Читать книгу Theory and Practice of Piano Construction - William Braid White - Страница 5

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While the present work is by no means intended to serve as an elaborate analysis of pianoforte development, it seems that a proper comprehension of the various principles that are laid down in the course of our argument will be facilitated by a short survey of the evolution of the instrument, undertaken from an historical viewpoint. As we recognize in the pianoforte of to-day the culmination of the musical-mechanical effort of ages, and as a complete study of the results that have been achieved can best be introduced by a preliminary knowledge of the manner in which the various steps towards latter-day excellence have been attained, it seems that we cannot do better than make an attempt to survey the field of pianoforte evolution in a manner broad and general, though necessarily brief.

As was incidentally remarked in the last chapter, we may properly consider the modern pianoforte as essentially the product of all the ages. The origin of stringed instruments is lost in the mists of antiquity, but Greek mythology has supplied us with a most pleasing legend to account for the invention of that pioneer of all stretched-string instruments, the classic lyre. We are told that Hermes, walking one day along the shore, found lying at his feet the shell of a dead tortoise. The intestines of the animal had been dried in the sun and were stretched along the rim of the shell so that when Hermes’ foot struck against one of them, a musical sound was given forth and Lo! the lyre was born. Earlier still are the accounts, in the shape of cuneiform or other inscriptions, that show a form of lyre to have been in use among the Assyrians. The biblical descriptions of various stringed instruments, such as the psaltery, or the harp of David, are generally familiar.

While doubtless we need not consider it illogical to trace the beginning of modern stringed instruments, whether they be of the key-board variety or otherwise, to such misty and vague traditions, we must look to more modern times for a true understanding of the causes that operated to produce the key-board. This, the distinguishing feature of the pianoforte family, first arose through the need for a facile means of accompanying the voice in the then newly beginning art of music which required the simultaneous sounding of different tones. Instruments of the organ type were earlier in the field, for we have accounts of the water-organ in the writings of the historians of the later Roman Empire. The earliest form of key-board seems to have been introduced in Europe in the latter part of the eleventh century AD At about the same period we hear of a stringed instrument called the organistrum, having three strings, one of which was in connection with a number of tangents which were adapted to be pushed in upon it so as to sound different segments and produce different notes. Later we find that the ecclesiastical musicians were in the habit of using more or less complicated monochords for the purpose of training their pupils in the plain-chants of the church. These monochords gradually became more complex and finally were mounted on a kind of sound board in groups and thus became no longer monochords but trichords, tetrachords, or polychords. The next step was obviously to furnish the instrument with a set of balanced key-levers borrowed from the organ and with tangents to connect the keys with the strings, these latter coming from the organistrum. Thus we have at once the famous clavichord.

But this was not the only form of keyed instrument that was thus early devised. We learn that the psaltery had contemporaneously been fitted with keys. There were two forms of this famous instrument, one trapezoid and one triangular. When both of these had been fitted with keys there were two more distinct forms of keyed instruments; differences which had a large influence upon the later development of the type.

These three instruments were thus developed into the accepted forms that were in general use during the seventeenth century and later; becoming respectively the clavichord, harpsichord and spinet. It is from these that the pianoforte is directly sprung. The harpsichord, as its name implies, resembled a harp laid on its back and enclosed in a case, while the strings were plucked, by quills set on jacks, mounted on the keys. The natural shape of the harpsichord, therefore, was similar to that of the modern grand pianoforte and it derived this form from its direct relationship to the early keyed forms of the triangular psaltery. The harpsichord had been a favorite for a long time when Bartolomeo Cristofori, a maker of Florence, completed in 1709 the invention of a hammer action to replace the quilled jack at the end of the harpsichord key. Thus was made possible the production of dynamic effects, of which the harpsichord action had never been capable except through the employment of various mechanical devices, such as swells and double or triple banks of keys with jacks and quills to match. The hammer-action of Cristofori as completed by him in 1726 shows a remarkable similarity to the mechanisms that are still to be found in certain forms of square pianofortes. He succeeded in producing an acceptable form of escapement and a damping device as well, although as the date shows, not until after several years of experimenting and improving upon the original design. Examination shows that Cristofori’s action differs in no essential respect from the square pianoforte actions that we have mentioned. There is the upper and under hammer, the jack working on a groove in the key, the escapement device to determine the travel of the jack, the back-check, and the damper. Every feature that is essential to provide escapement, repetition and damping is found here. Cristofori was, however, obliged to make many changes in the construction of his “gravicembalo col piano e forte” to provide the increased stiffness necessitated by the different manner of exciting the strings. His work, curiously enough, was not taken up after his death by any other Italian harpsichord maker, and it remained for a German to continue his experiments and bring them to a practical and commercial success. Only two pianofortes by Cristofori are known to exist, and one of these is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Gottfried Silbermann, who took up the work of Cristofori, built several grand pianofortes towards the end of the first half of the eighteenth century, and there still exist at Potsdam some of these that were sold by him to Frederick the Great. These instruments appear to be essentially founded upon the work of Cristofori, and the superior workmanship and better adjustment of them do not serve to disguise the evident fact that Silbermann, while improving in details, did not discover any new principles either in action or otherwise.

