Grand piano

“ It is difficult to understand why modern music-rooms have so long been disfigured by the clumsy lines of grand and upright pianos, since the cases of both might be modified without affecting the construction of the instrument. Of the two, the grand piano would be the easier to remodel: if its elephantine supports were replaced by slender fluted legs, and its case and sounding-board were painted, or inlaid with marquetry, it would resemble the charming old clavecin which preceded the pianoforte. ”

“ Beyond doubt, the piano would be a difficult obstacle, if not a complete barrier, to my further progress in that direction. It was evidently one of the grandest of “grand pianos,” far larger than the one I remembered to have stood in my mother’s cottage parlour. Its upper side, or table, was towards me, for it had been placed upon its edge; and I could tell by the echo given back to my blows that this table was a piece of mahogany of an inch or more in thickness. It appeared, moreover, to consist of one solid board, for I could feel no crack or joining over its whole extent ”

“ Italy can as little make a grand piano as America can compose a grand opera.
The history of the piano from 1710 to 1867 is nothing but a history of the improved mechanism of the instrument. The moment the idea was conceived of striking the strings with hammers, unlimited improvement was possible; and though the piano of to-day is covered all over with ingenious devices, the great, essential improvements are few in number. The hammer, for example, may contain one hundred ingenuities, but they are all included in the device of covering the first wooden hammers with cloth ”

“ The firm of Steinway & Sons exhibits two pianos, both of which have attracted the special attention of the jurors. The square piano fully possesses the tone of a grand—it sounds really marvelously; the ample sound, the extension, the even tone, the sweetness, the power, are combined in these pianos as in no piano I have ever seen. The grand piano unites in itself all the qualities which you can demand of a concert piano ”

“ A grand piano was indispensable in Frank's surroundings, both for its appearance in the studio and the relaxation it afforded in the various interludes. Several journeys to London were made before the lamps to be used were determined on (a modern design was essential) , and the brass fittings to hang candles from the rafters required still more delicate and cautious consideration ”

“ In 1839 he ventured on the first pure piano recital ever given in the concert hall. His series of performances in this line, covering the entire range of piano literature, in addition to his own compositions, given entirely without notes, led the public to expect playing by heart from all other artists.
As a great pianist, a composer of original conceptions, a magnetic conductor, an influential teacher, an intelligent writer on musical subjects and a devoted promoter of the interests of art, he stands out in bold relief, one of the grand figures in the history of music. ”

“ We think of the “Bagatelles,” which Beethoven wrote and published at this time, cabinet-pieces of remarkably genuine character.
Then suddenly rises before us the “Grand Sonata” (Op. 106) . We recognise no longer the old well-known features. It has assumed the forms of the giant-world; it laughs in its greatness, in its childlikeness. Will it really permit itself to be played by human hands? We are at the mysterious limits of piano-music. Rhythms marked by sharp blows, modulations in thirds, enharmonics, narrow-cut successions of chords [117] —these are the very hand of Beethoven. ”

“ He found the pedals and tried them, ran his yellow hands up and down the keys a few times, tinkling off scales, then turned to the company.
‘She seems all right, gentlemen. Nothing happened to her since the last time I was here. Mrs. Gardener, she always has this piano tuned up before I come. Now gentlemen, I expect you’ve all got grand voices. ”

“ Pianos are become articles of furniture to be met with in almost every other genteel house; Miss and her sisters sit down by turns, and screw themselves up to Ah vous dirai, or "I'd be a butterfly"—till some handsome young fellow who has stood behind her chair for six months, turned over her music, or accompanied her through a few liquorish airs, vows his tender passion, brings her the last new song, and at length swears to be her accompaniment throughout life. The piano is then locked up, the music sent to Bath or Canterbury, and the lady is married and cannot sing. ”

“ American makers, we may add, have recently taken a hint from their English brethren with regard to the upright instrument. Space is getting to be the dearest of all luxuries in our cities, and it has become highly desirable to have pianos that occupy less of it than the square instrument which we usually see. Successful attempts have been recently made to apply the new methods of construction to the upright piano, with a view to make it as durable as those of the usual forms. ”

“ The legs are large, and elaborately carved, and are set in brass standards. On each corner of the frame is a design in gilt. There is one wooden pedal, and the range of the piano is five and one-half octaves. The name of the maker has been obliterated.
The piano in Illustration 290 is owned by Mrs. Louis M. Priest of Salem, New York. The body is of rosewood inlaid with brass, the lid being of mahogany, like the elaborately carved trestle-shaped supports. It has two drawers for holding music, and one pedal, the standard for which is a carved lyre with a mirror behind its strings. ”

“ If he could do so it was because he had harkened to the voice of the violin and resolved to show that the piano, too, could produce thrilling effects. In the same way he had listened to the human voice, and determined that the song of his own instrument should be heard. Those who give ear to the piano alone will never learn the secret of calling forth its supreme eloquence.
We can see and hear this "Raphael of Music" at the piano, so many and so eloquent have been the descriptions given of his playing. ”

“ When I talk of the “new music”—which will be different from Debussy and Schönberg and all the rest of them—I am not talking of how far beyond the limits of known harmony, or the anarchy which disregards any harmonic system, we shall go. Undoubtedly, as far as all that is concerned, “some day some one will dig down to the roots and turn up music as it is before it is tamed to the scale.” This seems to me a settled fact. But I am much more interested in the piano itself and the deliverer who is to set it free from the lie which has grown up around it and make it vibrate to a truer color. ”

