Krehbiel - The Pianoforte and Its Music

8/12/2019 Krehbiel - The Pianoforte and Its Music

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Copyright, igio, by H. E. Krehhtel

Copyright, ign, bj Charles Scribner's Sons

Published January, 1911


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MusicLibrary

NIL

TO

IGNAZ JAN PADEREWSKI

Blue Hill, CMaine,Summer of igio.


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Illustrations

A Pianoforte by Cristofori FrontispieceIn the Crosby Brown Collection, Metropolitan Museum of

Art, New Yorlt.PAGE

Evolution of tlie Musical Bow....

Facing 12

Group of Clavichord Keys 18

A Harpischord Jack 18

Hammer-action of a Grand Pianoforte ... 45

Jean Philippe Rameau Facing 88

Domenico Scarlatti

Franz Liszt. . . . .

After a drawing by S. Mittag.

Francois Fre'deric Chopin

Ignaz Jan Paderewski

Carl Tausig. . ,

98

144

200

242

262


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Part I

The Instrument


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I

Principles and Primitive Prototypes

IN this book I have undertaken a study of theorigin and development of the pianoforte, themusic composed for it,and the performers who havebrought that music home to the understanding andenjoyment of the people who have lived since theinstrument acquired the predominant influencewhich it occupies in modern culture. There is thatin the title of the series of works to which this littlebook belongs which justifiesa trust in the gracious-ness, gentleness, and serious-mindedness of thosewho shall, haply, read it; and therefore I begin witha warning that an earnest purpose lies at the bottomof my undertaking: I am more desirous to instructthan to entertain, though I would not assert that inthis instance instruction and entertainment need bedivorced. Nevertheless, it was this desire that de-ermine

the method which I shall follow in the dis-ussionand which I shall believe to be successful in

the degree that it excites the imagination and quick-nsthe perceptions of my readers without burden-ngthe faculty which historical study, as commonly

conducted, taxes most severely that is to say, the3


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The Instrument

facultyof memory. I shall care littlefor dates andmuch for principles.Names shall not affrighte,and I shall not attempt to

distinguishnd divideA hair 'twixt south and south-west side

when it comes to enumeratingor describinghe in-trumewhich some centuries ago filledthe placein musical practiceow occupiedby that instru-ent

universal the pianoforte.Yet I shall striveto pointout why and how the structural principlesof those instruments influenced the music whichthey were called upon to utter, and pointedthe wayto the art of to-day. It is one of the cheeringandamiable features of historical study pursued in thismanner that it refuses to be kept in the dustyroadtrampedby date-mongersand takes into account theutterances of poets, the testimonyof ancient carv-ngs

and drawings,as well as the records of prosychroniclers. Many are the by-paths which leadinto the avenue of scientific fact varied and lovelyare the vistas which theyopen.

We are concerned in this portionof our studywith the story which shall tell us how the piano-ortecame into existence. As we know it,this in-trume

is practicallyproductof the nineteenthcentury; yet poeticaltraditions which have comedown to us from the earliest civilizations are at onewith the conclusions of scientific research in telling

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The Instrument

bare fingers,ome with a bit of metal, ivory,orwood, anciently called a plectrum. The featurewhich differentiates the pianofortefrom its com-anions

is the keyboard. This is a mechanicalcontrivance by which the blow againstthe stringsis not only delivered,but by means of which it canalso be regulatedso as to produce gradationsofpower and a considerable range of expression. Itis to the firstof these capacitieshat the instrumentowes its name the pianoforte {piano e forteas it was firstcalled)is the soft and loud. Thisofvery rudimentary talk,but its significanceilltheyar later.to the'ow, I were asked to give a brief but com-amiabl'ive definition of the pianoforte,hose or-manneowth, and present status are to occupytramped * tion in the first largesubdivision of thisutteranceshould say that it is an instrument ofings and dnnes of which are generatedby stringschroniclers, ivi by blows delivered by hammersinto the avenue cy.yboard,he mechanism of whichare the vistas whici.the force of the blow and the

We are concerneathe resultant tone are meas-with the story which d of the player. Also that itforte came into existencesonance-box, to augmentstrument is practically.century; yet poeticaltra an instrument may bedown to us from the earlie.of antiquity,he some-with the conclusions of scieidiaevalscholastics,nd


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the rude inventions of the savages who live to-dayto tellus something about thingswhich antedate thecivilizationof which our time has been so boastful.Mediaeval records are equidistantbetween the im-ginati

and scientificperiods. Now, imaginationnot only

bodies forthThe forms of thingsunknown,

but also preserves a record of thingsforgotten. Iam, therefore,pleasedfirstto invite its aid.

The god of music of the ancient Greeks was alsotheir archer-god. Recall the descriptionf Apol-o's

answer to the supplicationof Chryses in thefirstbook of the Iliad. The aged priestimploresthe god to avenge the wrong done by Agamemnon.

Hear me, thou bearer of the silver bow,

he prays; and thus the poet describes the god'sanswer to the appeal:

Phoebus Apollo hearkened. Down he came,Down from the summit of the Olympian mount,Wrathful in heart;his shoulder bore the bowAnd hollow quiver;there the arrows rangUpon the shoulders of the angry godAs on he moved. He came as comes the night,And, seated from the shipsaloof,sent forthAn arrow; terrible was heard the clangOf that resplendentow.

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The Instrument

It was not a mere chance that the poet equippedthe god of music with a bow, nor yet a strivingfterpicturesqueffect. A Homer would not have jug-led

so with words and images. Apollo bore thebow on this occasion because itfellto him to meteout retribution;but he was the god of music be-ause

he bore the bow. I cannot recall where, butI have seen somewhere another of these beautifulold Greek legends which presents Apollo listen-ng

entranced to the musical twang of his bow-tring,which gave out sweet sounds even while

it sped the arrow on its errand of death. Alsothere comes to mind the passage in the Odysseywhich describes Ulysses'strial of his own bow afterthe suitors of Penelopehad put it by in despairwhen he drew the arrow to its head and the stringrang shrilland sweet as the note of a swallow as helet it go. A version of an old legendgivenby Cen-sorinus says that the use of the tense stringof hisbow for musical purposes was suggestedto Apolloby the twang made by the bowstringof his huntresssister Diana.

Tales like these preserve a record which ante-ateshistoryas commonly understood. The bowwas the firststringedinstrument of music that iswh^tt these tales tellus; and note how the old lessonis illustrated in the life of to-day: There lives noboy brought up where the bow is a playthingwhohas not made Apollo'sdiscoveryfor himself. For

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musical instruments, housed at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art in New York, there is an instru-entfrom Brazil which has its counterpart in twospecimens from the Gaboon River, Africa, pre-erved

in the National Museum at Washington. Itis made from the midrib of a largepalm leaf. Inthe Washington specimensstripsf the outer skinof the midrib are cut loose and raised up on a ver-ical

bridge,the ends beingleft attached. Aroundthe ends and the midrib are littlebands of plaitedfibre by which the vibratinglengthof the stringscan be adjusted. As in the Angola instrument, agourd forms the resonator. The hunting-bow hashere grown into an instrument capable of givingout eighttones. The instrument was introduced inAmerica by slaves who came from Africa; this,atleast,is the contention of Professor Mason, of theNational Museum.

The theory which finds the originof all musicalinstruments of the stringedtribe in the bow of thesavage has a triplecommendation: the Hellenicmyths suggest it; reason approves it; the practiceof modern savages confirms it. Suppose primitiveman to conceive the desire to add to the numberof tones possibleo his improvisedmusical instru-ents

so as to enjoythat sequence or combinationwhich, when pleasinglyrdered, we call melody orharmony how would he go about it? Most natu-ally

by addingstringso his bow ; and a bow with10


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more than one stringis alreadya rudimentary harp.As Homer came to our support in the firstinstance,so the ancient sculptorhelps us now. The oldestrock pictureswhich archaeologistsave found inEgypt show us harps that retain enough of the bowform plainlyto suggest their origin. The body ofthe instrument is stillshaped like a bow; the singlestringhas received three fellows; the gourd of then-kungu has developedinto a sound-box of wood.The instrument was carried on the left shoulderand its stringsere plucked with the fingers. Themural paintingsand sculpturesof Egypt discovermany varieties of harps,some showing a marvellousdegree of perfection,ut even the largestand finestlacks the pole which completes the triangularformof the modern harp and is essential to its strengthand rigidity.

