HE popular instrument of the nineteenth century has been the pianoforte, the result of an evolution having its beginning more than six centuries back. It is impossible in the present state of knowledge to trace all the steps through which this remarkable instrument has reached its present form. In the Assyrian sculptures discovered by Layard, there are instruments apparently composed of metal rods or plates, touched by hammers, upon the same general principle as the toy instrument with glass plates, or the xylophone composed of wooden rods resting upon bands of straw. In these the use of the hammer for producing the tone is obvious. In the Middle Ages there was an instrument called the psaltery, apparently some sort of a four-sided harp strung with metal strings. The evidence upon this point is rather indistinct. Still later there is the Arab santir ([p. 114]). This was a trapeze-shaped instrument, composed of a solid frame, sounding board and metal wires struck with hammers. This instrument still exists in Germany under the name of Hackbrett, or the dulcimer. As now made, each string consists of three wires tuned in unison. It is played by means of leather hammers held in the hand. The difficulty of adapting this instrument to the keyboard consisted in the fact that if the hammers were connected with the keys, they would be under the strings instead of above them, and this difficulty for a long time proved insurmountable.
Fig. 68.
SPINET.
[Showing the disposition of the strings, bridges, etc. Dresden, 1590.]
Two forms of instruments were at length developed, composed of a wire-strung psaltery, played from a chromatic keyboard like that of the organ. The first of these was the one called in England Spinet, or in Italy Espinnetto, and in Germany the Clavier. The essential characteristic of this instrument was the manner of producing tones. Upon the ends of the keys were brass pieces called "tangents," of a triangular shape, of such form that when the key was pressed, the tangent pushed the wire and so produced the tone. As it remained in contact with the wire as long as the key was held down, there was nothing like what we now call a singing tone. The instruments were very small, in shape like a square piano, but of three or four octaves compass; the wires were of brass, and quite small. In several representations which have come down to us from the seventeenth century, the number of strings shown is smaller than the number of keys, from which some writers have inferred that it might have been possible to obtain more than one tone from the same string, through a process of stopping it with one tangent and striking it with another. This, however, is highly improbable; the discrepancies referred to are undoubtedly due to carelessness of the engraver. The clavier, or spinet, was a better instrument than the lute, which at length it superseded, having more tones and a greater harmonic capacity. Besides which it was a step toward something much better still. In England they made them with pieces of cloth drawn through between the wires, to deaden the already small tone still further. These were sometimes called virginals, and seem to have been used as practice pianos, where the noise of the full tone might have been objectionable. The oldest form of the clavier known to the writer was that shown in [Fig. 69], which was so small that it might be carried under the arm, and when used was placed upon the table. They were sometimes ornamented in a very elaborate manner.
Fig. 69.
KEYBOARD AND FRET WORK OF SPINET SHOWN IN [FIG. 68].
