By Michael Leppert
The pipe organ is often referred to as the “King of Instruments”. Anyone who has ever sat in a large cathedral and experienced the wall-moving power of the large pipes, instantly knows why. If one wished to follow the convention of nick-naming of instruments along the same lines, the piano might be called the “Horse of Instruments”. No other musical invention has provided such a broad and expansive usefulness to humankind as the piano. Played from parlor to honky-tonk, nightclub to concert hall, by rank amateurs to amazing professionals; composed for by Liszt, Chopin, Joplin and Jelly-Roll; the standard instrument for composers and arrangers of all instrumental combinations; the bane of many an eight-year-old and the joy of every one who perseveres to mastery, the piano has seen and done it all – and has not slowed down. The brilliant inventor, Harold Rhodes, even developed a new variation on the piano during World War II, that has become part of the sound spectrum of the instrument today.
So, when came this wonderful wooden “horse”?
In the 1150s or thereabouts, what would look to us like a simple, almost primitive keyed instrument was developed. It was a group of individual “strings”, stretched over a wooden sounding board, to create amplification. Keys were pressed down which would cause the string to be struck and more than one note could be played simultaneously. There had been hammered stringed instruments (hammered dulcimer) and plucked stringed instruments (the harp, psaltery and later, the harpsichord), but this instrument was a departure from the previous technology.
Strings, too, were undergoing a gradual change for the better. Originally, animal intestines or “gut” were twisted and wound to improve strength and then dried and stretched to use in making ancient stringed instruments.
As metalworking developed and became more sophisticated, wire composed of various metals developed, especially in Germany, where they were often made of siler or gold or in cheaper versions, baser metals and then merely plated with the precious metals.
In the mid-1400s, the clavichord, which was a small and simple forerunner of the piano, had been developed to a point where many models were available. The mechanical action of the clavichord was not the same as that of the piano, but it was a positive step in the development of the ultimate technology.
The keyed instrument family grew over the next 300 years, taking on various plucked members, each one more elaborate in its mechanism, until finally, in 1709, a Florentine instrument maker, Bartolomeo Chrisofori, built a series of “harpsichords” capable of playing soft and loud – “piano e forte”, ultimately shortened to pianoforte, the modern proper name of the piano. But his harpsichord was hammered, not plucked, and it possessed two strings per note. (Modern pianos have three strings per note from the highest note down to A below middle C, then two per note down to the G an octave and one step below, then single strings for the remainder of the bass register.)
Over the 15 years or so, Christofori developed a way to dampen one of the two strings, so when the hammer struck, only one of the strings sounded. This allowed for more variations in volume than merely how hard the key was depressed. By 1720, he had built a number of pianos. (Some of his early pianos are still in existence. One of them is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.)
In 1725, a German instrument make tried his hand at copying Cristofori’s invention and then other German craftsmen took up making pianos. The instrument was not an overwhelming success at first, with competition from the harpsichord and the organ, but as time passed, more and more players began to take a serious interest in the piano. By 1760, the instrument was a permanent fixture in the German music world. The piano had been growing in popularity in France and England, as well, and the three countries had many fine piano makers.
Of course, once the piano became that popular, the need for music was close at hand. Players and composers began to develop their pianistic abilities and it wasn’t long before a repertoire for the new instrument was growing. To give you an idea of what other musical events were occurring around this period, here are some highlights:
1742 Handel’s Messiah premieres
1768 Johann Christian Bach (son of Johann Sebastian) gives a piano recital in London
1770 Beethoven is born
1772 two pedals – sustain and soft – are becoming commonplace in England
1800 a set of piano sonatas are completed by Reinagle
1810 Chopin is born
1811 Liszt is born; Prague Conservatory is founded
1817 Vienna Conservatory is founded
1826 Two piano methods are published in Europe
1828 The Bosendorfer company opens in Vienna
1839 The Czerny Method is published
American piano makers were hard at work, as well, with the first one made in Philadelphia in 1775 and Jonas Chickering beginning his piano making in 1823 in Boston. Chickering developed the iron plate that made it possible for heavier strings to be used and thus, provide us with the grand piano sound we are so used to today. Many other companies, many founded by English craftsmen, produced fine instruments in America during this time. At first, square grands and some spinets were the most popular models manufactured. By 1890, upright pianos had become the favorite in homes and represented the majority of sales in the U.S. In the first 30 years of the 20th century, the spinet returned to popularity, as many Americans moved into small apartments that could not accommodate uprights.
In every American home that could have one, the piano was the focal point of music making. Families entertained themselves by gathering around the piano and singing or dancing or playing instruments together, and the pianist was the mainstay of this activity. Studying the piano was considered an important part of every young lady’s education, virtually guaranteeing a pianist in every household. But it was the young men across the country who were mastering the instrument and making it the center of virtually every musical endeavor — whether live performance or arranging and composing.
In the realm of populr music, in both legitimate settings or those of less-than-proper repute, the piano made its presence felt. In St. Louis, a Classically-trained African-American composer, Scott Joplin, brought piano-playing to new heights of difficulty and complexity with his Rag Time style. Downriver, in New Orleans, a non-Classically-trained (therefore “folk”) pianist, Jelly Roll Morton, was doing his part to elevate piano playing in his own way with Stride and Boogie Woogie. Both men – and many other contemporaries – succeeded well, and even today, the various forms they developed are among the most challenging and difficult there are in the piano world.
As piano playing evolved and changed through the 1930s and ‘40s, men like Count Basie (who was self-taught) and the sophisticated and elegant Duke Ellingtn, brought another facet of piano playing to the fore. All through the Big Band era, piano remained indispensable to both front men and arrangers, the latter needing to have the full spectrum of instrument range possibilities available to them, that only the piano can afford.
With the Post-War era dawning, the technology to electrify instruments – especially the guitar – sounded the death knell for the piano and its dominance of pop music. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the electric guitar would become the voice of the generation and piano was relegated to a very rare appearance.
Fortunately, during this time, the classical world did not change so much and the piano maintained its place of importance and relevance. During the late 1800s and into the 20th century, pianistic giants such as Sergei Rachmaninoff and Peter Tchaicowsky, composed and played incredible pieces, pushing the envelope of virtuosity further with each passing year. In the late 1980s and 1990s, “New Age” composers/performers used the piano again, to present their simple, but beautiful pieces and the electric piano made live performing in even small venues possible.
Today, interest in classical piano is as robust as ever. Annual competitions are alive and well, with over 340 in the United States alone. Among homeschoolers, playing the piano may be returning to its former place of value as home-entertainment, too. With many families eschewing the vapid wasteland of television, self-made music is growing in popularity and the piano is still the central instrument in this endeavor. Senor Cristofori’s marvelous wooden horse is still kicking; taking its riders on excursions into an exceptional world of wonder and beauty – all for just the price of a few minutes of practice every day!