“ The value of the piano as an instrument of musical expression will always be the subject of discussion. It has undoubtedly two great shortcomings, which place the pianist under serious disadvantages. It cannot sustain tone, and the tones which can be produced on it will ever be more or less marred by unmusical noises which cannot often be avoided. But these very shortcomings make possible some peculiar beauties and a peculiar vitality which characterize pianoforte music alone. ”

“ Apart from its use as an accompanying instrument, the piano is one of the most satisfactory of solo instruments. It is a complete orchestra in itself. A greater volume of solo music has been composed expressly for the piano than for any other instrument. Schumann, Liszt and especially Chopin, for instance, wrote music for the piano which sounds as well on no other instrument and so it is with great pleasure that we offer truly worthy piano records, thus opening up a vast field of new musical delight. ”

“ Why the effect should be so singularly vapid we do not know until we think of the peculiarities of the instruments involved. Voices, especially in large groups, as in congregational singing, move slowly, sustain well, and show their quality best when disposed in broad masses. Hence the appropriateness to them of these deliberate chords. But the piano, on the contrary, sustains very poorly, achieves fullness of volume only by means of rapid utterance, and is in short at its very worst in the hymn-tune style. Piano tone requires to be split up into many facets, to be carved, so to speak ”

“ There is hardly any branch of music where this tendency to excess may not be discovered. The modern conception of the piano, for instance, as a rival of the orchestra in richness, variety, and power of sound has adulterated piano style in many respects. It has led directly to ‘un [Pg xv] grateful’ writing for the piano by composers, to pounding and other exaggerations by players. There are few musicians nowadays who show the fine self-control that made Schumann and Chopin models of how the piano should be treated. ”

“ Perhaps even our organ, which is an ancient invention, will not escape the critical censure of a coming age. And there can be little doubt that much remains yet to be known in the manufacture of musical instruments. It may be said with much reason that the only perfect instruments now in use are the violin, the violincello, the double-bass, the tenor, and one or two others. On these any tone of which their compass is capable can be produced in every possible variety of execution. The piano forte, delightful as are its powers, cannot produce a gliding sound from one note to the other ”

“ And of a power of magical improvisation, exercised in private such as Beethoven and Liszt so often displayed, we now hear less and less. The recitals, in great part, deal with the interpretation of known works, which often—like Beethoven’s E flat major concerto—are repeated ad nauseam. We have learning, we have playing, but we never see the enthusiasm which can be evoked by the stress of immediate creation. Piano-playing is a universal business even to the extremest limits of an amateurism which cannot strike a single chord instantaneously, nor dot a single note correctly. ”

“ All beautiful compositions notwithstanding, the piano is no concerto-instrument. In concertos the delicate ear is outraged. The piano will not adapt itself for new ideas in the hall, in the midst of virtuosity, or against the orchestra. It must become chaste; it must turn in faith to Bach’s Wohltemperiertes Klavier, the Old Testament, as Bülow called it, of the musician’s creed, and to Beethoven’s Sonatas, the New. ”

“ The playing of any instrument—be it ever so perfect, like that of Paganini on the violin, or Kalkbrenner on the piano—is, with all its charm, only the means, not the end of the tone-art. The achievements of Mozart and Beethoven as pianists have long been forgotten, and their pianoforte compositions, although undoubtedly classic works, must give way to the diversified, artistic treatment of that instrument by the modern school. ”

“ I wonder how many young people who sit down to practice or take a lesson at the piano-forte know the story of the instrument now familiar in every household of the civilized world. Look at it as we have it to-day, almost perfect in size and quality and tone. It is capable of producing the fullest and the softest sounds, just as its name indicates, for piano means soft, and forte means loud. Can you realize that little more than a hundred years ago pianos were a rarity? Only one or two makers produced any instruments worthy of the name, and few households possessed one. ”

“ The treatment of the solo instrument is more consistently pianistic, adds more in special color, therefore, to the beauty of the whole. The slow movement fulfills an ideal of the concerto which up to that time and even later has been almost ignored. It is a dialogue, a dramatic conversation between the orchestra and the piano, the one seeming to typify some dark power of fate, the other man. Its beauty is matchless. It is worthy of remark that both the G major and the E-flat major concertos begin with passages for the solo instrument. ”

“ Field’s fingers the piano is no longer a mere piece of mechanism; it sings, and seems as competent to produce sustained tones, as though it were played with a bow. Touched by this exquisite performer, it is a real musical instrument, and no longer a mere theatre for the exhibition of tours de force, the use to which the kind of talent possessed by a majority of what are called the greatest artists of the present day nearly confines it. ”

“ It would far exceed the limits of this article to give a complete account of pianoforte playing and composition in Germany since Beethoven’s time. The influence of the piano on modern music has been greater than that of any other single instrument. It is not only the favorite of the amateur, but is par excellence the composer’s instrument. As almost every modern German composer has written for the piano, its literature is far more voluminous than that of any other instrument, and piano players are as countless as the sands of the sea. ”

“ But the slowest revolution of all—and the most interesting—is that which is just beginning in the art of the piano. It is the slowest because it is not the public alone that is bound to the old form. The masters themselves have not visioned toward a need that would make a new form inevitable. The need is—a deeper music. And it is the most interesting because the convention that has bound the piano,—virtuosity,—is a more worthy convention than that which has restricted any of the other arts. ”

“ But the difficulty arising from the enormous expense of such musical instruments as the piano is less complicated; and indeed it would appear at first sight to be very extraordinary that in an age of almost unbounded speculation and competition it should exist at all. There is nothing in the construction of the machinery of a piano which ought to prevent it from being found in tens of thousands of houses in this country from which it is at present entirely excluded. The existing piano, however, is a traditional instrument—an heir-loom of the wealthy ”