Somewhat later we hear of Zumpe, who was apparently struck with the idea of adapting the pianoforte hammer to the square-shaped clavichord, which was not deep enough to take the Silbermann action, thus producing a veritable square pianoforte. Zumpe’s device contained no provision for escapement, which fault was afterwards corrected by the celebrated inventor Stein. Mozart speaks of the merits of Stein and joyfully describes how his mechanism prevented the blocking of the hammers. Mozart used one of Stein’s pianofortes during the rest of his life.

The name of Stein is justly famous among the early pianoforte makers. He was responsible, with the able assistance of his daughter Nanette, for the Viennese type of pianoforte, which was for long such a favorite over the heavier and more solid English style on account of its surprising delicacy and lightness of touch. After her marriage, Nanette Stein, in partnership with her husband Streicher, made many other improvements, and her pianofortes were used by Beethoven and others. The firm of Streicher still existed in Vienna a few years ago.

At this point, namely at the beginning of the nineteenth century, we begin to hear of three revolutionary figures; a Frenchman, an Englishman and an American. These are Erard, Broadwood and Hawkins.

Pierre Sebastian Erard settled in Paris during the latter part of the eighteenth century as a maker of harps and harpsichords. Shortly before the breaking out of the French revolution, Erard came to London and began to make harps and pianofortes. In the meantime he was continually working to improve his instruments and was responsible for many useful inventions, such as the up-bearing to the strings by means of the “agraffe.” His chief claim to the consideration of pianoforte makers is due, however, to his invention of the “double repetition” action which was perfected by him in 1821, after many years of unsuccessful experiment. This action, with slight modification, is used at the present day in all grand pianofortes, and its manifold excellences have never been yet surpassed. Erard took out a large number of patents, which were put into use by his successors, and the house founded by him is still in existence and one of the most famous in France or indeed in the world.

John Broadwood, the great English inventor and manufacturer, who also has his name perpetuated in the continued and flourishing career of the firm that he founded, was originally a workman in the shop of Tschudi or Shudi, a London harpsichord maker. He rose from an apprenticeship to the head of the house of Shudi and finally turned his attention to the improvement of the pianoforte. He had early been the recipient of the knowledge of Backers, the inventor of the so-called English action, and when he came to build pianofortes on his own account, this experience was made to bear practical fruit. Broadwood’s first achievement was in the re-designing of the square piano of Zumpe. About the year 1780 he entirely altered its construction, set the tuning pins at the back of the case, and added dampers and pedals. He next set about the improvement of the grand, and divided the bridge, giving a separate bass bridge and permitting the striking point of the hammers on the strings to be adjusted with correctness, something that had never been done before. This completed the divorce of the pianoforte from the harpsichord. With the addition of the action invented by Backers, Broadwood’s pianofortes became at once a standard of quality and excellence and until the introduction of iron framing stood alone.

We now come to Hawkins. This remarkable man was an engineer of Philadelphia, English by birth but American by adoption. In the year 1800 he produced an upright pianoforte, the first of its kind. This instrument, though it was not a commercial success, was remarkable for the fact that Hawkins in it anticipated so many of the ideas that have since become essential to modern instruments. He had an independent iron frame supporting the sound-board, a mechanical tuning device, and metal action frames. His action, too, had many features that have since been adopted. Unfortunately, the tone was so poor that the instrument was a failure from the start. His ideas in regard to upright pianoforte construction were not allowed to languish, however, and the labors of Wornum, who followed Southwell, were at last successful in producing, in 1826, a practical action which at once settled the destiny of the upright. This action had as its peculiar feature the “bridle tape,” which is now such a necessary element of the upright pianoforte. He also introduced the centre pin and flange.

