‘Take it for granted from the beginning that everything is possible on the piano, even when it seems impossible to you, or really is so.’ So wrote Busoni two years before the beginning of the twentieth century, prophesying the extraordinary explosion of compositional innovation which the new epoch would bring, and in which the development of the piano's technical and sonorous capabilities would play a crucial role. Yet in spite of the apparent desire on the part of several composers at the turn of the century to break firmly with tradition and cultivate an almost avant-garde approach to pianoforte composition, with hindsight it now seems abundantly clear that the exciting new developments in piano music in the early years of the century were firmly rooted in nineteenth-century precedent.

By 1916 the piano's impact on compositional developments had become sufficiently evident for E. J. Dent to publish an article entitled ‘The pianoforte and its influence on modern music’, in which he expressed the opinion that Liszt had been the ‘foundation of modern pianoforte-playing and pianoforte composition’ in spite of his various ‘shortcomings as a composer of real music’. The influence of Liszt's technical virtuosity and harmonic experimentation is to be seen clearly enough in Ravel's Jeux d'eau (1901), which owed much to the water-figurations of Liszt's Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este (1877). The impressionistic application of virtuoso figurations to create atmospheric effects was adopted by Debussy in his piano music from the Estampes (1903) onwards, and Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit (1908) marked the apparent limits to which such technically demanding figurations could be stretched.

Introduction

Many factors shaped the piano music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This was a period of change during which keyboard instruments extended from five to seven octaves, and from the relatively light-framed instruments of the 1760s and 1770s to the much more robust concert pianos of the 1820s (see chapter 2). It was also a period which saw an increasing emphasis on virtuoso performance and technique. At the same time, amateur music making increased rapidly and publishing houses expanded to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for cheaper, popular music. These and other factors led composers to write in certain ways for certain audiences, and if we are to understand the piano music of this period we must first give some attention to the circumstances in which composers worked as well as the settings in which music was performed.

One of the most significant developments of the late eighteenth century was the establishment of the public concert. Concerts for a paying audience had existed prior to this time, but their popularity grew in importance at the end of the eighteenth century to such an extent that composers who might previously have devoted their energies to the service of a rich aristocratic patron now found themselves writing to satisfy the public taste. London was the most important centre for the public concert at the time, with its newly rich mercantile class, and concert promoters such as Johann Christian Bach and Johann Peter Salomon lost no time in engaging a wide variety of musicians for their series of subscription concerts.

Italy and the Iberian peninsula

Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1732) is generally credited with the invention of the piano in Florence at the end of the seventeenth century. Although some earlier accounts of keyboard actions survive, it is only from Cristofori that a continuous line of development can be drawn.

Cristofori entered the service of Prince Ferdinando de'Medici in 1688 as curator and instrument maker. In this capacity he maintained harpsichords, spinets and organs and made a variety of keyboard (and possibly stringed) instruments. His work on the piano may have begun as early as 1698, certainly by 1700, and in 1709 or 1710 Scipione Maffei noted that Cristofori had ‘made three so far, two sold in Florence, one to Cardinal Ottoboni’. In 1711 Maffei published a detailed description of Cristofori's pianos, including a diagram of the action (Fig. 1.1).

The action in Maffei's diagram works in the following way: as the key (C) is depressed one end of the intermediate lever (E) – which pivots around the pin (F) – is raised. This causes the escapement (G) to push the hammer (O) towards the string (A). The escapement then ‘escapes’ from contact with the hammer and allows it to fall back to its resting position, on a silk thread (P). When the key is released, the escapement, which is hinged and attached to a spring (L), slides back into its resting position and the damper (R) – which had been lowered when the key was depressed – comes back into contact with the string in order to damp the sound.

The Cambridge companion to the piano brings together in a single volume a collection of essays which covers the history of the instrument, the history of its performance and a study of its repertory. Each chapter is written by a specialist with access to the most recent research on his or her topic, but all the authors have written accessibly, with the student of the instrument, or an enthusiastic amateur, in mind.

Chapters 1–3 bring together as much up-to-date piano history as is possible in the space available. In recent years, some extremely important work has been published on the early history of the piano. Stewart Pollens's The early pianoforte and Michael Cole's The pianoforte in the Classical era between them provide a comprehensive survey of the technical developments which took place in the eighteenth century. These developments are summarised in chapters 1 and 2 along with information about the specific kinds of instrument played by the early pianists. Necessary technical terms are explained in the glossary at the end of the volume. The equivalent history of the piano in the first half of the nineteenth century is much less well documented and a new, detailed history of the piano in the nineteenth century is urgently needed. It is remarkable that Rosamond Harding's book The piano-forte, first published as long ago as 1933, remains the standard text for this period.

