APPENDIX B.
THE SMALL GRAND.
It is a curious fact, but none the less characteristic of that most curious of industries—the pianoforte craft—that in it the development hypothesis, so familiar to all other branches of human endeavor here, appears not to be fully applicable. While the aim of the present treatise has been to systematize and codify, as it were, the laws that underly all right constructional methods, we have been forced to recognize that there is no appearance of any accurate and uniform generalization which may be applicable to the future guidance of pianoforte builders in their efforts to attain to the greatest perfection in later types. Although we have succeeded in laying down the broad and universal principles that govern intelligent practice of the art, yet we cannot fail to note that a progressive evolution is not yet possible. That is to say, there is no progressive synthesis in the art which shall carry us continually further from the original types, so that the ancient models shall become in time quite unrecognizable in the light of modern improvement. Rather would it seem that the course of improvement is leading us back to reversions towards the original types, and of this tendency the rise of the small grand pianoforte is one of the most striking illustrations.
It is not to be supposed that this reversionary movement is to be taken as implying a dissatisfaction with the methods that have grown up in the course of the last hundred years, and the systematization of which has been our task in the present work; it is rather that the tendency today is in the direction of utilizing the most modern methods in the resuscitation and further development of the type of pianoforte that was earliest in the field.
In other words, as the reader well knows, the last few years have seen a general tendency towards a revival of the grand, in forms suitable for modern ways of life, and with the advantages carried by the wealth of experience and practice on which the modern pianomaker can make unlimited drafts. This resuscitation has not taken the form of any attempt to bring the large-sized concert instrument into more popular use, but it has rather been a matter of evolving a new type out of the old, and of developing this latter along comparatively original lines. With the commercial success of such an experiment we are not here immediately concerned, but we have great and lively interest in the question of its constructional value and in the possibilities that are implied in its future development.
Without entering into wearisome detail, it may be stated that the last five years have seen a most systematic attempt on the part of leading manufacturers to construct and popularize a very small style of grand pianoforte, and to endow this new instrument, as far as possible, with the musical advantages possessed by the larger and older horizontal forms. The dimensions of the “small grand,” as it has come to be known, range from a length of five feet to one of six, with width in proportion, and the smallest sizes are continually attracting greater attention on the part of experts. The idea is to reduce the dimensions to the very lowest point compatible with something approaching to grand pianoforte tone, and to make the general outline as beautiful to the eye as possible. The latter of these desires is easier of consummation than the former, and it has therefore appeared that some of the makers of these instruments have been somewhat apt to overlook truly musical results in deference to a public sentiment in favor of something that is graceful, if nothing else. In fact, when considering the small grand we are obliged to note that it has been developed, and is now being produced rather to appeal to that portion of the pianoforte-buying public that demands something for its homes more beautiful than the upright and less bulky than the large parlor or concert grand than in answer to any general cry for the better musical development of the instrument itself.
If we bear this fact in mind, and its truth is obvious to the student of pianoforte history, we can the more easily understand and appreciate the essential features of this latest development.
The small grand has been produced, we repeat, to please the public, and the public at large is not exclusively composed of musicians.
But even while acknowledging the probability of this statement, we need not conceal from ourselves that the small grand can thus fulfill a very useful function. Reduced to its lowest terms, it remains a grand pianoforte, with the action and touch so essentially associated with the horizontal form, and so immeasurably superior to anything that is found in even the best uprights. And here the small grand has an enormous advantage, nor does it appear that its truly musical and tonal development need be permanently stationary, if only the limitations of the instrument be appreciated, and work on it be directed with especial reference to its own size, and without dependence upon the traditions that have supported the building of larger forms.