At this point we begin to come to the great dividing line between the early and the modern pianoforte. The introduction of metal framing marks this division and it is from here that the American instrument begins its independent and extraordinarily successful career. Indeed, the development of American instruments is bound up with the almost concurrent progress of ideas as to metal framing.

Although the first application of metal to pianofortes, not considering the unfortunately abortive invention of Hawkins, may be credited to William Allen, an Englishman, yet we must look to the United States for the pioneer in the modern conception of metal bracing. The man in question, Alpheus Babcock, was a Boston maker and had been originally an apprentice of Crehore, who appears to have made the first American pianoforte. Babcock applied his invention in Boston in the form of a cast metal plate for a square pianoforte about the year 1822 and this date is most memorable in that it marks the epoch of the strictly modern conception of the instrument. Continuing the consideration of this National school of design, we find that the celebrated Jonas Chickering produced, in 1840, a cast-iron plate for grand pianofortes, having the string-plate, agraffe-bridge and resistance-bars cast solid in one piece. This revolutionary invention unquestionably paved the way for the wonderful American productions of later years and at once placed the American pianoforte upon a plane of excellence that has never been altogether reached by its competitors in other parts of the world. European makers were at first slow to appreciate the eminently valuable nature of the invention of Chickering, and until lately the solid cast plate was not extensively used in Europe outside of Germany. The house of Collard and Collard, which had the services of Stewart, the assistant of Chickering for many years, was, however, most progressive in this respect and for long was the only London firm which made grand pianofortes with the iron plate cast in one piece. The celebrated house of Broadwood, after much experimenting, produced a form of iron plate for grands that was somewhat different in principle from that of Chickering. In this type, the body of the structure was cast complete, but instead of the multiplicity of braces, we find only two. One of these runs parallel with the line of the vertically-strung bass strings at the extreme bass end of the instrument, while the other crosses the plate in a diagonal direction from near the middle of the agraffe-bridge to the point of greatest tension. Both of these bars are cast separate from the body of the plate and secured to it by means of bolts and nuts. Such a method has usually been characteristic of European as opposed to American methods, but the Broadwoods, about fifteen years ago, brought out a decided novelty in their “Barless Grand.” This remarkable instrument has a plate of cast steel and is entirely without braces or bars of any kind, the necessary stiffness being gained through the tensile strength of the metal employed and the use of a number of turned up flanges along the sides of the structure, these being screwed into the case of the pianoforte at equal intervals on its periphery.

As to the further development of the grand pianoforte, we may look to the progress of the Chickerings and the Steinways in America and to the Broadwoods in England, the Erards in France and the Bechsteins and Blüthners in Germany. These makers are considered here because they have all contributed in no small degree to the development of the instrument as an artistic product and because they have all been responsible for some radical improvement that has later become essential to the make-up of a good pianoforte. We need only mention the Steinway cupola plate, fan-like disposition of strings, overstrung bass, duplex scale and capo d’astro bar to give the reader some idea of the many inventions that have sprung from the fertile brains of the members of this house. The other houses, notably that of Chickering in this country, and Broadwood in England, have been prolific in improvements, and the development of the grand pianoforte has consequently been rapid and successful from the musical and scientific, no less than from the commercial view-point. The history of the type in more recent years is familiar to all, however, and it is unnecessary to enlarge upon it here.

If we have seemed, hitherto, to have neglected proper consideration of the upright and square forms of pianoforte, the fault is more apparent than real. For there are two good reasons why discussion of these types should have been delayed. In the first place, the square is already obsolescent if not obsolete, while on the other hand the development of the upright into a commercially successful and largely produced instrument has only come about in recent years. This sketch would, of course, be incomplete without brief consideration of them and we shall therefore devote some space to this end.

As has already been indicated, the square piano may be considered as having a genesis quite distinct from the grand or upright. It was developed, as we know, by Zumpe, whose purpose was to fit the hammer action to the body of a clavichord. Thus, when we consider the different roots from which the clavichord and spinet-harpsichord types were themselves evolved, and the direct descent of the grand pianoforte from the latter, the entirely separate and distinct growth of the square is easily discerned. This distinction is most interesting at the present day, when the glory of the square has departed and its days are numbered.