Mark Hambourg's (1879–1960) cavalier approach to Mozart, as recalled by Artur Rubinstein (1887–1982), typifies one popular image of the Romantic virtuoso pianist: stylistically insensitive, contemptuous of textual fidelity and, to cap it all, too loud – especially in chamber music. Rubinstein heard Hambourg in 1915, but equally harsh criticisms of the ‘virtuoso school’ had been penned at least as far back as the nineteenth-century heydays of Liszt and Thalberg, whose concert triumphs served as models for many later pianists. Even today, some critics seem unable to utter the word ‘virtuosity’ without the appendages ‘empty’ or ‘meretricious’. This contrast between playing that somehow metaphysically exposes the soul of music without drawing attention to technical accomplishment, and playing in which tasteless display is paramount echoes Mozart's two-hundred-year-old criticism of Clementi as ‘a mere mechanicus’. Of course, in a fundamental sense this contrast is misleading. No player, however elevated his interpretative ability, can communicate his intentions without a sound instrumental technique (unless he becomes a conductor), and most of the great Romantic pianists were both interpreters and virtuosos of the highest order.

The golden era of Romantic pianism lasted roughly one hundred years, the famous musical duel between Liszt and Thalberg in 1837, and the death of Paderewski (the most highly paid concert pianist of all time) in 1941 being convenient, if slightly arbitrary, markers at either end.

Introduction

The underlying acoustical principles of sound production on the piano are very straightforward. When a key is depressed, it causes a small, felt-covered hammer to be thrown against a set of strings tuned to a specific note of the scale. The key incorporates an escapement mechanism which detaches the hammer from the key just before striking the strings so that they receive a single, unimpeded blow from the hammer. The exchange of momentum causes the strings to vibrate, and it is these vibrations which are the origin of the musical sound. The strings do not radiate sound directly, however, because they are much too small to interact with the surrounding air. Instead, they are coupled to a soundboard, a lightweight plate of wood, which is specifically designed to vibrate in sympathy with the strings. It is the structural vibrations of the soundboard which induce pressure changes in the air, rather in the manner of a loudspeaker cone, to create the sound we hear.

This is, of course, just the start of the story. This simple explanation of the mechanical action of the piano invites more questions than it answers. Why do different pianos have different sound qualities? What is the function of double and triple stringing? What control does the performer have on the final sound quality of an instrument? In searching for the answers to these questions, we discover that the piano has a few hidden secrets of surprising complexity, and we have to marvel at the ingenuity of the craftsmen who have played their part in the development of the modern instrument and at the skill of the technician who keeps a piano at the peak of its performance.

The experience of recording

The modern recording studio is a very different place from the studios of the early twentieth century, and the process of making records has changed very greatly. Until the introduction of tape recording around 1950, pianists, like other musicians, recorded onto a wax disc one side at a time. The maximum length was about four and a half minutes by the 1930s, shorter in the early days. Recordings could not be edited, and they could not even be played back at the time without destroying the wax master. Before the advent of electrical recording in the mid 1920s, the frequency range was very limited in both bass and treble, making a concert grand piano sound more like a small upright.

The first important pianists to make records were Alfred Grünfeld in Vienna in 1899, and Raoul Pugno in Paris in 1903. But for several years into the twentieth century the principal work of the studios was vocal recording. Because the acoustic recording horns were very directional, the piano used for accompaniment was raised up to the same level as the singer's head. In 1902, Caruso's accompanist Salvatore Cottone played on an upright piano set up on a platform of packing cases. Pugno's recordings were made under similar conditions. Even when solo piano recording became established, and grand pianos were routinely used in the studio, the pre-electric recording still had limitations.

In 1972 a well-known pianist confided to an interviewer that his favourite composer was Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625). In a later interview he declared that he ‘had doubts about Beethoven’ and that he didn't think Chopin was ‘a very good composer’; in fact the whole core of the pianorecital repertory was ‘a colossal waste of time’.

Such heretical statements could come only from Glenn Gould, whose groundbreaking performances of J. S. Bach (and indeed of Orlando Gibbons) demonstrate a profound understanding and love of contrapuntal writing. Gould dismissed nineteenth-century music purely on the grounds that Romantic composers treated the piano as a ‘homophonic instrument’. Leaving aside the breathtaking inaccuracy of that statement, it presumably achieved its main purpose to challenge complacent notions about piano repertory and canon.

Repertory

What are these notions? Ask any pianist about his or her ‘repertoire’ and out will come a list of works by composers from J. S. Bach to Bartók – that is, if your pianist is at all interested in his or her own century; many will not venture much beyond Brahms. Beethoven will perhaps be predominant, then Mozart and Schubert, some Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt and possibly some Mendelssohn. Choice of repertory is in part influenced by examination requirements, from elementary to diploma level; it is what is taught in our conservatories, whose syllabuses reflect and reinforce prevailing custom. On the other hand, the diversity of the recording industry, particularly since the arrival of CDs, means that we now have more choice of what to listen to than ever before.