There is no relic of the bow in the shapes of theharps and lyresof the Greeks and Romans, but,instead,suggestionsof the tortoise-shell which, ac-ording

to the familiar legend told by Apollodorus,gave Mercury the idea exemplifiedin the classiclyre. According to this story, the god one day ac-identally

kicked a tortoise-shell stretched in theinterior of which there remained some cartilagesafter the flesh had been dried out by the sun. Thesechords gave forth a sound, and Mercury at onceconceived the idea of the lyre,made the instrumentin the shape of a tortoise-shell and strung itwith the


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The Instrument

dried sinews of animals. This legendoriginateshetwo principlesf a vibratingstringand a resonatorsimultaneously,and isobviouslyof a later date thanthe myth which made Apollo

The lord of the unerringbow,The god of Hfe,and poetry, and light.

But we ought now to look away from all theancient instruments whose stringswere twangedor plucked,whether with the unarmed fingers orwith plectraof various kinds, and seek for theearliest form of an instrument embodying the prin-iple

of a struck string. The oldest illustrations of, this manner of producingmusical sounds that have''''beendiscovered are Assyrian. Among the bas-reliefsculpturesaken from the tumuli which markthe placeswhere Nineveh, Nimroud, Khorsabad,and Kuijundschik once stood (theyare now safelyhoused in the British Museum, to the great gloryof the English people)is one representing portionof a triumphalprocessionn honor of Saos-du-Khin,an Assyriankingwhose reignbegan 667 years beforeChrist. In this group there is what I have vent-redto look upon as an Assyriandulcimer player.The instrument, apparently a sound-box withstringsstretched across the top (though they aredepictedas bending over each other in the air inagreement with ancient notions of art, which madeperspectivewait upon delineation of actualities)


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EVOLUTION OF THE MUSICAL BOW.


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was suspendedin front of the playerby a band fromthe neck, since both hands are occupied in playingupon it the righthand strikinghe stringswith aninstrument apparently about a foot long, the leftseeminglychecking the vibrations of the strings.

If this instrument was reallya dulcimer, it maystand as the true prototype among the civilized an-ientsof the modern pianoforte. Varied in shape,with many names, it has lived tillto-day. It is stillpopular in the Orient. It is the Persian santir; itwas the Greek psalterion,nd its use was generalthroughout Europe as early as the sixth century.The Italians called it the dolcimelo,compoundingthe word out of the Latin dulce and the Greekmelos. The ruder Germans, taking a suggestion,probably,from the motion of the players'hands,which suggestedthat of the butchers' in the prepa-ation

of their favorite viand,called it Hackbrett that is,chopping board. By this time the instru-ent

had attained its present form, a box of thinboards piercedon the top with sound holes,havingwire stringsstretched over bridges,played uponwith two hammers with slender handles and corkheads. Once it was played upon with two sticksslightlyent at one end, making an elongatedhead,one side of which was covered with cloth. Bystrikinghe wires with the cloth-covered surface softeffects were obtained a noteworthy device in thishistory,or it suggestedthe pianoforteo the mind

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of one of its inventors. The capabilitiesf thedulcimer may be studied to-day in the music ofthe ubiquitousgypsy band.

We have now seen something of the originandgrowth of two of the vi talprinciplesf the modernpianoforte the principleof a vibratingstringas amedium of tone generationand of a blow againstthe stringas a means of tone production. For athird distinguishingprinciple,that by which thetwo media are brought into mutual service,thejourney of discoverymust again be into the classicpast. The keyboard was borrowed from instru-ents

of the organ kind, and its antiquitycannotclearlye determined. Organs were the possessionof both Greeks and Hebrews before the Christianera, and their existence in anything beyond the sim-lest

forms, as exemplifiedin the syrinx,presup-osessome contrivance for admitting and exclud-ng

wind from the pipes at the will of the player.At first,and even after the instrument got intoliterature,this contrivance may have been a seriesof rods which could be drawn forth and pushedback under the mouths of the pipes,but in thesixth century a.d. Cassiodorus,in a commentaryon Psalm cl.,wrote a descriptionof a pneumaticorgan which leaves no doubt that the commentatorwas familiar with something like our key-action.He mentions the presence in the interior of the in-trume

of movements of wood which are pressed14


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whom we are indebted for our sol-fa syllables.Heis credited,too, with having appliedkeys to themonochord which, on being presseddown, lifted abridgeagainstthe stringfrom below, simultaneouslymaking it sound and dividingoff the portionwhosetone it was desired to hear. Whether or not he madethis discoveryis not proved, but that he was fa-iliarwith a keyed instrument is plain,from thefact that he left a writingfor his pupils,counsellingthem to practisetheir hands in the use of themonochord.

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The In ument

diatelymuffled,or damped, by stripsf cloth whichwere intertwined with the wires at one end.

Down to the end of the sixteenth century, thoughthe stringswere multiphed, the name monochordwas stillused, and, though the range of the instru-

A Group of Clavichord Keys(From an instrument owned by the author)

A Harpsichord Jack

ment had reached twenty-fournotes, the stringswere still tuned in unison. Gradually, however,the stringsfor the acuter tones were shortened bya bridgeplaced diagonallyacross the sound-board,this contrivance being borrowed, it is said, fromanother keyed instrument, called the clavicymbal,

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Mediaeval Precursors

which was, in effect, triangularsystem of stringsto which a mechanical device had been appliedwhich plucked or snapped the strings,somewhatin imitation of a harp player.

It is to instruments of this class that I now addressmyself,for it was for them that the earliest musicwas written which has survived in the repertory ofthe pianist,nd it was upon them that the predeces-ors

of the great virtuosi about whom I shall speakplayed. But it would be idle to attempt to explainall the differences between them. They were anumerous tribe and the members bore numerousnames, of which those that have endured longestinthe literature of music, and which, indeed, werespoken by our grandparents as gliblyas we saypiano now, were spinetand harpsichord. We shallbe spared a lot of curious and vain brain-cudgellingif we look upon these names, as also clavicytherium,clavicembalo, gravicembalo,epinette,nd virginal,as no more than designationsin vogue at differenttimes or in different countries, or at the most asnames standingfor variations in shape or structureof the instrument which filled the place before thenineteenth century that the pianofortedoes now.

In all the instruments of this class the stringswere picked with tiny points of quills(generally,though the material varied) held in bits of woodcalled jacks, which moved freelyin slots piercingthe sound-board, and rested upon one end of the

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The Instrument

key levers. The quillwas a tiny thing, not morethan a third of an inch in length,thrus^ through a/.aTow tongue which moved on a pivo. through a' (, 'n the upper part of the jack. Whe i at rest thei

' ^t lay a trifle below the string and at aslightlycute anglewith it. The key presseddown,

\.

the jack sprang upward, and the quillin passingrAXltwanged the string. When the key was released the,

jack dropped back to its placeand the quillslippedunder the string,ready for a repetitionf the move-ent.

' ) enable it to do this was the mission ofI the little tongue in which it was set. This was

held in place flush with the front face of the jackby a delicate spring of wire or hog's bristle. The

- tongue could move backward, but not forward, but,the quillbeing pointed a littleupward, when it fellback upon the stringthe springgave way, the tonguemoved back a bit,and the quillregainedits positionbelow the string. If you will read Shakespeare's128th sonnet it will help you to keep in mind theaction of these jacks, though at times the poet'sdescriptioneems to confound them with the keys.

Two hundred years ago the perfectionof instru-entsof the clavier class that is,instruments withstringsplayed upon by manipulation of keys was

thought to have been reached. This, at least,is therecorded judgment of writers of that period. Froma mechanical point of view, indeed, some of theseinstruments were marvels; but as music became


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less and less mere pretty play of sounds, and gavevoice more and more to the feelingsof composerand player,the deficiencies of virginal,spinet,andharpsichord became manifest. Even the mostelaborate and perfectof the quilledinstruments,the harpsichord,was a soulless thing. It was im-ossibl

to vary the quantityand qualityof its tonesufficientlyo make it an expressiveinstrument, andit is very significanto this study in all its aspectsthat the greatest musicians of two centuries ago,while they were obligedto compose for the harpsi-hord

and give it their preference in the concert-room, nevertheless, as we know from Bach's ex-mple

(but of that more anon), used the crude andsimpler clavichord as the medium of their privatecommunings with the muse.

