having been lengthened by a leather hinge screwed to the block;3 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 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 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 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 infinite 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 c ii?
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iw
FIG. 13.-Cristofori's Escapement Action, 1720. Restored in 1875 by Cesare Ponsicchi.
and yet all-embracing 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
even Cristofori's light hammers, dem framing than the harpsichord
had needed. To
make his structure iirm
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; 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
guarantee the security of
the case, he ran an
independent string-block
round it of stouter wood
than had been used in
harpsichords, in which b
hold the farther ends of
indispensable to withstand
anded in its turn a stronger
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1726* Kraus Museum, Florence.
Cristofori s Piano e Forte,
lock the
hitch-pins were driven to
the strings, which were spaced at 3 Communicated by Baron Alexander Kraus (May 1908)
