A short history of the development of the piano
The piano was born in 1709 when Bartolomeo Cristofori built the fortepiano, a keyboard instrument that possessed the ability to control dynamics not possible with the harpsichord. The piano was based on the hundreds of years work done on the harpsichord, including using the same soundboard, bridge, and keyboard devices. A harpsichord maker himself, Cristofori obviously benefited from this knowledge.
| Cristofori Piano circa 1720 |
Cristofori's great success was to solve, without any prior example, the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the hammers must strike the string but not continue to touch it once they have struck (which would damp the sound). Moreover, the hammers must return to their rest position without bouncing violently, and it must be possible to repeat a note rapidly. Cristofori's piano action served as a model for the many different approaches to piano action that were to follow.
Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an Italian writer, Scipione Maffei, wrote an enthusiastic article about it, complete with diagrams of the mechanism. This article was quite widely distributed, and most of the next generation of piano builders started their work as a result of reading it.
The next major innovation to Cristoforiís design was by Gottfried Silberman who invented a organ-style draw-stop that could lift the dampers from each string, a forerunner to the modern damper pedal.
In the late 18th century, piano making flourished in Vienna. At this time, the piano had a wood frame, two strings per note, and leather-covered hammers. It was for instruments such as this, that Mozart composed his concertos and sonatas. The piano have this day had a softer, clearer than todayís pianos and had less sustaining power. Pianos of this time are referred to as ìfortepianosî to distinguish them from 19th and 20th century pianos.
Between the years of 1790 and 1890 the piano went under tremendous change, mainly due because of the Industrial Revolution, which made available technological resources like high-quality steel for strings and precision casting for production of iron frames.
| A Broadwood Piano |
The English Firm, Broadwood, was the next to make significant improvements to the piano. Broadwood instruments grew large, louder, and more robustly constructed. The range of the piano expanded under Broadwood, from five octaves, to five octaves and a fifth in 1790, and six in 1810 and seven in 1820. Broadwood sent pianos to Beethoven and Haydn, and Beethovenís works for piano began using the extra notes of the six octave piano immediately after receiving the Broadwood piano.
| Erard Double-Escapement |
By the 1820s, the center of innovation had shifted to the Erard firm of Paris, which built pianos used by Chopin and Liszt. In 1821, Sebastien Šrard invented the double escapement action, which permitted a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen to its maximum vertical position, a great benefit for rapid playing. As revised by Henri Herz about 1840, the double escapement action ultimately became the standard action for grand pianos, used by all manufacturers.
The other technical innovations to rock this era were the iron frame. Also called the ëplate,í it sits atop the soundboard, and serves as the primary bulwark against the force of string tension. The iron frame was the ultimate solution to the problem of structural integrity as the strings were gradually made thicker, tenser, and more numerous. The iron frame was invented in 1825 in Boston by Alpheus Babcock, culminating an earlier trend to use ever more iron parts to reinforce the piano. The first iron frame in grand pianos (1840) was the work of the Chickering firm, at which Babcock was employed.
In 1826, Jean-Henri Pape introduced hammers covered by compressed felt, which could stand up to the harder, softer strings of the Broadwood piano. Additionally, Pape was also the first to introduce over-stringing (or ìcross-stringingî), the technique of overlapping two vertically slanted bridges instead of one, allowing for longer strings to fit within the piano. Henry Steinway Jr. first applied this to the grand piano in 1859.
| Cross-Stringing |
It during the same time that the piano received its third pedal (the ësostenutoí); invented by Jean Louis Boisselot
in 1844. This pedal was improved by Steinway in 1874.
Aliquot Stringing
The last major inventions of the era was Duplex scaling, invented by Theodore Steinway in 1872, permitting parts of the string near the ends to vibrate freely, adding to resonance and richness of sound. Aliquot stringing, a similar system, was invented by Julius Bl¸thner in 1873 for Bl¸thner pianos.
Since the 19th century, progress on the piano has been small compared to the vast bounds made by the innovators of the 18th and 19th century.
Further Information:
Adapted from Fact-Index.com and New Grove Dictionary of Music