THE PIANO-FORTE.
BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.
I wonder how many young people who sit down to practice or take a lesson at the piano-forte know the story of the instrument now familiar in every household of the civilized world. Look at it as we have it to-day, almost perfect in size and quality and tone. It is capable of producing the fullest and the softest sounds, just as its name indicates, for piano means soft, and forte means loud. Can you realize that little more than a hundred years ago pianos were a rarity? Only one or two makers produced any instruments worthy of the name, and few households possessed one. "But," I can hear my young readers exclaim, "the music we play on our pianos—Bach and Haydn, as well as old English airs—were certainly played on some horizontal instrument." Of course they were, but not on our kind of piano-fortes; and the story I am going to tell will take you back far into the sixteenth century, when ladies of rank, and monks and nuns, and some troubadours, had the instruments from which our piano is descended. These were known as the clavichord and the virginal.
The clavichord was perfected about 1500, and the name was derived from "clavi" (a key) and "chorda" (a string); so you see at once that it contained the two principal elements of our piano-forte. Although it went out of use in Bach's day, yet that dear old master, whose gavottes all our young people are playing now, loved to use it. The piano-forte had been invented, but Bach loved his old clavichord. As he sat thrumming it, I think he liked to fancy himself away in the early sixteenth-century days, when Henry the Seventh's court enjoyed madrigals and queer little bits of music on the same sort of an instrument. Following the clavichord, we have that graceful, romantic instrument called the virginal. This was an improvement on the clavichord, and toward the close of the sixteenth century we find its name in poetry, romance, biography—indeed, in history.
VIRGINAL.
The virginal produced a low, tinkling sort of sound not unlike that of the German zither. Only ladies of quality, musicians, or nuns or monks in convents, performed upon the virginal, and so I think we associate it with all the grace and beauty and the slow stateliness of that romantic epoch. When I think of a virginal, it seems to me to bring many suggestions of rich colors, softly fading lights, the flash of jewels, or the movement of white hands, oak wainscoting, and tapestried walls—perhaps some very sad and sorrowing heart, perhaps some young and hopeful one, but always something that is picturesque and dreamy.
Perhaps we would not think it so sweet an instrument to-day, but assuredly in the sixteenth century it moved people to very tender, elevated thoughts. Shakspeare wrote of it with deep feeling, and there are some quaint lines of Spenser's about it. "My love doth sit ... playing alone, careless, on her heavenlie virginals."
In 1583, Sir James Melvil was sent by Mary Stuart to England as Ambassador, and in his memoirs he relates how he heard Queen Elizabeth play. He says that Lord Hunsden took him up into a "quiet gallery," where, unknown to the Queen, he might hear her play. The two gentlemen stood outside a tapestried doorway, from within which came the soft tinkle-tinkle of the virginal. I wish he had told us what the Queen was playing. Presently, it appears, his curiosity to see her Majesty overcame his prudence, and he softly raised the curtain, and went into the room. The Queen played on, "a melody which ravished him," he says, but for some moments did not see that any one was listening. Is it not a pretty picture?
At that time the Queen had not lost the charm of youth, and in her splendid dress, with her head down-bent, her figure at the quaint virginal against the rich and sombre colors of the room, must have looked charming, and the silent Scotch gentleman just inside the doorway listening in rapt attention: it is so poetic a picture of the time that we can almost hear her music, and if we read on a little further, we see that the Queen, suddenly seeing Sir James, came forward, remonstrating with him for having come in, for, she said, she was not used to play before people, but only to "shun melancholy." Then she sat down upon a low cushion, and honest Sir James, according to the custom of the time, fell upon his knees before her. The Queen, with a truly feminine spirit, inquired whether he thought she or Mary Queen of Scots played the best. Sir James said that his sovereign played "reasonably, for a queen." This answer would not serve to-day, as the Queen of England is one of the most perfect of amateur musicians.
ITALIAN SPINET, ORNAMENTED WITH PRECIOUS STONES.