Imperfect and weak as it was, the clavichord hadyet the capacity in some degree to augment anddiminish the tone at the will of the player. Thetone of the other instruments was not ineptlyde-cribe

as ''a scratch with a note at the end of it.Efforts unceasing were made to increase and givevarietyto the tone, but in vain. The defect wasfundamental. The earliest attempts at improve-ent

seem to have been directed to the jacks. Thequill-pointsad an unfortunate habit of wearingout rapidly,and when a player sat down to his in-trume

in a fine frenzy of inspiratione sometimeshad to stop and put in new quillsas well as tune


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it. So substitutes for goose and crow quillseresoughtfor,and fish bone, stiffcloth,leather,metal,and other materials were tried. The principle,however, always remained the same, and the defectwas never remedied: the jackstwanged the strings,and twanged them with uniform loudness. For thesake of varietyin tonal effects dampers of variouskinds were also invented to check and modify thevibration of the stringsfter theyhad been twanged;and, later,stringswere added which could bepluckedsimultaneouslyith the originalet by anadditional row of jacks. These added stringserefirsttuned in unison with the others,so that justtwice the amount of tone resulted from their use,but Ruckers, of Antwerp, the most famous harpsi-hord

builder of his time, conceived the idea ofaddingan extra system of stringsuned in the octaveabove, which could be coupled to the originalsys-em

at will. The front of the harpsichord,hichwas the instrument to which most of these improve-ents

were attached,ame in time to look somethinglike the console of an organ, with its draw-stops,pedals,and knee-swells.

The builders also used different kinds of metalin their stringsfor the sake of added effects,ndsince the quantityof tone could not be varied by thetouch of the player,the swell-box idea was bor-owed

from the organ, the entire sound-board ofthe instrument being covered with a series of shut-

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The Instrument

chords strove their successors, indeed, are stillstriving to overcome a deficiencywhich is inher-nt

in the nature of the instrument. As I have saidelsewhere,^despiteall the skill,learning,and in-enuity

which have been spent on its perfectionthe pianofortecan be made onlyfeeblyto approxi-ate

that sustained styleof musical utterance whichis the soul of melody and finds its loftiest exempli-icationin singing.

To give out a melody perfectlypresupposes thecapacityto sustain tones without loss in power orquality,o bind them togetherat will and sometimesto intensifyheir dynamic, or expressive,orce whilethey sound. The tone of the pianoforte,like thatof all its precursors, begins to die the moment it iscreated. The discoveries in the field of acousticswhich have been made within the last century, andthe introduction of the hammer-action in place ofthe jacks,have wrought an improvement in thisrespect, but the difficultyas not been obviated,and cannot be within the familyto which the keyed

\^instruments which we have been consideringbelong.A stringplucked or struck in order to produce asound is at once beyond the control of the player.To keep it within control the stringmust be rubbed.It is because of the importance which this truthassumed in the mind of one of the inventors of thepianoforte,and his experiments with an instru-

'See How to Listen to Music, p. 158,

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ment which combined the dulcimer and harp prin-iples,that I shall tell the story of the German

inventor, Schroter, at greater length than that ofthe Frenchman, Marius, or the Italian,Cristofori.To each of these I purpose to leave the credit ofbeing an isolated inventor, though they worked atdifferent times and brought forth their inventions inthe reverse order of that in which I have presentedtheir names.

One of the devices invented for the purpose ofprolongingthe tone of the harpsichord was incor-orated

in an instrument called Geigenwerk, whichcame from Nuremberg, famous for its inventionsthrough many centuries. Properly speaking,it didnot belong to the instruments of the clavier classat all,for,though it utilized tense strings, sound-oard,

and keys,its fundamental principleas bor-owedfrom the viol. It was, in fact, a highlydeveloped and aristocratic hurdy-gurdy. In it,by

means of treadles,wheels covered with leather andcoated with powdered resin were made to revolve,and while revolvingwere pressedagainstthe stringsby manipulationof the keys.

ChristopherGottlieb Schroter was a musician andteacher in Dresden who became dissatisfied withthe harpsichordbecause of the inabilityf his pupilsto play on that instrument with the taste and ex-ression

which they exhibited when they practisedon the clavichord. He went with a lamentation to

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The Instrument

the Saxon court chapelmaster,who advised him toget one of the Nuremberg hurdy-gurdy claviers.He did so, and the fact that it was possibleo sus-ain

the tones in a singingmanner on the instru-entpleasedhim much. But there was stilla fly

in the ointment. He was unwillingwhile makingmusic to work with both his feet like a linen-weaver, as he expressedit. While in this frameof mind he heard the performance of a famousvirtuoso on the dulcimer, and from this perform-nce

conceived the idea of constructingan instru-enton which, if it should not be able to sustain

the tone like the Geigenwerk, should at least makeit possibleto playforteor piaiioat will. He wentto work himself in a joiner'shop duringthe restinghours of the workmen, and succeeded in construct-ng

two models for a hammer mechanism to be ap-liedto the harpsichord. These, in February,1721,

he submitted to the King of Saxony, by whom theinvention was heartilyapproved, as well as by thecourt chapelmaster. He had no means to build aninstrument or exploithis invention,and though theking ordered one built it was never done. Soonthereafter Schroter left Saxony. Many years later,findingthat every pianofortebuilder in Germanywas claiming the invention of the instrument, heprintedhis story, giving all the dates with thegreatest care. He could do this because he hadkept a diaryall his life,nd he even mentioned the

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time of day at which he carried his models to theroyalpalace.The merit of having suggestedthe German in-ention

of the pianofortewas due to a player onthe dulcimer, and since we are concerned with astudy of principlesrather than mechanics it maybe profitableo consider what itwas in the perform-nceof this man which so powerfullyexcited theimagination of Schroter. The player was Panta-leon Hebenstreit, for many years a chamber musi-ian

at the Saxon court. Although an excellentviolinist,is favorite instrument was the dulcimer,on which he had acquiredgreat proficiencys aboy. Not content with the simple form of the in-trume

as he found it, he increased its size,strung it with a double system of strings one ofbrass and one of gut and tuned itin equaltempera-ent,

so that it might be used in all the major andminor keys,following in this the way pointedoutby the great Bach. He played it in the primitivefashion with a pair of hammers, and his musicexcited the liveliestinterest wherever he went. He

played before Louis XIV. in 1705, and the GrandMonarch honored him by giving the name Pan-taleon to his dulcimer. A year later he becamedirector of the orchestra and court dancing-masterat Eisenach, and later still chamber musician inDresden, at an annual salary of 2,000 thalers andan allowance of 200 thalers for strings.

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The Instrument

It is in Hebenstreit's dulcimer that we are priv-legedto see the first instrument with some of the

expressive capacity of the modern pianoforte.The interest created by his performances was notdue alone to the effects of piano a.nd fortewhich heproduced by graduatingthe force of the hammer-blows and utilizinghe two kinds of strings. Dis-erningmusicians heard in his playingfor the firsttime an effect whose scientific study of late yearshas done more to perfectthe tone of the instru-ent

and to influence composers and playersthananything else in pianoforteconstruction. Kuhnau,who was Bach's predecessors choirmaster of theChurch of St. Thomas, in Leipsic,praisedthe greatbeauty of the tone of the pantaleon,the bass notesof which, he said,sounded like those of the organ;but, more significantly,e recorded the fact thaton sounding a note its over-tones could be heardsimultaneouslyup to the sixth. Helmholtz's deter-inations

as to the influence of partialson the tim-reof musical instruments have been of the utmost

importance in pianoforteconstruction.

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Ill

The Pianoforte of To-day

THE story of the German invention of the piano-ortecannot make for the glory of Schroteras against the credit due to Cristofori, the earliestinventor of the instrument. It has been told onlybecause it illusFrates so luminously the principleswhich we are trying to keep in view in this chapterof musical evolution. Discoveries and inventionsof all kinds are growths; there was never anythingnew under the sun.---

The three men to whom I have left the honor ofbeing independent inventors of the pianoforte arethe Italian, Bartolommeo Cristofori; the French-an,

Marius, and the German, Christopher GottliebSchroter. It is in the highest degree probable thatefforts had been made in the direction in which

these men labored a long time before they cameforward with their inventions. The earliest use ofthe word pianoforte (or, literally,piano e forte) asapplied to an instrument of music antedates theearliest of these inventions by one hundred andeleven years, but the reference is exceedingly vagueand chiefly valuable as indicative of how early the

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minds of inventors were occupied v ith means forobtaining soft and loud effects from keyed instru-ents.Cristofori's invention takes precedence ofthe others in time. This has been established,ftermuch controversy, beyond further dispute. In1709 he exhibited specimens of harpsichords,ithhammer-action, capable of producing piano andforteeffects,to Prince Ferdinando dei Medici, ofwhose instruments of music he was custodian atFlorence, and two years later that is,in 1711 his invention was fullydescribed and the descrip-ion

printed,ot only in Italy,ut also in Germany.It embraces the essential features of the piano-orte

action as we have itto-day a row of hammers,controlled by keys,which struck the stringsfrombelow. In the description,written by ScipioneMaffei, the instrument is designatedas a NewInvention of a Harpsichord,with the Piano andForte (Nuova Invenzione d'un Gravicembalo colPiano e Forte). In February, 17 16,the Frenchman,Marius, submitted two models for a Harpsichordwith Hammers {Clavecin a Mallets)to the Aca-demie Royale des Sciences; one illustrated a devicefor hittingthe stringsfrom above, the other frombelow. It was a much cruder invention than Cris-ofori's,

but it contained the vital principlewhichdifferentiates the pianofortefrom its mediaeval andlater precursors. Marius's confessed purpose indevisingthe new mechanism was economy. He

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The Instrument

MDCCXX:' He communicated the fact to theCavaHere L. Puliti,whose investigationinallynddefinitelystablished priorityf invention for Cris-tofori. Puliti confirmed the authenticityof theinstrument, which was restored in 1875 by CesarePonsicchi,of Florence,and described and picturedit in his monograph on the originand evolution ofthe pianoforte,ublishedin 1876.