Introduction

Nationalism used to be portrayed, mistakenly, as an offshoot of nineteenth-century Romanticism, portrayed, moreover, almost exclusively as an eastern European phenomenon. We can see now that Weber's Der Freischütz and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen are German nationalist in concept in much the same way that Mikhail Glinka's (1804–57) A life for the Tsar and Modest Musorgsky's (1839–81) Boris Godunov are Russian nationalist works. However, it is true that musical nationalism seems most apparent in those countries where there had been virtually no previous traditions of art music, such as one can point to in France, Italy or the German-speaking areas of western Europe. This is, of course, not to say that music was uncultivated in eastern Europe. Far from it: the Slavonic peoples have for the most part been intensely musical. Bohemian instrumentalists were justly celebrated in the second half of the eighteenth century and, as in most countries, eastern Europe enjoyed a rich cultural heritage of folk song and dance. Nor should we ignore the importance of church music, which had a strong impact on nineteenth-century Russian music. Since eastern European folk music and church music are much less familiar to western ears they seem to have acquired an exoticism and mystique that formerly contributed to the myth of musical nationalism as a purely eastern phenomenon. And one might add that in the nineteenth century social and political forces were strong factors in the emergence of nationalist sentiments: political unrest was endemic throughout Europe, particularly between about 1830 and 1870.

Throughout the multifarious developments in the field of composition during the twentieth century, the piano has clearly retained its high profile, and its central role in European-style music making. The divide between broadly ‘popular’ and so-called ‘serious’ music, however, has widened irrevocably and, even though the boundaries may fluctuate from time to time, this has come about through changes in Western society.

It is undeniable that the distinct personality of twentieth-century popular music reflects the stylistic contribution of African–American idioms. While such idioms originally developed unhindered, the last one hundred years have seen a gradual but remarkable takeover of the popular field. The arrival of a powerful sheet-music publishing industry was followed (in chronological order of their greatest impact) by radio, sound films, commercial recording and television. Although in each medium the powers that be initially resisted black composers and performers, they eventually capitulated and thereafter played a crucial role in spreading previous minority preferences among the mainstream.

Further consideration of this fascinating process lies outside the scope of the present volume, but two other factors must be borne in mind. Firstly, those responsible for each musical innovation were not merely the elite who form the breeding ground for innovation in any artistic sphere, but a performing minority within a racial minority. Thus, despite the accelerated rate of change brought about by technological developments, the dissemination of musical innovation was a three-stage process.

In 1830 Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785–1849) wrote:

His remarks could easily have been made twenty or thirty years previously, since his description summarises – albeit in a highly generalised fashion – so many of the essentials of piano making and playing for much of the period covered by this chapter.

‘Viennese’ and English grand pianos

Most English grand pianos of the late eighteenth century look much like the Backers grand of 1772, illustrated in Fig. 1.5. The anonymous and undated grand of Fig. 2.1 is typical of instruments made in the last two decades of the eighteenth century in southern Germany and Austria (generally referred to as ‘Viennese’ pianos). These two instruments therefore illustrate the essential differences in appearance of pianos by members of the English and ‘Viennese’ schools.

The concert grand to c.1860

Piano making in the years c.1825–60 was characterised by the development of ever more powerful and sonorous instruments. In order to achieve their aims, makers continued to experiment with all aspects of piano design and as each small change was made in one part of the instrument, modifications were inevitably required elsewhere. So, for example, greater string tension necessitated a stronger frame and heavier hammers, which in turn led to a deeper touch. However, a deeper touch made fast note repetition more difficult, so a new kind of action was invented. It was a combination of hundreds of such developments (each of them painstakingly patented by makers, and listed by piano historians) that led to the emergence, around 1860, of grand pianos which were essentially the same as those used on concert platforms today.

A wooden structure was sufficient to cope with the string tension on early grand pianos. Nevertheless, small amounts of metal were used by some makers to strengthen the most vulnerable parts of the piano's structure. The first Broadwood grands, for example, from the 1780s, had small hoops of metal between the wrestplank (the block of wood which holds the tuning pins) and belly rail (the substantial wooden frame member that runs across the width of the piano and supports the end of the soundboard nearest the player) in order to prevent the gap closing through which the hammers pass on their way to hit the strings. Viennese makers soon adopted the same practice having first used wooden supports for the same purpose.

Salon and concert hall

Britain was an early pioneer in the development of public concerts: they were well established throughout the country by c.1750. In France, concerts were equally popular but, as in other aspects of French life and culture, were centred mainly on the capital to a greater extent than were their British counterparts. Public concerts were less in evidence in Germany and Austria until the early nineteenth century, though by then the citizens of Frankfurt, Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna were able to participate in a relatively thriving concert environment.

The salon is less easy to describe than a public concert. There had been a long tradition of intellectual gatherings of connoisseurs and aristocrats, but today ‘salon’ usually refers to ‘a part-intellectual and part-social gathering in a domestic (aristocratic or bourgeois) setting: a peculiarly nineteenth-century phenomenon principally found in the larger European capitals’. This is fine as far as it goes, though it is hardly comprehensive, since an all-embracing definition is far from easy. (It is therefore curious that most music dictionaries, including The New Grove, make no attempt to define ‘salon’.) When Amy Fay, the American piano student from Boston, studied with Liszt in Weimar during the 1870s, the salon in which she was invited to perform from time to time was a large room in the ducal palace. These essentially private functions were attended by highly intelligent and articulate, frequently titled, persons: here the depreciatory overtones sometimes suggested by ‘salon’ are inappropriate. The same is equally true of many of the Parisian salons throughout the nineteenth century.