The virginal and spinet belong to the same period. From them, as need of a more elaborate performance grew, we have the harpsichord. A very fine harpsichord looked something like a grand piano, but it had two rows of keys, one upper and one lower. I shall not here go into a description of the harpsichord. It is only needful to say that it was the outgrowth of clavichord and virginal and spinet, and had some of the defects as well as the good points of all three.
HANDEL'S FAVORITE HARPISCHORD.
Our great-grandmothers played upon harpsichords. They were tinkling little affairs, yet I fancy that Mozart's and Haydn's music must have sounded very quaint and pleasing upon them. Where have they all vanished to, I wonder?—along with the flowery brocaded gowns, the slender fans, the powder and patches and paint, of that dear old time?
In an old house I once visited, a harpsichord of seventeen hundred and something used to stand neglected and disused in an upper hall. Sometimes we children thrummed waltzes upon it; sometimes I remember our getting out a faded old music-book with the picture of a shepherdess on it, and picking out the funny little songs that were printed there a hundred years ago. On the fly-leaf of the book was written in a very flourishy hand, "To Isabel, from J——." Who was Isabel, and who was J., we used to wonder.
I can fancy that the music she played to please her mamma and papa, and perhaps her uncles and aunts, was of a very primitive order, for when harpsichords were used, young ladies were not at all proficient. Music was then considered a "genteel" sort of accomplishment, and good masters were very rare, and never tried to make their pupils do more than strike the notes correctly and in good "dum-dum" sort of time. Consider our advantages now, and yet I fancy those young people of "Isabel's" day valued their musical instruction much more than we do ours.
PIANO OF ABOUT 1777.
Well, then, from this pretty, picturesque harpsichord period, we find ourselves by slow degrees in that of the piano, and I suppose the first thing you will wish to know is how a piano-forte differs from these other instruments of which I have been writing. The principal difference is that the strings are struck with a hammer. About the beginning of the eighteenth century this idea had originated with three men at once—an Italian named Cristofali, a Frenchman named Marius, and a German named Schröter; but all investigators seem convinced that Cristofali was the real originator. His ideas were the best. So, later in the century, when harpsichords began to be thought incomplete, different makers tried to produce something better, and the result was the primitive piano-forte.
At this time the composer Sebastian Bach was in Berlin. Frederick the Great was eager to hear him play, and as that famous sovereign possessed several of the new piano-fortes (or forte-pianos, as they then were called), Bach came one evening to the palace, where a crowd of gay ladies and gentlemen were assembled.
The composer had to go from room to room, trying first one of the new pianos, then another. These instruments were manufactured in Germany, but, later, English and French pianos took the palm, and about the beginning of this century American ladies were growing proficient in the art of piano-playing—proficient at least for that day. Have you not all seen your grandmammas' music-books, in which "The Battle of Prague" is an honored "piece"? True, there were hundreds of nobler works, but only public performers seem to have attempted them.
As time went on, and the interest in the instrument grew, the mechanism of the piano-forte was improved, and at this date (1881), it is considered perfect. Here and there as you play, as you listen to the sounds of the little hammer falling on the strings, let your thoughts wander back to Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth of England, with their virginals and spinets—indeed, farther into the' realm of poetic, dreamy sound, for beyond these were clavicytheriums, citoles and citherns, dulcimers and psalteries, and in the East, among the people whom we see now in sculpture, a whole line of lyres and harps and lutes.
It may not seem that so far away as early Egyptian days was the first idea of our piano, yet certainly such is the case. In some far Eastern country you might see, graven in stone of centuries gone by, a figure holding an instrument dimly shadowing that on which you now may play all written music.
[PERILS AND PRIVATIONS.]
BY JAMES PAYN.
THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR."—(Continued.)
The wanderers still occasionally came across the natives. Once, on arriving at a village, they obtained a young bullock in exchange for buttons, a few of which the savages had left on their coats; and that the distribution of this godsend might be equal, the whole was cut in pieces, and, just as I have seen done with a cake at school, one of the party, standing with his back to it, named the person who should have the piece held up. But generally the natives denied them everything. Once they strove to barter some poor relic of their property for a calf, which the others appeared to agree to, "but no sooner had they got the price than the calf was driven away."