The case of the instrument,which preserves theshape of the old-fashioned harpsichords,s seven feetand one-quarter inches long,three feet and threeinches wide, and three feet high. It has a compassof four and a half octaves (fifty-fourotes)from thesecond legerline below the bass staff to the fourthspace above the treble staff. Its longeststringissix feet and two inches; itsshortest two inches. Itsthickest stringis seven-tenths of a millimetre indiameter; its thinnest four- tenths of a millimetre.There are only three thicknesses of strings,andthose of the lowest six tones are uniform in lengthand thickness, the variation in pitch being occa-ioned

by difference in tension.*' The stringsof the pianofortewere originallyf very thin

wire. The difference between them and those now in use is verystriking. As an illustration we may remark that the smallest wireformerlyused for the C in the third space of the treble staff wasNo. 7; that now used for the same note is No. i6. The weightof the strikinglengthof the firstis five and a half grains; - fthatof the second, twenty-one grains. This is sufficient to accountfor the increased bracing in the modern pianoforte. ('The

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The Instrument

suffice if I pointout the changes which have takenplace in the instrument from the time of its inven-ion

up to the present, in order to show, as I shallhope to do later,how these changes,in connectionwith other things,influenced the styleof piano-orte

composition and the manner of pianoforteplaying. Also how the desires of composer andperformer influenced the manufacturer. This isthe kind of knowledge, it seems to me, which is ofpracticalvalue to the music-lovers for whom thisbook is intended.

Speaking in round terms, the pianofortehad toreach the age allotted by the Psalmist to man beforeit achieved recognitionfrom musicians as a suc-essful

rival of the harpsichordas an instrumentfor publicperformance. During this time it was,indeed, but a rudimentary affair,a mongrel;neither a harpsichord nor a pianoforte in themodern sense. It long remained, in fact,what itsFrench and Italian inventors called it in the de-cript

of their inventions: a harpsichordwithhammers and, in consequence of these,possessingthe capabilityto give out tones piano and forte.Up to 1820 wood only entered into the constructionof its frame. The introduction of metal was a slowgrowth and, to judge by the printedrecord of theDescriptionand Historyof the Pianoforte and of the Older Key-oard

StringedInstruments, by A. J. Hipkins (London and NewYork: Novello, Ewer Co., 1896).34


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patent offices and books, the causes which led toit were mechanical merely; manufacturers wantedto utilize some of the space taken up by the woodenbeams and trusses necessary to enable the frame tostand the strain imposed by the stringsfor sillyon-rivances,

such as drums, cymbah, etc., which hadwon a large popularitys attachments to harpsi-hords;also to compensate for the expansionandcontraction of the metal strings,and finally,ndchiefly,to gain the greater strengthand rigiditynecessitated by a steady increase in the diameterand tension of the strings.

It appears to me, however, that a purelyartisticinfluence must also have playedits part in the in-roduct

of a reform which in a few decades grewinto a revolution. It is easy to imagine that thechange from pluckingthe stringswith quill-pointsto strikingthem with hammers would soon bringin a change in finger-action.n the music of thequilledinstruments there was neither accent nordynamic variety beyond that which could beachieved by such mechanical means as I havedescribed in my account of the devices appliedtothe harpsichordfor the purpose of mitigatingitsinherent imperfections.The effect of a slow pres-ure

on the keys was much the same as that of aquick blow. Very different,indeed, was the effectin the manipulationof the hammer-action. A gen-le

blow a caress produceda soft tone, a sharp35


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The Instrument

blow a loud one; and there were left at the com-andof the playerall the gradationsbetween. Thefingersno longer walked monotonously over the

keys ''with gentlegait hke those of the dark ladyapostrophizedby Shakespeare in his sonnet, butpounced upon them smartly,and the weight of thehand came to play its part. Now it is not theweight of the hand alone, but the energy of themuscles of the wrist and forearm as well. We shallsee, presently,hen we come to review the develop-ent

of pianofortetechnique,how graduallythischange in the styleof playingtook place,but thereis littledoubt in my mind that the emotionalismwhich strove againstaesthetic conservatism from theearliest times down to Beethoven exerted a steadypressure along the line which has ended in the stu-endous

instrument and the Samsonian playersofto-day.

With an increase in the weight and tension ofthe strings,ue in part on the mechanical side toimprovement in the manufacture of steel wire, theregrew the need of greater soliditynd strengthin theparts of the instrument called upon to endure thestrain of the strings.The frame was ingeniouslytrussed in various ways, but as the strain increasedit was found that in spiteof everything the fiercepullof the stringsfrom the pieceof timber holdingthe pins to which the further end of the stringswasfastened,the wrest plank, into which the tuning-

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pegs were driven,warped the wooden structure sothat in a comparativelyshort time it became dis-ortedand so disorganizedthat the instrumentwould not stand in tune. It was a common thingtwo generations ago to interrupta concert withan intermission,not so much to enable the playerto rest and the listeners to unbend and refreshthemselves with chatter, as is the case now, asto allow the tuner time to reset the tuning-pegs.This was due to three defects which have beenlargelyremedied since namely, want of rigiditynthe frame, lack of elasticityn the stringsand offirmness in the wrest pins. I have known pianiststo render a pianofortediscordant in our own day,but this was not so much because of the vehemencewith which they belabored the instrument as a mal-reatmen

of the pedals shiftingthe hammer bymeans of the left pedal from one of each set ofunison strings,nd then pounding upon the others.Naturally the struck stringswere stretched by theprocess, while the untouched unisons remained atthe originaltension.

The idea of obviatingthe defects due to an all-wood frame by the employment of metal seems tohave haunted the minds of pianofortemakers longbefore it found realization. Prejudice,doubtless,played a role here. For a quarter of a century ormore after its introduction metal was looked uponas a necessary evil. William Pole,quiteas good an

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The Instrument

mention is made of a clavichord of ebony, withcover of cypress, keys of ivory,and stringsof gold.Experiments were made with gut, silk,and latten.

Gold and silver compounded [saysDr. Rimbaultland ren-eredelastic would undoubtedlyproduce beautiful tones. A

goldstringr wire will sound stronger than a silver one; thoseof brass and steel give feebler sounds than those of gold andsilver. Silk stringsere made of the singlethreads of thesilkworm, a sufficient number of them beingtaken to form achord of the requiredthickness;these were smeared over withthe white of eggs, which was rendered consistent by passingthe threads through heated oil. The stringwas exceedinglyuniform in its thickness,but produced a tone which the per-ormer

called tubby.