The evolution of the square pianoforte in America has been recorded with faithful detail by Spillane in his “History of the American Pianoforte,” and the reader will find in that work an abundance of material to satisfy any curiosity that may possess him. Incidentally it may be remarked that the idea of cross-stringing the bass had been applied to clavichords as early as the time of Händel; so that the overstringing of the square pianoforte came about quite naturally, especially after the improvements of John Broadwood the First. On the other hand, this principle was for long overlooked in the design of the other popular types; so much so, in fact, that European grands and uprights are still to be found in plenty with straight stringing throughout.

The chief reasons for the gradual decline in the popularity of the square may be traced almost as much to social and economic as to artistic and mechanical causes, although these latter had the greater influence in shaping the ultimate destiny of the type. The square was developed in the United States until the native American product left all imitators and rivals far behind, but even at that the fundamental defects of construction could never be overcome entirely. The great gap in the middle of the structure, required for the passage of the hammers, entailed dangerous weakness, against which no reasonable weight of iron bracing has ever seemed to prevail. Again, the fact that the bass keys, where the strength of the blow and the leverage of the action need to be greatest, were the shortest of all, while the extreme treble keys were longest, always tended to destroy the touch proportions and entailed much counter-balancing and other operations which were, however, but makeshifts at the best. Moreover, the development of the grand type led to rivalry among those makers who confined themselves chiefly to the square, with the result that the latter was made more and more heavy and cumbrous in an effort to catch up with the fundamental advantage which the grand pianoforte possessed on account of its superior design. Besides, the square was never a thing of beauty, and its increasing size was by no means an advantage in this respect, so that when the rapidly growing population of the great American cities began to make living room continually more valuable, the claims of the small, powerful, elegant, and moderate-priced upright soon were successfully asserted. As a last consideration, it should be mentioned that the makers of square pianofortes were never able to apply to it a mechanism having the elasticity and rapid repetition that belong to the Erard grand action or the tape-check device of Wornum, which is universal in the upright.

In view of all these disadvantages, it is no longer a matter for wonderment that the upright pianoforte succeeded the square as a bidder for domestic favor, while the larger and more highly evolved grand remained the choice of professional musicians.

The commercial development of the upright pianoforte, as we have remarked, began at a comparatively recent period. In this country, owing to the popularity of the square, we find that the upright was late in coming into favor. Its development, however, had been going on in Europe since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The “cabinet” piano of Southwell and the “upright grand” of Hawkins were examples of early attempts in this line, but it remained for the genius of Robert Wornum to place the upright instrument on a truly practical footing. This was accomplished through his invention of “the tape-check action,” which at once put the upright pianoforte upon an equal plane of efficiency with the prevailing types and assured its rapid adoption. By the end of the first half of the nineteenth century the upright piano had become firmly established as the home instrument throughout Europe, and about the same time began to appear among American products. As soon as American manufacturers took hold of it, they set about making vast improvements upon European models; and we may properly date the modern development of the upright from this time. Americans were responsible for the adoption of overstrung iron-framed scales, and for the increase in size and power which now makes our best instruments of this class equal, if not superior, to the grands of a few years ago.

The later history of the upright, not less than of the grand, is a simple record of continuous improvement in details of workmanship and material, in beauty of case design and in scientific construction of scale. It is not necessary, for the purpose of this short sketch, to enter into the familiar modern history of manufacturing the various types of pianoforte, either in this country or abroad; but we may note, incidentally, that European makers have adopted more and more American inventions and improvements, so that the modern, up-to-date pianoforte owes a great part of its present efficiency to the genius of the great American makers, although these, of course, have worked along the great principles that Broadwood, Chickering, Steinway, Weber, Knabe, Erard and others laid down.

Thus we have surveyed, though truly in a somewhat hurried manner, the interesting history of the growth and development of the pianoforte of to-day. The reader will forgive the brief and sketchy nature of this bird’s-eye view, when he recollects that our purpose in this book is to lay down the correct principles of modern design, rather than to analyze those principles from an historical standpoint. Some of the laws that we shall have occasion to expound have already been noted here. In the succeeding chapters these and others will be considered in the light of their scientific and practical application.