On one occasion only did they exhibit the slightest pity. On the party coming upon another dead whale, a band of natives surrounded them, but on perceiving their sad condition, and that there was really nothing more to steal, they forbore to molest them, and one of them even lent his lance, with which some chunks of blubber were cut out.
A little afterward they found two planks on a sandy bank, in each of which was a nail. "Elated," as we are told, "with this valuable discovery," they set fire to the planks, and getting out the nails, "flattened them between two stones into something like knives." A few yards further on, by turning up the sand, they found water, of which they had been much in want; and here, with much thankfulness, they rested. This was the last day of what seemed to these poor souls good fortune.
They did indeed fall in with a dead shark, but it was in such an advanced stage of decay that "the liver only could be eaten." Nay, driven by the extremity of hunger, the carpenter ate of some deadly berries, and was poisoned. Now this man it was who from the first, until the hour of his death, had taken care of the little boy; who had striven to relieve those fatigues which his tender limbs could so little endure; "who had heard his complaints with pity; who had fed him when he could obtain wherewithal to do it," and who had lulled his weary little body to rest.
No human work more commends itself to our admiration than that of this poor carpenter, who reminds us, indeed, of the Carpenter's Son with his "Suffer little children to come unto me." Even at this distant time, when that poor boy has been a hundred years "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest," the tears rise to our eyes when we think of his forlorn condition, deprived of his noble protector.
"I will take him," said the steward, however, who had now succeeded to the command, and that good man kept his word. The natives never gave them so much as a drink of water, though "now and then the women gave a draught of milk to the little boy," and the little party began to break down from sheer fatigue and privation. When this took place, from hard necessity there was no chance but for the rest to leave them.
"THEY CARRIED HIM BY TURNS."
Only they never dreamed of leaving the boy. "It was marvellous," we are told, how he supported the journey (and, alas! how much more marvellous, since he was fated not to survive it after all). "Where the path was even and good," says John Hynes, in his simple fashion, "the child walked, and was able to keep pace with the party; when they came to deep sand or long grass, the people carried him by turns." His only duty was to keep their fire alight while they explored the sand for food.
It will be remembered that, having no flint and steel, they always carried torches; and once, in rounding a bluff to shorten the way, the surf put them out; they came, however, upon the remains of a fire which some Caffre women had lighted, "and joyfully rekindled them." In crossing the rivers where there was a ford, they tied their rags in a bundle, fastened it round their heads, and in it they stuck their brands, and thus kept them dry. Sometimes great storms would come on, and the rain fall so heavily that the men had to hold their canvas frocks over their fire to prevent its being extinguished. Without fire, they would have been lost indeed.
Many times, from causes over which they had no control, the little party separated, but they never forgot one another. Those before used to write upon the sand whatever direction could be of benefit to those behind; such as, "Turn in here, and you will find wood and water." It makes the heart bleed to think that so much tenderness and good-fellowship, maintained under such trying circumstances, should have failed in the end, and have been shown, as it were, for nothing. And yet it was not for nothing. It is impossible to believe that those brave men have not gained their reward, and some great reward for their terrible sufferings. And as to "use," it should be of great and good use to us all to have such an example set before us.
Sometimes those left behind would turn up again, having proceeded, when a little refreshed, by some shorter way; but they had always the same tale of ill-usage and privation to tell. Hynes himself, having been wounded by the natives, was left for dead on one occasion, but recollecting the way his companions intended to pursue by great exertions he overtook them. "I shall bear the scar of that lance wound to my grave," he says.
One day the cooper died, and was buried in the sand. This happened in Hynes's absence, and as he had an affection for the man, he asked to be shown the spot; but on arriving at it, the body had already been dug up and carried away by some wild animal, as could be perceived by its foot-prints. The steward and his charge were now taken ill, and since the rest could not find it in their hearts to leave the child, they staid with him. "Having prepared early in the morning whatever could be obtained for breakfast, and willing to treat his tender frame with all the indulgence in their power, they meant to call him when everything was ready. He still rested near the fire, where all had slept during the night before; but on going to wake him, they found his soul had taken flight to another world." These are the words in which John Hynes describes the misfortune which he evidently considers the worst that had hitherto befallen them. As for the steward, "the loss," we are told, "of one who had been so long the object of his care nearly overcame him. It was with the utmost difficulty his companions got him along."