The earliest pianofortesere strung with brasswire for the lower tones and steel for the upper.Seven or eight thicknesses of stringswere used inthe clavichords,spinets,and harpsichordsof theseventeenth century, but the Cristofori pianofortediscloses but three diameters. The evidence ad-uced

by this instrument, however, is not unim-eachablein this respect, since Signor Ponsicchi

may have found it necessary, or thought it wise, toalter the stringingso far as diameters were con-erned,when he restored it in 1875. In the modern

instrument all the stringsare of steel,though thosefor the lowest twenty tones (takingthe SteinwayGrand as a model) consist of a steel core wrappedabout closely(likethe G-stringof a violin)ith wire

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of a compound metal to give them greater weightand compensate for their disproportionateibratinglength. Irrespectiveof this covering,eighteendif-erent

sizes of wire are used, the development dur-ngthe last century having been not only along the

lines of elasticity,enacity,and tension, but alsodiameter. The lowest eight bass tones are pro-uced

by singlestrings,covered; the next five,bydouble unisons, covered; the next seven by tripleunisons, covered, and the remaining sixty-eightbytriplenisons,of simple wire. In all 243 stringsreemployed to produce the eighty-eighttones of theconcert grand. The average strain on each stringmay be set down in round numbers at 176 pounds.It was much higherbefore an agreement was reachedsome fifteen years ago among the principalpiano-orte

manufacturers of the United States to adopt alower pitch than the old London Philharmonic,which had long been standard, and which manymakers gave up grudgingly because of a belief thatit was more brilliant than the French diapasonnormal} Before the change a Steinway ConcertGrand endured a strain of nearly 60,000 pounds;now the pullis the equivalentof 43,000 pounds.

The Cristofori pianofortehas a compass of fourand one-half octaves, from C on the second legerline below the bass staflfto F in the fourth space

' The exact Steinway pitchis still a trifle more acute than thediapason normal, viz.: A=438i% as againstA=435.41


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The Instrument

above the treble. Very early the keys were ex-endeddownward to F, on the fourth legerline be-owthe bass staff,o as to give the instrument five

octaves. At the time of Haydn and Mozart fiveand five and a half octaves were in use, Clementihaving added the half octave in 1793. The piano-orte

which Broadwood, the English manufacturer,sent to Beethoven in 181 7 had a compass of sixoctaves, but six and a half had alreadybeen reachedin 181 1, and the practicalxtreme of seven octavesin 1836. I say the practicalextreme becausethe three notes which have been added since areof no artisticvalue. This, I venture to say, will notbe disputedby any honest maker, but commercialconsiderations have led to their preservation.B6-sendorfer,in Vienna, however, has made an Im-erial

Concert Grand with a compass of eightoctaves, from sub-contra F, in the eighth spacebelow the bass staff,to E in altississimo,n theeleventh space above the treble.

Pianoforte stringsincrease in thickness as thetones proceed down the scale in obedience to a lawof acoustics which teaches that when stringshavethe same length and tension, but differ in weight(thatis,thickness),their vibrations are in inverseproportion to their weight. Two other canons ofthe stretched stringare also of validity,ne ofwhich teaches that as a stringis lengthened it vi-rates

more slowly,as it is shortened more rapidly,42


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the tension remaining the same; in the former casethe tone produced is graver (lower is the populardefinition);in the latter more acute (higher)thanthe fundamental. According to the second canonthe tightera stringis drawn the higher the tone;the looser the slower its vibrations and the lowerthe tone, the length remaining equal. All threecanons find their applicationin the stringingofpianofortes.The old rule,stillprevailingn somehouses, like that of Erard, in Paris, and their imi-ators,

is to disposethe stringsparallelwith eachother. The majority of manufacturers the worldover, however, have taken a leaf out of the book ofAmerican practice and carry the overspun bassstringsof the lowest octave across a number of thestringsimmediately adjoining. The dispositionsthus fan-shapedand greater lengthis obtained forthe stringsof the lowest octave. This is the so-called overstrung scale,the combination of whichwith the solid steel or iron frame is the distinguish-ng

feature of the American pianoforte,a featurethat has been extensivelyadopted in Europeancountries.The principleexemplifiedin the overstrung scale,like the other features of construction the inventionof which has been discusssed,had long been in theair before it was successfullyapplied. The devicewas employed in clavichords of the eighteenthcent-ry,

and itseems likelyhat the idea was fermenting43


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The Instrument

simultaneouslyin the minds of the American in-entorof the solid iron frame for a square piano-orte,Alpheus Babcock, and Theobald Boehm,

the German who revolutionized the flute by his newboring and system of keys. Cabinet and squarepianofortesre now made in London after Boehm'sdesign in 1835, but overstrung squares were ex-ibitedin New York two years before, and thepatent of Babcock for cross-stringingpiano-ortes

(his meaning is vague and the originalrecord is lost)was taken out in 1830. In 1859Henry Engelhard Steinway, grandfather of thepresent presidentof the corporationof Steinway Sons, combined an overstrung scale with a solidmetal frame, thus taking the last reallyradical stepin the development of che American pianoforte.What has been done since is in the way of develop-ent

of the system in details.The mechanism by means of which the hammer

is made to strike the stringand set it to vibratingis a marvel of ingenuity. Its simplestform wasthat shown in the tangent of the clavichord by de-ressin

the key a short tongue of metal was thrustagainst the string. The key was a simple lever,and the metal tongue, the tangent, had to be heldagainstthe stringas long as it was desired that thetone should sound. The next step in the way ofimprovement was to hitch the handle of a smallhammer to a rail with leather hinges and to replace

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The Instrument

The fact that the hammer does not need to travelover the entire distance from its restingplace tothe stringmakes extremelyrapid repetitionsf theblow possible. As the key acts upon the hopperit also raises a damper of wood lined with felt,which in its normal positionlies against the stringfrom above. The release of the key brings thisdamper back to its place of rest and checks thevibrations of the string,thus preventing the dis-ordant

confusion of tones which would be heard ifthey were permittedto die by the gradual cessationof the vibrations. When it is desired that the tonesshall continue through a series of arpeggios or arepeated harmony all the dampers are raised si-ulta

by means of a pedal,the one to theright the damper pedal,commonly spoken of asthe loud pedal,though its use for the purpose ofincreasingthe volume of tone is the cheapest towhich it can be put. The leftpedalshifts the actionsidewise so that the hammers strike only one of thedouble and two of the tripleunisons, leavingtheothers untouched to vibrate sympathetically.his isthe action of the leftpedal in the grand pianoforte;in the upright it moves the hammer-action nearerto the stringso that the hammer describes a smallerarc in reachingthe stringsand its force is lessened;in the obsolete square it interposeda stripof feltbetween the hammers and the stringsand thussoftened the tone.

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The Instrument

made in the art of pianoforteconstruction from thetime of the invention of the instrument till now.The Steinway concert grand pianoforteis 8 feetand lo inches long and 5 feet wide. The weight ofits metal plate is 320 pounds, which probably ismore than the weight of the Cristofori instrumentin its entirety. The total weight of the Steinwayis 1,040 pounds. It has a compass of seven anda quarter octaves (eighty-eighteys),against theCristofori's four and a half octaves (fifty-foureys),its range extending nineteen keys above the topnote of the Cristofori instrument and fifteen belosL-the bottom note. The longeststringof the Stein-ay

is six feet seven and one-half inches in length,its shortest two inches; the longeststringof theCristofori is six feet two inches, the shortest fourand one-half inches; but the longeststringof theSteinway consists of a steel core two millimetresthick, wound with wire thicker than the thickeststringsof the Cristofori,o that the Steinway stringis in all five millimetres thick. One or two octavesof these bass stringscontain enough metal to stringthe Cristofori pianofortethroughout. The thickeststringon the Cristofori is smaller i-r diameter thanthe thinnest string on the Steinway. The tripleunisons on the Steinway which produce'-'^heowestnote of the Cristofori are wound and tv o milli-etres

thick. The highest note of the Cristoforihas a stringfive and one-half inches long on .,

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Part II

The Composers


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IV

The Earliest Clavier Music

THE period of musical composition which fallsnaturally and properly within the scope ofthis book is coextensive with the period withinwhich stringed instruments with keyboards weredeveloping into significant factors in the economyof music. If we were to confine ourselves strictlyto the period which has elapsed since the inventionof the pianoforte we should not be able to extendour inquiries further back than the earliest knownpublication embracing the name or a description ofthe instrument in its title. This publication, ac-ording

to Mr. Hipkins, is a set of sonatas (the wordsonata used in a sense less determinate than it pos-esses

now, as will presently appear in this study)composed by D. Lodovico Giustini di Pistoia, andprinted in Florence in 1732, The pieces are de-cribed

on the title page as being Da Cimbalo dipiano e forte detto volgarmente di Martellatti thatis, for the harpsichord, with soft and loud, com-only

called with little hammers. The repertoryof the modern pianist extends back of the date ofthis publication more than a century, however, andin its earlier portion shows so interesting a phase


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The Composers

of musical evolution that it would be a grievouserror to omit it from consideration.I cannot include in this part of my study,how-ver,

such a genesisof principless I allowed my-elfin the promenade toward the avenue in the

first part. Speculation,he study of poets'utter-ncesand the legendsof ancient peoples,the in-pecti

of ancient sculpturesnd mural paintings,may help us to conceptions of the appearance andeven capacityof early instruments, but they canteach us nothing of the music practisedduring theeras in which they arose. For us the historyofinstrumenal music does not begin until the four-eenth

century, and it is a fact of profoundestsig-ificthat we find the instrumental art stillin

its dawn when the vocal art reaches its meridian.The reasons are not far to seek. Though more in-trume

were used in the secular practice thannow, most of them were scarcelyore developedthan their precursors which are to be found in astate of arrested development in the Far East to-ay.

