Square piano

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The square piano is an early design of the piano in which the strings run horizontally across and / or diagonally to the keys. This construction enables a rectangular design of the housing in the form of a table ("panel"); however, it was not used as a table. It takes up less space than a grand piano . The idea of ​​this special design was not new, but was already used in the Renaissance for clavichords and virginal . The Pantaleon , a baroque square piano with hammer action , also has this design.

Square piano

Table pianos were particularly popular in the 19th century . Famous musicians such as Franz Schubert , Clara Schumann , Robert Schumann , Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt played and composed their works on table pianos.

From 1850, table pianos were increasingly manufactured industrially. The first instruments with struts, frames and attachment plates made of metal were created to absorb the ever-increasing string tension. This made the instruments heavier and heavier. What was previously manufactured by small family businesses has now been mass-produced with up to 600 employees (e.g. John Broadwood & Sons ).

With the further development of pianos with vertical strings ( giraffe piano , lyre grand piano , pianino , piano droit, upright etc.), the square piano gradually went out of fashion in the second half of the 19th century and was hardly manufactured in Europe after 1870. In the USA, the handcrafted square piano survived until around 1900, most recently manufactured industrially in 1888 by Steinway & Sons .

Designs

Musical instrument makers experimented with different construction variants and materials, so that a square piano could cost as much as a grand piano . All quality levels were used for the body, from fine solid wood (e.g. cherry) to cheaper, veneered softwood. A distinction must be made between (at least) the following types of construction:

  • String course
    • In most cases, the square piano takes over the course of the strings from the previous clavichord: lowest bass string at the front (diagonally from back left to front right), highest treble string at the back.
    • The reverse design adopted from the spinet is rare : lowest bass string at the back, highest treble string at the front.
    • In the second half of the 19th century, there was a more and more transition from the initially parallel-string cover to a radial cover - in individual cases so strong that the highest treble strings (as with the grand piano) run in the direction of the keys. The cross-string cover was u. a. von Schiedmayer also built square pianos, but has not caught on with this type of instrument.
  • mechanics
    • During the entire period of the table piano's performance, the advancing thrust (“English”) and bounce (“German” or “Viennese”) mechanisms are equally important.
    • In rare cases there are special mechanical forms, such as those built by Jean-Henri Pape , Paris
  • Pedals / changes
    • Like the fortepiano, 18th century table pianos have no pedals, but knee levers under the instrument base, which can be used to effect the changes.
    • Typical for square pianos later - apart from special shapes - the small number of pedals. The forte pedal is generally used to cancel the string damping, which is often the only pedal on the instrument.
    • In contrast to grand pianos and upright pianos, the construction of the square piano is the "displacement", i.e. H. The Una Corda pedal (often referred to as a piano pedal) is problematic, as the distance between the strings from the bass to the treble decreases continuously. A piano effect is instead - in adaptation of harpsichord or spinet - by the lute related attenuation of the string immediately at its beginning (reduction of the forming harmonics) is possible.
    • Other changes could be: rocker panels (especially on English square pianos; to raise or lower part of the lid and thus create additional volume differences); Suboktavkoppel (with Wilhelm Constantin Schiffer from Cologne, around 1795); the bassoon slide etc.

Examples

The touch of the table piano

Title page of Lodovico Giustini's " Sonate da cimbalo di piano e forte detta volgarmente di martelletti ", Florence 1732

The square piano, the development of which went hand in hand with that of the fortepiano , made possible, like this one, a new type of touch and design in terms of dynamics and sound differentiation compared to the harpsichord. This is made possible by a small, modulatable “hammer” with which the string is struck, in contrast to the “thorn” of the harpsichord, which tears the string. In the early days, the hammer was made of wood that was covered with leather and was much narrower and lighter than the table pianos of the 19th century. Lodovico Giustini from Pistoia composed in 1732 expressly for this new touch capable of modulation [12] the SONATA da Cimbalo di piano, e forte detto volgarmente di martelletti . It is the first surviving work expressly for fortepiano (or fortepiano). The name of the instrument varied in its early days. Giustini called it Cimbalo di piano, e forte and volgarmente di martelletti ( struck with a hammer). It was named Pantaleon after the concert dulcimer struck with mallets by Pantaleon Hebenstreit (1668–1750), a musician of the Dresden court orchestra.

literature

  • Boje E. Hans Schmuhl and Monika Lustig (eds.): History and construction of the table piano. Michaelsteiner Conference Reports Volume 68. Wißner, Augsburg 2006, ISBN 3-89639-528-9 .
  • Christian Schulze Pellengahr: On the history of historical musical instruments in the Coesfeld district using the example of a listed table piano from the Dresden workshop of Eduard Voigt (1817–1892) . In: Geschichtsblätter des Kreis Coesfeld, 2005 (30th year), pp. 75–92.
  • Christoph Dohr : An innovative piano manufacturer at the beginning of Cologne's French era. Wilhelm Constantin Schiffer in the mirror of his preserved table pianos. In: Music in Cologne, France. Contributions to Rhenish Music History Vol. 173, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-87537-325-7 , pp. 201–228.
  • Konstantin Restle : Bartolomeo Christophori and the beginnings of the hammer piano. Sources, documents and instruments from the 15th to 18th centuries . Editio Maris, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-925801-07-3 , p. 252 continuing.

Web links

Wiktionary: square piano  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations