Notes on the History of the Piano
Musical instruments with keyboards have been evolving since 220
B.C. when a Greek engineer named Ctebius created the "Hydraulis"
to demonstrate, of all things, the principle of hydraulics.
The Hydraulis led to the organ and a technical evolution of that
instrument that has spanned centuries.
Meanwhile came more instruments based on the concept of multiple
strings, hammers and keyboards. First was the dulcimer, a
multi-stringed instrument played with hand-held hammers. It has
been claimed that the dulcimer was invented in the 9th Century
A.D. by Persian Abu Nasre Farabi, who called it a Santur. The
dulcimer has even been called "the first piano," but wait. The
invention of the piano is most widely credited to the Italian
Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731) in the early 1700s.
By then, several more stringed keyboard instruments including
the clavichord and harpsichord had come into play. The
harpsichord couldn't control the sound volume and the clavichord
couldn't produce the tone needed by the artist to perform in
large halls. Cristofori had the solution.
Cristofori replaced the string-plucking mechanism with leather
padded hammers. Now he had a keyboard instrument that played
"piano" (meaning "soft"), and "forte" (meaning "loud"). This
first piano was called "pianoforte."
While Johann Sebastian Bach and others failed to embrace the
pianoforte, Lodovico Biustini published "Sonate da Cimbalo di
Piano e Forte," the first work specifically for piano, in 1732.
Yet nearly half a century passed before the next composer was to
write specifically for the piano. It was Muzio Clementi, whose
"3 Sonatas, Opus 2" in 1770 triggered the emergence of the new
playing techniques and styles of expression needed to master the
piano.
The piano's pivotal turning point arrived in the late 1770s when
Johann Christian Bach redesigned it and more composers came
forward with more music for the piano. Soon there were solo
piano performances to packed concert halls in Europe and from
there, the piano found its way to Great Britain and America.
Here the piano evolved from a fashionable status symbol in the
mansions of the rare few to the mass assembly lines of Jonas
Chickering and Heinrich Steinweg. Thanks to their industry, the
public came to regard the piano as a necessary part of every
American household in the late 1800s. Knowing how to play it was
considered the best way to win admiration, love and respect,
especially if you were a woman.
By now the piano had been through all manner of transformation:
square, vertical upright, grand and variations of same, with all
the accompanying technical changes. Piano design and
manufacturing thrived in Germany, Austria, France, Great Britain
and America. But at the turn of the century, just when the piano
had achieved prominence as the primary source of home
entertainment, oops, here came the movies and the phonograph.
Not to mention the player piano, which "automated" what many
piano owners couldn't do. Then the gramophone and the radio took
over where the player piano left off.
Renewed public interest didn't hit until the 1930s when piano
makers introduced the miniature upright. From there the piano
has reached unprecedented standards of quality through
significant technical and cosmetic change brought on by new
materials, processes, techniques and innovative genius. Today
this amazing 5,000-piece invention is not the household staple
that it used to be, but it remains a solid investment and the
treasure of those who find fulfillment in the piano as a means
of creative expression.