The influence of the taboo which the churchhad placedon the instrumental art while the musi-allaw-giversere exclusivelyhurchmen had notyet worn off. As late as the fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies secular musicians were vagabonds in theeye of the law. Like strollinglayers

Beggars they were with one consent,And rogues by act of Parliament.54


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The Composers

It was the organ that playedthe part of intercederand advocate of the instrumental company for theiradmission into the province of art, and it was inVenice that instrumental music began to flourish inthe fourteenth century. The skill of a long lineof organists in the fourteenth, fifteenth,and six-eenth

centuries shone pre-eminentlyamong thecontemporaneous gloriesand magnificence of theCity of the Doges. The Cathedral of St. Markwas the magnet that drew organ playersto Venice,as the Sistine Chapel drew composers and singersto Rome. These organistsgave pomp and brill-ancy

to the services,to which kneeling thousandslistened,by their improvisationspon church melo-ies

and the set pieceswhich they played at timeswhen the choir was silent. There were two organsin St. Mark's, each generallyin the hands of oneof the world's greatest masters, and they were em-loyedantiphonallyat times for preludes,inter-udes,

and postludes before, between, and afterportionsof the choral service. The service (suchis the force of conservatism) remained exclusivelyvocal for the two hundred years in which themusical gloryof Venice was most resplendent. Itwas not until a new era had been ushered in bypurely secular activities that the organ was per-itted

to liftits voice along with the voices of thesingers.

During these two hundred years the organistsof56


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Venice and other art capitalsgraduallyworked forthe emancipation of instrumental music from thethraldom of the church. Of the pioneers of thismovement in Italy we know littlemore than theirnames, preservedfor us in the stories of their fame.Francesco Landini, the hey-day of whose celebrityfell in the seventh decade of the fourteenth century,was poet as well as organist. He was a Florentine,and blind,yet one of the brightestornaments in thefestivities given by the doge in honor of the Kingof Cyprus and the Archduke of Austria. Petrarchstood by at one of these festivities and saw theFlorentine Homer crowned with laurel for some ofhis poetic effusions. Nevertheless, the laureatesuffered defeat on the organ bench at the hands ofFrancesco da Pesaro, an organist of St. Mark's.Almost simultaneouslyanother blind man broughtglory to Munich and won tributes from royaltybyhis marvellous skill. This was Conrad Paulmann,or Paumann, a native of Nuremberg, born sightless,yet a sort of universal genius in music. Of him, itis recorded that the Emperor Frederick III. gavehim a sword with blade of gold and a goldenchain.He died in Munich in 1473, and was buried in theChurch of Our Lady. His tomb shows him ineffigyseated at the organ, and the inscriptionro-laims

him to have been Der Kunstreichest allerln-strumentisten und der Musika Maister. So, too, abust in the cathedral at Florence testifies to the

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The Composers

fame of Antonio Squarcialupi,rganistof the cathe-ralabout 1450,Of other Itahan musicians distinguishedn the

instrumental field in the fourteenth century thenames, but not the works, of Nicolo del Propostoand Jacopo di Bologna are preserved;of the six-eenth,

a long listculminating in men of the highestimportance in the development of the science andart of music Claudio Merulo, Andrea Gabrieli,and Ciprianodi Rore. To this listI add the namesof a few men who, though not of Italian birth,wereyet instrumental in the development of Italianmusic, viz.,a German whose name was obviouslyBernhard Stephan Miirer, but who was calledBernardo Stefanio Murer (and also Bernard theGerman) by the Italians;Jacques Buus, who wasorganistof St. Mark's for ten years, from 1541 to1551 (in which latter year he left Venice), andAdrien Willaert, founder of the Venetian schooland chapelmasterof St. Mark's for a periodbegin-ing

in 1527. To Bernard is credited the inventionof the pedal keyboard for the organ. Willaert andBuus were Netherlanders.

Instrumental music, havingbegun after the unac-ompaniedstyleof vocal music had been perfected,

was, naturallyenough, written in the contrapuntalstyleof the church. Monophonic music that is,a melody supportedby harmonies in solid or brokenchords beingall but unknown tilltoward the end

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of the sixteenth century, solo music except that inthe church service {i.e., the chanting of the priestat the altar)was also unknown. When variousinstruments were grouped so as to form a band,each instrument sang its part preciselys the in-ividu

singer in the choir sang his. All theseparts were melodies,and all were equallyimportantin the musical fabric. There was no subordina-ion

of three or more of the contrapuntalvoices toone to bring out the beauty or sentiment of thetune carried by that voice. Strictlypeaking,therewas no tune in the modern sense any more thanthere was harmony in the modern sense. Compo-itions

were built up on Gregorian melodies, andthe melody, which became the cantus firmus of apiece,was allotted to one voice (generallyhat calledthe tenor); but it was not importunate in the man-er

of the modern melody. On the contrary, it wasfrequentlyless assertive than the voices consortedwith it,being merely a stalking-horsen which theingeniousfabric of interwoven melodies was hung.It is a mistaken impressionon this pointwhich hasled to the wholesale and irrational condemnation ofmediaeval composers for using secular tunes in theirmasses. The popular notion, created and nour-shed

by the vast majority of writers on musical his-ory,is that when the old Netherlandish composers

wrote masses on the melody of L'Homme arme(an extremely popular subject),or Dieu quel

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The Composers

mariage, the effect upon the hearers was somethinglike the effect would be upon worshippersof to-dayif Credo in unum Deum or Gloria in excelsis Deowere to be sung to the tune of the firstof the Beau-iful

Blue Danube waltzes. Nothing could befurther from the truth. Many a critic who writesgliblyabout the secularization of the mass inthe fifteenth century would be hard put to it towrite out the theme of a L'Homme arme massfrom an old score even if it were laid before himin modern notation, while to distinguishby ear thenaughty secular tune moving through the contra-untal

mass would tax the abilityof many of ourprofessionalusicians.

When the orchestra took its rise the music setdown for the different instruments differed in noth-ng

from vocal music. Compositions were pub-ishedwith titles indicatingthat they were to be

sung or playedas one wished. Equally vague dur-ngthis periodwas the terminologyof the instru-ental

art. There were Sonate, Canzone, Ricer-care, Toccati,Conlrapunti,Fantasie, and so on; butthe names were but obscure indices to the form andcontents of the compositions. Willaert seems tohave distinguishedetween hisfantasieand ricercareon the one hand and his contrapuntin the other byemploying themes of his own invention for the for-er

and church melodies for the latter. The onlydifference between a sonata the term originally

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The Composers

begun by a group of amateur musicians in Florenceas a protest againstthe artificialitynd lifelessnessof the church style,lso dominant in the theatre a movement which brought about the invention ofthe opera instrumental music was slowlyemanci-ated

from the vocal yoke.

