Twentieth Century Inventions: A Forecast

by George Sutherland

MUSIC.

A perfect sostenuto piano has been the dream of many a musician whose ardent desire it was to perform his music exactly as it was written. A sustained piano note is, indeed, the great mechanical desideratum for the music of the future. In music, as at present written and published for the piano, which is, and must continue to be, the real "King of Instruments," there is a good deal of make-believe. A long note—or two notes tied in a certain method—is intended to be played as a continued sound, like the note of an organ; whereas there is no piano in existence which will produce anything even approximately approaching to that effect. The characteristic of the piano as an instrument is percussion, producing, at the moment of striking the note, a loud sound which almost immediately dies away and leaves but a faint vibration.

The phonographic record of a pianoforte solo shows this very clearly to the eye, because the impression made by a long note is a deeply-marked indentation succeeded by the merest shallow scratch—not unlike the impression made by a tadpole on mud—with a big head and an attenuated body. Every note marked long in pianoforte music is therefore essentially a sforzando followed by a rapid diminuendo. Anything in such music marked as a long note to be sustained crescendo—the most thrilling effect of orchestral, choral, and organ music—is necessarily a sham and a delusion.

The genius and skill which have enabled the masters of pianoforte composition not only to cover up this defect in their instrument, but even to make amends for it, by working out effects only suitable for a percussion note, present one of the most remarkable features of musical progress in the nineteenth century. So notable is that fact in its relation to the pianoforte accompaniments of vocal music, that it seems open to question whether, even in the presence of a thoroughly satisfactory sostenuto piano, much use would for many years be made of it for this particular purpose. The effects of repeated notes succeeding one another with increasing or decreasing force, and of arpeggio passages, have been so fully explored and made available in standard music of every grade, that necessarily the public taste has set itself to appreciate the pianoforte solo and the accompanied song exactly as they are written and performed. These are, after all, the highest forms of music which civilisation has yet enabled one or two performers to produce.

Yet, in regard to solo instrumentalisation, there is no doubt that a general hope exists for the discovery of a compromise between the piano and the organ or between the piano and the string band. Some inventors have aimed in the latter direction and others in the former; but no one has succeeded in really recommending his ideas to the public. Combined piano-violins and piano-organs have been shown at each of the great Exhibitions from the middle of the nineteenth century to its close. Several of these instruments have been devised and constructed with great ingenuity; and yet practically all of them have been received by the musical profession either with indifference or with positive ridicule.

The fact is that revolutionary sudden changes in musical instruments are rendered impossible owing to the near relationship which exists between each instrument and the general body of the music that is written for it. No one can divorce the two, which, as a factor in æsthetic progress, are really one and indivisible. Therefore, if any man invents a musical instrument which requires for its success the sudden evolution of a new race of composers writing for it, and a new type of educated public taste to hail these composers with delight, he is asking for a miracle and he will be disappointed.

What is wanted is not a new instrument, but an improved piano that shall at one and the same time correct, to some extent, the defects of the existing instrument, and leave still available all the brilliant effects which have been invented for it by a generation of musical geniuses. We want the sustained note, and yet we do not wish to lose the pretty turns and graceful devices by which the lack of it has been hidden, or atoned for, in the works of the masters. Therefore our sustained note must not be too aggressive. For a long time, indeed, it must partake of the very defects which it is intended ultimately to abolish.

In other words, we want to retain the percussion note with the dampers and with the loud and soft pedals, in fact, all the existing inventions for coaxing some of the notes to sustain themselves while others are cut short, as may be desired, and at the same time we have to add other and more effective means to assist the performer in achieving the same object.

The more or less complicated methods aiming at the prolongation of the residual effect of the percussion have apparently been very nearly exhausted. Some of the most modern pianos are really marvels of mechanical ingenuity applied to this purpose. We have now to look to something slightly resembling the principle of the violin or of the organ, in order to secure the additional sostenuto effect for which we are searching. Having to deal with a piano in practically its existing form, we obviously require to take special account of the fact that the note is begun by percussion, and that any attempt to bring a solid substance into contact with the wire while still vibrating, with the object of continuing its motion, is likely to produce more or less of a jarring effect.

The air-blast type of note-continuer for sostenuto effect therefore offers the most promising outlook for the improvement of the modern piano in the direction indicated. By directing a blast of air from a very thin nozzle on to the vibrating wire of a piano, the sound emitted may be very greatly intensified; and although naturally the decreasing amplitude of the vibration may in itself tend to create a diminuendo, yet it is possible to make up for this in some degree by causing the air-blast to increase in force, through the use of any suitable means, modified by an extra pedal as may be desired.