Epilogue

The further development of the piano is based on instruments after 1850. The felt covers of hammers, double escapement action, crossed stringing in the bass and the cast iron frame form the main components which remained basically unchanged then. Further progress can be described in three terms: bigger, heavier, louder. The range nowadays begins at the bottom of the contrabassoon and ends in the top range of violin and piccolo. The weight is close to a car's, the volume fills a concert hall with hundreds of seats.

A look back to Mozart's time shows the differences: About 1780 a grand could be carried by two if necessary. Mozart for instance composed three concerts for piano or harpsichord (KV 413-415) with ad libitum winds which could be played as chamber music with a keyboard instrument plus a string quartet in a private performance. The piano in whatever shape was primarily a chamber instrument, whether grand in a bigger salon, or upright or square in a living room. The intoning of such an instrument respected that environment besides other furniture with hard reflecting surfaces or dampening  upholstery, and the close distance to the listeners. A clear and pronounced sound from top to bottom, a light attack and comparatively thin stringing improved the resonance of the instruments made entirely of wood. The interaction of the single components gave a well balanced system of forces that could hardly be changed at one point without unbalancing the others: an enforced attack, by heavier hammers, required stronger strings, their higher tension required a stronger frame of wood, later additionally stabilised by metal parts to avoid bending and collapsing asf asf.

The big concert grand of the late 19th and 20th centuries is, however an instrument designed to do justice to a concert hall and the sound volume of the great sinfonic orchestra as well as  nowadys the specifications of sound recording (and the "artificial ear" of the microphone). The required loudness requires heavy high tension stringing of considerable stiffness requirinf heavy hammers only to be achieved by thick felt covers. The resulting heavy attack but softer at the tip requires an action amplifying the touch of the finger considerably to set the hammers into motion and giving sufficient speed striking the strings. But with less string tension the thick felt would damp the strings' vibrations. So the modern grand again is another well balanced system, a sort of "musical architecture"like its predecessors,  residing in a changed environment though. As a tool of musical interpretation it is primarily adapted to this environment. 

The adaptation of the required to suit the music played on it is a musician's task. As the modern piano is far removed from those instruments the music was designed for, these challenges for the musicians to accent melody lines, delineate musical structures, make perceivable the movements of inner musical voices. In particular the deeper regions lach the clarity of the single tones many of those "old-fashioned" instruments of the past possessed by their own and is necessary for the interpretation of a Bach invention or a Mozart pino concert.  What modern instruments won  in loudness or compass came at a price and often a gain in one came with a loss in another quality. Today it is left for the musician to decide which kind of instrument to use under what conditions, and for the public which kind or interpretation to prefer. The contributing factors of the instrument for the sound impression of music and the rich variety on offer even of the one instrument "piano" for the musicians of the past has been widely forgotten at present.

 
 
 

© Greifenberger Institut für Musikinstrumentenkunde | info@greifenberger-institut.de