Background Information
Early history
The idea of a scale of keys played with the fingers dates back to the Romans, who were the first to develop an organ. Then came the zither, which could be played with the fingers or a plectrum. The next step was to add keys so that they did the plucking for the musician. This was the clavicytherium, the earliest string-plucking keyboard instrument in the world, which came from southern Germany in 1480 and was the forerunner of the harpsichord. The clavicytherium can be seen (but not played!) in the museum of the Royal College of Music in London. This was followed by the clavichord, whose disadvantage was its quietness, despite its popularity in the baroque period. It is a kind of hammered dulcimer with hammers fixed under the strings. Later keyboard instruments (virginals, spinet and harpsichord) are derived form a version of the zither known as the cimbalom or hammered dulcimer as it was called in England. The strings are struck by mallets and they have a wide range of dynamics. The cimbalom can be heard today in east European Gypsy bands and the hammered dulcimer can still be heard in folk music.
Bartolomeo Cristofori
From about 1700 on, the harpsichord (preceded by the virginals and spinet) was a very fashionable instrument. It was a better string-plucking instrument, but still lacked dynamic range. It makes no difference if you press the keys firmly or gently. A solution was needed and the Medici family in Florence helped solve it. They had a huge collection of instruments and its curator was Bartolomeo Cristofori (1650–1731) who was also an inventor. In 1700 he invented the 'piano e forte' (Italian for 'soft and loud'), which was a revolutionary piece of engineering. He took the frame of the harpsichord and the hammer action of the clavichord in order to create his new instrument. High-tension strings are struck from below by small hammers levered upwards on a pivot. Cristofori's breakthrough was to create an escapement action, which means that the hammer falls away after it has struck the string. This enables the player to play the same note again in rapid succession if needed. The hammers can respond to the weight with which the player hits the key, thus creating a greater dynamic range than was ever heard before on a keyboard instrument.
Johannes Zumpe
The instrument was neglected for a while after Cristofori's death, but a few examples left Italy and ended up in London. George III's wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, loved music and commissioned a German living in London to create an instrument for her. His name was Johannes Zumpe and he must have been familiar with Cristofori's piano e forte. Zumpe invented the square piano, which was portable, reliable and cheaper than a harpsichord. It soon became very fashionable and many composers wrote music for it, notably JC Bach (1735–1782).
Johann Stein
In October 1777, Mozart (1756–1791) called to see Stein's new piano in Augsburg. He liked the escapement action and evenness of tone and was very eager to try it out. This visit had a great effect on Mozart. His subsequent compositions were to unlock the secrets of the instrument and produce wonderful music. His sonatas, piano concertos and piano trios are still played by amateurs and professionals alike in the concert hall as well as in the home.
The nineteenth century
The piano dominated during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was the ideal accompanying instrument to the human voice. Its tone and expressiveness had great appeal to composers such as Schubert (1797–1828), who was the first composer to exploit the relationship between the voice and the piano.
But it was Beethoven (1770–1827) who was to stretch the piano to its limits. He wrote 32 piano sonatas, which have become standard keyboard repertoire. By the mid-nineteenth century, the keyboard had expanded to 88 notes and it had an iron frame. With Liszt (1811–1886) and Chopin (1810–1849), who were also famous soloists, the piano repertoire expanded and gained even greater prominence. Composers, such as Mahler (1860–1911), used it to help compose their symphonies.
The piano was accessible and it democratised music. Amateur players could play symphonies and other orchestral works on it in their own home. It was a great accompanying instrument. In local halls it is still used to put on a musical production when there is no orchestra.
Claude Debussy
Debussy (1862–1918) was a brilliant writer for the piano. He had heard a Javanese gamelan orchestra* playing in Paris and wondered how he could transfer that sound to the piano. He experimented with the piano's rich palette of sounds and by using the sonorities of the piano in a startlingly new way, he had a huge influence on twentieth century composers. He unlocked the harmonic rules and clichés of past centuries and his use of syncopation (accenting a weak rather than a strong beat) would later influence jazz and popular song. He, in turn, was influenced by ragtime composers such as Scott Joplin. All the great popular arrangers and composers of the early twentieth century were pianists, for example Gershwin (1898–1937) and Duke Ellington (1899–1974).
*Gamelan means 'to hammer' and a gamelan orchestra contains a huge collection of different instruments: gongs, bells, xylophones, cymbals, drums, bowls, flutes and spike fiddles all played by a small group of co-ordinated players.
The piano today
The piano is a universal instrument and is used in popular music by musicians such as Elton John and Nora Jones, in contemporary music by composers such as Michael Nyman and in Jazz by composers and players such as Julian Joseph. Sadly, sales of the piano are not as good as those of the new digital keyboard, but there is no sign of the traditional instrument disappearing. Howard Goodall ends the programme by wondering what Cristofori would think about the digital version. He concludes that the inventor would be completely baffled by the volume controller after all the work he had done to create volume differences through the action of the instrument itself.