Presently Robert Fitzgerald asks for a shell of water; Hynes supplies him with one, which he drinks with great avidity. He then asks for another, which, "having received, he swallows with equal relish, and laying himself down, instantly expires." They all thought this a very happy death, and were envious of it. Then William Fruel sinks exhausted on the sand; his companions from necessity go on to seek wood and water, but promise to return to him. Turning their eyes back, they see him crawling after them; but on returning for him after a few hours, they find some wild beast has carried him away.
It would be painful to describe in detail what they now suffered; "former distresses were not to be compared to it." One after another drops from exhaustion; the rest "shake hands with him, and recommending him to Heaven for that assistance which they themselves can not afford, leave him to expire." The party of forty-three are at length reduced to three, John Hynes, Evans, and Wormington, and the senses of even these are so impaired that they can hardly hear or see. One morning the torments of thirst become so intolerable that Wormington begs the two others to cast lots with him as to who shall die for the rest, that by drinking his blood the other two may survive. To which Hynes replies that if he (Hynes) drops, they may do what they will with him, but as long as he can walk he will consent to no such thing. The idea is then abandoned by common consent, nor is it renewed when Wormington falls, and "with one feeble effort to rise, stretches himself on the shore, burying his right hand in the sand."
The next morning the two survivors perceive some objects which to their failing powers look like "large birds." They turn out to be four of their own party, who had been left behind, now nearly blind, and almost reduced to idiocy. It was a most ghastly meeting. Since they could no longer search narrowly for food, they would certainly have now starved to death but for watching the motions of certain sea-birds, which, after scratching in the sand, they perceived let something drop out of their beaks. On searching for themselves, the poor men found that the birds were catching shell-fish which had burrowed in the sand.
On the one hundred and seventeenth day of their journey, (though they knew nothing themselves of dates) these six unfortunates at last met with a European—a Dutch settler. "Their joy was such that, combined with their weak condition, it could only be expressed by convulsive movements." But "after gaining some composure," they learned they were within the limits of the settlements, and not above three hundred miles from the Cape of Good Hope.
They were received with the utmost hospitality, which it seemed was offered with some imprudence, since on being supplied with bread and milk, "their voracity was such as to have almost proved their destruction." After being carefully nursed, and in some degree recovered, they were forwarded in carts to the nearest town, which was two hundred miles distant. "During the whole way, wherever they passed the night, the farmers assembling to hear their sad story, and supplying them with all of which they stood in need."
Nay, notwithstanding that England and Holland were then at war, the Dutch Governor of the Cape of Good Hope dispatched a very strong expedition through the country in quest of the other castaways, should any still remain. They met William Hubberly, servant of the second mate, staggering on alone, "melancholy and forlorn." On other parts of the road they met seven Lascars and two of the black female servants. From these they learned that five days after the ship's company had separated another division of the party took place, but what had become of the others they knew not. They had seen the Captain's coat, however, on one of the natives, from which they gathered that he was dead. No further information could be obtained, and so violent was the opposition of the Caffres that the expedition was compelled to return.
Seven years afterward Colonel Gordon, while travelling in Caffraria, was informed by a native that there was a white woman among his countrymen, with a child whom she frequently embraced, and over whom she wept bitterly. Bad health compelled the Colonel to return home, but he sent her a letter in French, Dutch, and English, begging that some sign, such as a burned stick, or other token, might be returned in answer to it, when every exertion should be made for her recovery; but nothing more was ever heard of her. Nevertheless, for years there was a general belief at the Cape that some of the unfortunate ladies still survived, who had it in their power to return, but that having been compelled to marry Caffre chieftains, and "apprehending that their place in society was lost, and that they should be degraded in the eyes of their equals," they resolved to abide where they were.
THE DOLLS' RECEPTION AT REPUBLICAN HALL, THIRTY-THIRD STREET, NEW YORK.—Drawn by Mrs. Jessie Shepherd.