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article url: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/music/21631 Pianoforte [piano].
A keyboard instrument distinguished by the fact that its strings are struck by rebounding hammers rather than plucked (as in the harpsichord) or struck by tangents that remain in contact with the strings (as in the clavichord).
The present article treats the history and technique of the instrument; for discussion of the repertory see KEYBOARD MUSIC, §III . Additional information on the contributions of particular makers is given in their individual articles.
In the Hornbostel Sachs classification of instruments the piano is reckoned as a box zither.
I. History of the instrument
1. Introduction.
The piano has occupied a central place in professional and domestic music making since the third quarter of the 18th century. In addition to the great capacities inherent in the keyboard itself – the ability to sound simultaneously at least as many notes as one has fingers and therefore to be able to produce an approximation of any work in the entire literature of Western music – the piano’s capability of playing notes at widely varying degrees of loudness in response to changes in the force with which the keys are struck, permitting crescendos and decrescendos and a natural dynamic shaping of a musical phrase, gave the instrument an enormous advantage over its predecessors, the clavichord and the harpsichord. (Although the clavichord was also capable of dynamic expression in response to changes in touch, its tone was too small to permit it to be used in ensemble music; the harpsichord, on the other hand, had a louder sound but was incapable of producing significant changes in loudness in response to changes in touch.) The capabilities later acquired of sustaining notes at will after the fingers had left the keys (by means of pedals) and of playing far more loudly than was possible on the harpsichord made this advantage even greater.
The instrument’s modern name is a shortened form of that given in the first published description of it (1711) by Scipione Maffei where it is called ‘gravecembalo col piano, e forte’ (‘harpsichord with soft and loud’). 18th century English sources used the terms ‘pianaforte’ and ‘fortepiano’ interchangeably with ‘pianoforte’; some scholars reserve ‘fortepiano’ for the 18th and early 19th century instrument, but the cognate is used in Slavonic countries to refer to the modern piano as well. The German word ‘Hammerklavier’ might refer to the piano in general, or alternatively to the square piano as distinct from the grand piano (‘Flügel’).
There is no continuity between the remote 15th century precursors of the piano described by Henri Arnaut de Zwolle around 1440 ( see DULCE MELOS ) and the origins of the instrument as discussed in §2 below, though references made in letters dated 1598 from Hippolito Cricca of Ferrara to Duke Cesare d’Este in Modena suggest that an instrument with dynamic flexibility (perhaps equipped with a striking mechanism) was used in the d’Este court in Ferrara during the late 16th century. These letters make repeated reference to a special instromento pian et forte, istromento piane e’ forte, instromento pian e’ forte and instromento piano et forte . An octave spinet …kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/21631?pri… 1/38 14.3.2011 Pianoforte in Oxford Music Online (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) made in 1585 by Francesco Bonafinis may have been converted to a tangent piano in the 17th century, providing further evidence that there were isolated attempts to construct string keyboard instruments with striking mechanisms prior to Bartolomeo Cristofori’s invention made around 1700 (see §2 below).
The modern piano consists of six major elements: the strings, the metal frames, the soundboard and bridges, the action, the wooden case and the pedals. There are three strings for each note in the treble, two for each note in the tenor, and one for each note in the bass. The massive metal frame supports the enormous tension that the strings impose (approximately 18 tons or 16,400 kg). The bridges communicate the vibrations of the strings to the soundboard which enables these vibrations to be efficiently converted into sound waves, thereby making the sound of the instrument audible. The action consists of the keys, the hammers, and the mechanism that impels the hammers towards the strings when the keys are depressed. The wooden case encloses all of the foregoing. The right pedal (the ‘loud’ or ‘sustaining’ pedal) acts to undamp all the strings enabling them to vibrate freely regardless of what keys are depressed. The left pedal (the ‘soft pedal’ or ‘una corda’) acts to reduce the volume of tone, either by moving the hammers sideways so that they strike only two of the three strings provided for each note in the treble and one of the two strings provided for each note in the tenor, or by bringing the hammers closer to the strings, thus shortening their stroke, or – on some upright pianos