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Rh equal distances (unlike the harpsichord), the dampers lying! between the pairs of unisons.

Cristofori died in 1731. He had pupils,1 but did not found a school of Italian pianoforte-making, perhaps from the peculiar Italian conservatism in musical instruments we have already remarked upon. The essay of Scipione Maffei was translated into German, in 1725, by Konig, the court poet at Dresden, and friend of Gottfried Silbermann, the renowned organ builder and harpsichord and clavichord maker.” Incited by this publication, and perhaps by having seen in Dresden one of Subemmn Cristofori's pianofortes, Silbermann appears to have taken up the new instrument, and in 1726 to have manufactured two, which ]. S. Bach, according to his pupil Agricola, pronounced failures. The trebles were too weak; the touch was too heavy. There has long been another version to this story, viz. that Silbermann borrowed the idea of his action from a very simple model contrived by a young musician named Schroeter, who had left it at the electoral court in 1721, and, quitting Saxony to travel, had not afterwards claimed it. It may be so; but Schroeter's letter, printed in Mitzler's Bzbliothek, dated 1738, is not supported by any other evidence than the recent discovery of an altered German harpsichord, the hammer action of which, in its simplicity, may have been taken from Schroeter's diagram, and would sufficiently account for the condemnation of Silbermann's earliest pianofortes if he had made use of it. In either case it is easy to distinguish between the lines of Schroeter's interesting communications (to Mitzler, and later to Marpurg) the bitter disappointment he felt in being left out of the practical development of so important an instrument.

But, whatever S1lbermann's first experiments were based upon, it was ascertained, by the investigations of A. I. Hipkins, that he, when successful, adopted Cristofori's pianoforte without further alteration than the compass and colour of the keys and the style of joinery of the case In the Silbermann grand pianofortes, in the three palaces at Potsdam, known to have been Frederick the Great's, and to have been acquired by that monarch prior to I. S Bach'S visit to him in 1747, we find the Cristofori framing, stringing, inverted wrest-plank and action complete. Fig. 15 represents the instrument on which ]. S. Bach played in the Town Palace, Potsdam. lu

FIG. 15.~Silbermann Forte Piano; Stadtschloss, Potsdam, 1746. It has been repeatedly stated in Germany that F rederici, of Gera in Saxony, an organ builder and musical instrument Frederic, maker, invented the square or table-shaped piano, the “ fort b1en, ” as he is said to have called it, about 1758-1760. No square piano by this maker is forthcoming, though an “upright grand ” piano, made by Domenico del Mela in 1739, with an action adapted from Cristofori's has been discovered by Signor Ponsicchi of Florence. Victor See Cesare Ponsicchi, Il Pwnoforte, sua ongme e .wzluppo (Florence, 1876), p 37.

“This translation, published at Hambur and reproduced in extenso, may be read in Dr Oscar Paul's éeschzchle des Clame1s (Leipzig, 1868).

Mahillon of Brussels, however, acquired a Frederici “ upright grand ” piano, dated 1745 (fig. 16). In Frederici's upright grand action we have not to do with the

ideas of either Cristofori or Schroeterthe movement is practically identical

with the hammer action of a German

clock, and has its counterpart

in a piano at Nuremberg, a fact which needs further elucidation. We note

here the earliest example of the leather hinge, afterwards so common in piano actions and only now going out of use. I


 * 7

'§

Where are we to look for Schroeter's ®Q


 * U

I

copyist if not found in Silbermann

F rederici, or, as we shall presently see, "perhaps I. G. Wagner? It might be 1

in the harpsichord we have mentioned, which, made in 1712 by one Brock for the elector of Hanover (afterwards

George I. of England), was by him

presented to the Protestant

pastor of Schulenberg,

near Hanover, and

has since been rudely

altered into a pianoforte

(fig. 17) There is an

altered harpsichord in the

to have been no more successful. But an attempted com pianoforte appears as a very early

FIG. 16 ~Frederici's Upright Grand

Piano Action, 1745 In the museum

of the Brussels Conservatoire.

museum at Basel which appears

bination of harpsichord and

intention. The English poet Mason, the friend A ""' Y, - of Gray, bought such an instrument at Ham; burg in 1755, with “ the cleverest mechanism imaginable "

It was only under date of 1763 that Schroeter3 published for the first time a diagram of his prol"i: WI ' "'. W .'lll“Y.“"l'llll*ll. Ililll".i'Lli'.lili{l"f'iiflivllliiffll3U¢'il"<ll”'“ "'7“. 1' 175 " - I,. ... ., ,. -..=~-f=~.1-== mn—|

Fig. 1

Instruizient in the collection of Mr Kendrick Pyne, Manchester. posed invention, designed more than forty years before It appeared in Marpurg's Kritische Briefe (Berlin, 1764). Now, immediately after, Johann Zumpe, a German in London, who gzfntgifen had been one of Shudi's workmen, invented or introduced (for there is some tradition that Mason had to do with the invention of it)4 a square piano, which was to become the most popular domestic instrument. It would seem that Zumpe was in fact not the inventor of the square piano, which appears to have been well known in Germany before his date, a discovery made by Mr George Rose. In 7 Paul de Wit's Musical Instrument Museum-formerly in Leipzig, now transferred to Cologne-there is a small square piano, 27 in. long, 10 in. wide and 4% in. high, having a contracted keyboard of 3 octaves and 2 notes The action of this small instrument is practically identical in every detail with that of the square pianofortes made much later by Zumpe (Paul de Wit, Katalog des muszkhistorischeu M useums, Leipzig, 1903. No. 55, illustration, p. 38). Inside is inscribed: “ Friedrich Hildebrandt, Instrumentenmacher in Leipzig, Quergasse, ” with four figures 3 For arguments in favour of Schroeter's claim to the invention of the pianoforte see Dr Oscar Paul, op. cn. p. 85-104, who was answered by A. ]. Hipkins in Grove's Dzct. of Illiuszc and Musicians. 4 Mason really invented the “ Celestina ” (known as Adam Walker's patent No. IOZO), as we know from the correspondence of Mary Granville. Under date of the 11th of January 1775 she des cribes this invention as a short harpsichord 2 ft. long, but played with the right hand only. The left hand controlled a kind of vio in bow, which produced a charming sostmente, in character of tone between the violin tone and that of musical glasses. -Hammer and Lifter of altered Harpsichord by Brock.