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The Composers

To my readers who are more desirous to knowsomething of the musical culture growth of Englandat this time than to follow the growth of the techni-al

elements in composition,I advise a course atonce more profitablend more pleasurablehan thatprescribedin the handbooks. It is to look at themusical taste and practicesof Shakespeare'speoplethrough the eyes of Shakespeare. The poet wrotefor all the peopleof his day and nation, and his useof words and phrases appertainingto music be-omes

an index to the state of musical culture dur-ngthe reign of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and

James I., which is frequentlyluminous. In thisrespect as in so many others, he shows the veryage and body of the time, his form and pressure.As he wrote for the whole peopleand made copioususe in his dramas of the popular music of the dayby introduction as well as allusion,it is to be as-umed

that the people who were called upon tounderstand and enjoy his many fleetingllusions tothe art and the songs which he took out of theirmouths were near to him in musical taste and

knowledge. Like him they were nimble-minded,up-to-date,and fearless of anachronisms. Therewas nothing to give pause to the fancy or judgmentof the patrons of the Globe Theatre in the circum-tance

that the poet'sFrenchmen, Italians,Greeks,and ancient Britons were all sixteenth century Eng-ishme

that they thought, talked, sang, acted,'^ 64


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The English Virginallsts

and danced like the people of Elizabeth's court orher simpler subjects.What manner of people,then,were theyto whomShakespeare could talk blithely,ithout need oforal gloss or foot-note,of discords, stops,rests, dumps, diapasons, burdens, des-ant,

divisions, frets, concords, base,sharps, pricksong, broken music, gamut,A-re (and so on through the notes of the medi-eval

scale), plainsong, minims, means,virginalling, jacks, and a score or more of

similar terms belongingto the vocabulary of music ?Without callingfor evidence outside of the fact thatShakespeare did so write we must conclude thatthey were not a commonplace people; else therewould have been no Shakespeare to write for them.He sprang from their loins. From many sources weknow that theywere a strong people. Rather rude;having those physical,mental, and moral qualitiesdominant which marked out a largeportionof theworld for their possession. Stout eaters and mostcourageous drinkers. Contentious. Fond of show,and fickle of taste in dress as the devotees of fashionare to-day. Somewhat given to swashbuckling, Ifear. Heedful of the laws of courtesy and gallant-y,

yet plain-spoken. Not tender-hearted. Kindli-essand pityheld possessionof only a small por-ionof their souls; even the VirginQueen delighted

in bear-baiting.The women not prudish,either in65


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The Composers

the playhouse or at home, but frank in their recog-itionof natural appetites. Frank, too, and ami-blein the exercise of the social amenities. The

hostess or her daughter might greet the gentlemanvisitor with a kiss a custom never to be suffi-iently

commended, said the gentleErasmus; andthe gentleman might ask the tribute from his fairpartner after each dance or even before,to judgeby King Henry VIII. 's remark on firstseeingAnneBullen:

Sweetheart,I were unmannerly to take you outAnd not to kiss you.*

Foreigners were amazed at the beauty of thewomen and their learning. The English chal-enge

the prerogativeof having the handsomestwomen, of keeping the best table,and of beingthe most accomplished in the skill of music of anypeople, wrote the same Erasmus.^

Many of the gentlewomen had sound knowl-dgeof Greek and Latin and were skilful in Spanish,

Italian,and French. The ladies of Elizabeth'scourt translated foreignworks into Latin or Eng-\\^,and for recreation practisedlutes,citherns,pricksong,and all kinds of music. Argal thepeople were familiar with and fond of music. The

* King Henry VIII., Act i, Scene 4.^ Britanni, prater alia,forman, musicam, et lautas mensas pro-priesibi vindicent. (Erasmus, Enconium Moria.)

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The English Virginalists

professionalpractitionersoutside of the churchwere still looked upon as vagabonds, more or less,but all classes,from royaltydown to mendicancy,were devoted to music. Henry VIII., being ayounger son, was firstset apart for holy orders (hisyouthfuleye alreadyon the see of Canterbury),andin the course of study which he pursued music wasobligatory.Nevertheless,his inclinations carriedhim far beyond trainingin church music merely.

-He playedthe recorder,flute,and virginal,nd com-osedsongs, ballads,and church services. Anne

Bullen doted on the compositionsof Josquin desPres, whom Luther, no mean authority,esteemedhigher than all the composers that had ever lived.

: Edward VI. made personalrecord of the fact thathe had played upon the lute in order to displayhisaccomplishments to the French ambassador in1 55 1. Elizabeth was so vain of her skill as a per-ormer

upon the virginalthat she planned to beoverheard by Mary Stuart's ambassador. Sir JamesMelvil,in order that he might carry the news to theScottish queen. She played excellentlywell,says Sir James but read the pretty and ingenuousstory in his memoirs.

Gentlemen with a politeducation were expectednot only to be able to singpricksong{i.e., printedor written music) at sight,but also to extemporizea part in harmony with a printedmelody or bass.This was the art of descant. A bass viol,Hke the

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viol de gamboys on which Sir Toby boasted thathis friend Aguecheek could play,hung in the draw-ng

room for gentlemen visitors to entertain them-elveswithal; and, if called upon, they, too, must

playdivisions to the pricksongwhich my ladyplayedupon the virginal.The cithern and gitternhungon the walls of the barber shops,and the virginalstood in the corner, so that customers might pass thetime with them while waiting, or the barber findsolace in his idle moments. Tinkers sang catches,says Chappell, milkmaids sang ballads, carterswhistled; each trade and even the beggarshad theirspecialsongs. In his Sylva Sylvarum Baconleft a scientific discussion of music, itspsychologicaleffects,the nature of dissonance and consonance,and the character of the instruments most in use inhis day; Michael Drayton gave a complete list ofthe instruments in use at the time in his Poly-Olbion (1613); Shakespeare did nothing so pro-aic,

but having the whole field of musical culturebefore him the practiceof the people as well asthe art and science of the professionalusicians he opened up a much wider and clearer vista thandid my Lord Verulam or the cataloguingpoet.

The era in questionwas the most briUiant in thehistoryof England, but Shakespeare has preservedno tribute to the politeart of the day comparablewith that which he pays to the popular art iii theintroduction of allusions to the people'ssongs and

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dances in his plays or the songs and dances them-elves.These songs and dances were the staple

of the group of organistsand virginalistsho formthe brightestgem in England's musical crown.Though clavier music was composed on the conti-ent

as earlyas it was in England the historical .record going much further back, indeed it was' Jnevertheless in England that the earliest known/ \collections of compositions for keyboard-stringedinstruments were made. These compositions werenominally written for the virginal,nd I have, there-ore,

called the men who wrote them virginahstsrather than harpsichordists.It may have beenonly an amiable affectation which made the Eng-ish

composers of the sixteenth century name thevirginals the instrument for which their music wasintended,but since their music makes no demandfor the mechanical contrivances appliedto the harp-ichord

to increase its expressivecapacity,it seemshkely that the composers reallyhad in mind the in-trument

which was most widely diffused among 7the people. In Pepys's diary,under date Septem- /ber 2, 1666, one may read, in his descriptionf the jscenes attending the Great Fire: I observed that 1hardly one lighteror boat in three that had the *goods of a house in but there was a paireof virginalsin it. Plainly,in proportion to population,vir-inals

were as plentifuln London two hundred andfiftyears ago as pianofortesre to-day.

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This would be in harmony with the belief that Ihave expressedin the universalityf musical culturein England duringShakespeare'stime and also withthe sentimental inclination which led some writersto suppose that the virginalhad received its namefrom the circumstance that it was the favorite in-trume

of the Virgin Queen. Unhappily for thispretty theory the virginal,ommonly spoken of atthe time as virginals r a pairof virginals,asknown by the name before Elizabeth was born.

It is only within a recent period that study of alargebody of English virginalusic has been opento students. Until the publicationof the Fitz-william VirginalBook, in 1899,students were re-tricted

practicallyo the few piecesprintedin thehistories and the collection edited by E. Pauer andpublishedunder the title of Old English Com-osers.

The scholarshipf Mr. J.A. Fuller Mait-land and Mr. W. BarclaySquirehas now given oneof the most famous of musical MSS. to the world inmodern notation. The manuscript figuredin mu-ical

literature for a century as Queen Elizabeth'sVirginalBook, this title having been given to itunder the belief that it had once been the propertyof the VirginQueen. Historical investigation,ow-ver,

dealt harshlywith this amiable delusion,andsince its publicationit has borne the name of theFitzwilliam Museum, in which it has long beenhoused. It is a veritable thesaurus of the best

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Book, and two manuscriptcollections which I judgeto belong to the latter part of the seventeenth cen-ury,

now preservedin the New York Public Libra-y,Lenox Foundation, having been bought by the

late Joseph W. Drexel at the.sale of Dr. Rimbault'slibraryin London in 1877. The music in thesemanuscripts is written on staves of six lines,likethat of the Fitzwilliam book. Among the com-osers

repesentedare Orlando Gibbons, Christo-herGibbons, Dr. Bull, Dr. Rogers, Albert Byrne,

Matthew Locke, Thomas Tomkins, J. Cobb, andP. Phillips. The chief source of knowledge touch-ng

English virginalmusic outside of the manu-criptcollections in the seventeenth century was a

work printed in 1611, entitled Parthenia. Itcontained music written by Byrd, Bull, and Or-ando

Gibbons, and went through six editions withinforty-eightears, during which time (accordingtoAnthony a Wood) it was the prime book used byMasters in Musick. In 1847 it was reprintedunder the auspices of the Musical AntiquarianSociety,Dr. Rimbault being the editor._/The variation form was almost exclusivelyul-ivated

by the Englishvirginalists,hough there areevidences of novel strivingsin manner as well ascontent in some of the piecescalled fantasias. Thus,the firstcomposition of John Munday (died 1630)in the Fitzwilliam book is a fantasia in which aneffort is made to delineate a series of meteorological

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changes. Its sections, rhythmically varied andwithout thematic connection, bear the inscriptionsFair Weather, ''Lightning, Thunder, threetimes; finallyhere comes a slow concludingmove-ent

section marked A Clear Day. ^So, too, there is an early specimen of another

styleof programmatic composition,nce so admired* It may interest the curious to note that the device with which

Munday attempts to suggest lightningis not unlike in idea thatwhich Wagner invented for the same purpose more than twocenturies later, as will appear from a comparison of the twophrases:

Musical Lightning in Munday's Fantasia.

