Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/87

Rh PIANOFORTE which the tuning pins screw as well as into the wood beneath, thus avoiding the crushing of the wood by the constant pressure of the pin across the pull of the string, an ultimate source of danger to durability. The introduction of iron into pianoforte structure has been differently and independently effected in America, the fundamental idea there being a single casting for the metal plate and bars, instead of forging or casting them in separate pieces. Alphseus Babcock was the pioneer to this kind of metal construction. He also was bitten with the compensation notion, and had cast an iron ring for a square piano in 1825, which is not said to have succeeded, but gave the clew to a single casting resistance framing, which was suc cessfully accomplished by Conrad Meyer, in Philadelphia, in 1833, in a square piano which still exists, and was shown in the Paris Exhibition of 1878. Meyer s idea was taken up and improved upon by Jonas Chickering of Boston, who applied it to the grand piano as well as to the square, and brought the principle up to a high degree of perfection, establish ing by it the independent construc tion of the American pianoforte. We have now to do with over- or cross-stringing, by which the bass division of the strings is made to cross over the tenor part of the scale in a single, double, or treble disposi tion at diverging angles, the object being in the first instance to get longer bass strings than are attainable in a parallel scale, and in the next to open out the scale and extend the area of bridge pressure on the sound board. In the 18th century clavi chords were sometimes overstrung in the lowest octave to get a clearer fir,. 3-2. _ Meyer s Metal tone in that very indistinct part Krame for a ^ Uiire 1&amp;gt;ian of the instrument (strings tuned an octave higher being employed). The the overstringing in the piano was made by the cele brated flute-player and inventor Theobald Boehm, who carried it beyond theory in London, in 1831, by employing a small firm located in Cheapside, Gerock & Wolf, to make some overstrung pianos for him. Boehm expected to gain in tone; Pape, an ingenious mechanician in Paris, tried a like experiment to gain economy in dimensions, his notion being to supply the best piano possible with the least outlay of means. Tomkinson in London continued Pape s model, but neither Boehm s nor Pape s took perma nent root. The Great Exhibition of 1851 contained a grand piano, made by Lichtenthal of St Petersburg, overstrung in order to gain symmetry by two angle sides to the case. It was regarded as a curiosity only. A few years later, in 1855, Henry Engelhard Steinway (originally Steinweg), who had emigrated from Brunswick to New York in 1849, and had established the firm of Steinway & Sons in 1853 in that city, effected the combination of an overstrung scale with the American iron frame, which, exhibited in grand and square instruments shown in London in the International Exhibition of 1862, excited the attention of European pianoforte makers, leading ultimately to import ant results. The Chickering firm claim to have antici pated the Stein ways in this invention. They assert that Jonas Chickering had begun a square piano on this com bined system in 1853, but, he dying before it was completed, it was brought out later. It is often difficult to adjudicate 1833. In a single casting. first suggestion for j upon the claims of inventors, so rarely is an invention the product of one man s mind alone. However, the principle has been taken up and generally adopted in America and Germany, and has found followers elsewhere, not only in grand but in upright pianos, to the manufacture of which it has given, and particularly in Germany, a powerful impetus. But, in spite of this general recognition, the overstringing, as at present effected, is attended with grave disadvantages, in disturbing the balance of tone by in troducing thick, heavy basses, which, like. the modern pedal organs, bear no just relation to that part of the keyboard where the part-writing lies. The great increase also of tension which is held up as a gain, acts pre judicially upon the durability of the instrument, as no artificial screw ing up of the sound-board can always preserve the elasticity of the fibres of the fir tree (Abies excel su in Europe, A bie.&amp;lt; alb/ 1 in America) of which it is made. The re markable improve ments in the draw ing of the cast steel wire pro duced in Birming ham, Vienna, and Nuremberg (this last initiated by Boehm) have ren dered very high tensions practic- able. We believe they have been overstated in figures ; it is certain, however, that Broadwood s seven-octave concert grands have a tension of not less than sixteen tons when at the English orchestral pitch, the notes of the ideal lengths each draw ing 450 B). We have no such accurate statement to offer of the American and German concert grands, but we regard Steinway s as of not less than twenty-two tons tension. Whatever of importance has been introduced in the structure of the pianoforte we believe we have attributed to its legitimate inventor or to the manufacturer who has placed it in the light of day. It would be impossible within reasonable limits to chronicle the variations which have taken place in the barrings of sound-boards on which their resonant structure depends, the disposition of wooden beams or metal bars, the adaptation of mechanical action, or any of those countless modifications upon which finally depends the individual character of an instrument worthy to be presented and upheld as a work of art. There are many names of first-rate pianoforte makers whose place has not been in this record, simply because they have not ranked with the initiators or perfecters of inventions that have been accepted as of paramount importance. The earliest keyboard instrument makers were to be found in monasteries or collegiate foundations, and such lay help as mny have been employed was at best of the roughest kind. In the next epoch the artists guilds in cities absorbed lay musical instrument makers, notably on account of the then universal practice of&quot; making such instruments beautiful ; and, indeed, we are indebted to this for the preservation of many spinets and harpsichords in museums and private collections. The full members of the era ft - -Steinway s Grand T iano, 1884. Metal framing in a single casting and overstrung.