Musical Lightning in Wagner's Walkure.'73


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that the echoes of it have come down quite to ourown day, in a piece by Wilham Byrd, which isfound transcribed in Lady Neville's virginalbookand twice in one of the manuscripts in the NewYork Public Library, where it is annotated (evi-ently

by Dr. Rimbault) as having been collatedwith Dr. Burney's MS. This, which seems to havebeen as popular a piecein its day as its successor,Kotzwara's Battle of Prague, was a century anda half later,as called A Battaille, ometimes also Mr. Byrd'sBattle. It is a compages of separatepiecesbearing descriptiveitles,s follows: TheSoldiers' Summons, The March of Footmen,The March of Horsemen, The Trumpets,The Irish March, The Bagpipes' Drone,The Drums and Flutes, The March to theFight, The Battles Joined, The Retreat,The Victory, and The Burying of the Dead.Melodies from the popular songs of France and

Italy(correspondingto the canzone Napolitane andcanzone Francese of the Venetian organists)werealso utilized by the Englishvirginalists,s well aschurch melodies; but the bulk of their thematicmaterial was drawn from the popular songs anddances of the day. In the Fitzwilliam book we findthat peculiarlywinsome song sung by the clownin the roisteringcene in Shakespeare's TwelfthNight (Act III.,Scene 3),beginning O MistressMine, set by Byrd; the tune called Hanskin to

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which Autolycus sings Jog on, jog on, in AWinter's Tale (Act IV., Scene 2),set by RichardFarnaby; and Bonny Sweet Robin, one hne ofwhich poor, distraughtOphelia sings to Laertesbefore going to the brook, where she was pulled

from her melodious layTo muddy death,

set by Giles Farnaby. There, also, is Byrd's set-ingof The Carman's Whistle, the song which,

in all hkehhood, was in Shakespeare'smind when,in having Falstaff descant on the earlylife of Jus-ice

Shallow, he made the knight say:He always came in the rearward of the fashion;and sung

those tunes to the over-scutched huswifes that he heard thecarmen whistle and sware they were his fancies or hisgood nights.

' Scant justicehas been done to this music by the Germanhistorians,s a rule,and it is therefore the greater pleasureto notethe laudable exception made by Dr. Oscar Bie, who waxes en-husiastic

over Byrd's settingof The Carman's Whistle andSellinger'sRound :

'The Carman's Whistle,' says Dr. Bie,is a perfectedpopu-armelody, one of those tunes which will lingerfor days in our

ears. At the beginningof the third and fourth bars Byrd sets thefirst and second bars in canon, in the simplestand most straight-orward

style. Next come harmonies worthy of a Rameau, withthe most delicate passing notes. In the variations certain figuresare inserted which are easilyworked into the canonic form, nowlegatowith the charm of the introduction of related notes, nowdiatonic scales most gracefullyintroduced, now staccato passageswhich draw the melody along with them like the singingof a bird.

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Among other songs I mention the following asfiguringmore or less extensivelyin the writingsofthe poets, dramatists,and essayistsof the time, themelodies of which are preservedfor us in the musicof the virginalists,iz.: Walsingham, Quod-ling'sDehght, Packington's Pound, Malt'sCome Down, Why Ask You? Go from MyWindow, John, Come Kiss Me Now, All in aGarden Green, Fain Would I Wed, PeascodTime, Tell Me, Daphne, Mall Sims, andRowland. The popularitywon on the conti-ent

by the last tune is quiteirreconcilable with thenotion of the historians, notion shared with his

Finallyfuller chords appear, gentlychanging the direction of thetheme. From first to last there is not a turn foreignto the modernear.

The 'Bellinger'sound' is more stirring.Its theme is in aswinging6-8 rhythm, running easilythrough the harmonies of thetonic,the super-dominant and the sub-dominant. It strikes onelike an old legend,as in the first part of Chopin's Ballade in Fmajor, of which this pieceis a prototype. The first variation re-ains

the rhythm and only breaks the harmonies. Its gentlefugali-zation is more distinctlymarked in the third variation,which atthe conclusion adoptsrunning semi-quavers,after Byrd's favoritemanner, anticipatingat the conclusion of the one variation themotive of the next. The semi-quaversgo up and down in thirds,or are interwoven by both hands, while melody and accompani-ent

continue their dotted 6-8, in a fashion reminding us of aSchumann. In the later variations the quaver movement is againtaken up, but more florid and more varied,with runs which pursueeach other in canon. This piece,perhaps the firstperfectclavierpieceon record,which had left its time far behind, was written in1580.''

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predecessors,ven by Dr. Bie, that the influenceof the Enghsh school of virginahstsas short livedand confined to England. Not only did the Eng-ish

comedians who introduced farces sung to popu-artunes in Germany and Holland set the fashion

which created the German Singspiel,hey also ha-ilitatthere the melodies of their native land.

Rowland, which is called Lord Willoughby'sWelcome Home in Lady Neville's virginalbook,became the Rolandston to which scores, probablyhundreds, of erotic,historical,nd religioussongswere written in Germany and the Netherlands. Sothe Cobbler's Jig, Fortune My Foe ( TheMerry Wives of Windsor, Act III., Scene 3),Greensleeves ( The Merry Wives, Act II.,Scene i, and Act V., Scene 5), Packington'sPound, Mall Sims, and other Enghsh tuneswere known all over the continent, where in theseventeenth century a dozen or more English mu-icians

were employed in high positionst differentcourts. Richard Machin was at the court of theLandgrave of Hesse; Thomas Simpson at that ofCount Ernest HI. of Schaumburg; Walter Rowe,and after him Walter Rowe, his son, were in theservice of the Elector of Brandenburg; ValentineFlood was active in Berlin and Dantzic; WilhamBrade in Berlin and Hamburg; John Stanley inBerlin,and John Price in Dresden. All these menpublishedtheir compositionsin Germany.

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Ttuitaqatfjcurt^arts xvir

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:r^'l- JiJiii.f|IJlJT'te; lilYi jfl^^fff Wf fefcAMy^1^332ft ,ni/'..a (;,;^,/l ' t^ ^fsa^smwiaf.'riH''^ ^

Part of a page from Parthenia. (See page 72.)


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infancy of the instrumental art failed to show thefact in anything like the measure disclosed by thevocal, the age was an ingenious and scholasticone when, as William Mason, precentor of YorkCathedral and biographer of the poet Gray, hassaid

there were Schoolmen in Music as well as in Letters; andwhen, if learninghad its Aquinas and Smeglecius,usic hadits Master Giles and its Dr. Bull,who could splitthe sevennotes of music into as many divisions as the others could splitthe ten Categoriesof Aristotle.

We are as littleconcerned with the works whichDr. Bull wrote for the church as with like compo-itions

by his great predecessor,Tallis; but if wewish to observe him in a wholly amiable mood weneed only hear his King's Hunting Jigg, a com-osition

in which, with the jubilantvitalityof itsfirstpart pairedwith the jocund,out-doorsyflourishof its second, I find more of the modern spiritthanin any score of the programmatic and characteristicpieces written by the French masters who came ahundred years after him. Harsh and crude aremany of the progressionsin some of these Englishpieces,monotonous the repetitionof rudimentarypassage-work in the variations,but their value asclavier music becomes luminous when comparedwith the bulk of the music written for the harpsi-hord

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Thomas Tallis (perhaps more properly Tallys,1527-1585) plays his most important r61e as ' thefather of English cathedral music and the teacher(and business associate in a monopoly of music print-ng

and the sale of music paper) of William Byrd(1544 or 1 546-1 623). Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) was one of three brothers who were eminentin their day in the cathedral service,and the fatherof Dr. Christopher Gibbons (1615-1676), who wasorga

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Krehbiel - The Pianoforte and Its Music