THE MODERN PIANO-FORTE. 691 



THE MODEEN PIANO-FORTE. 



By S. AUSTEN PEAECE, Mus. Doc, Oxon.i 



MUSICAL instruments with manuals or key-boards, and fixed 

 tones, occupy a most important position in the annals of 

 modern art. All the greatest composers have been skilled per- 

 formers on such instruments, and especially on the piano-forte. They 

 are very greatly indebted to it ; not that their works have been pro- 

 duced by its aid, or that it has been allowed to exercise a formative 

 influence over their imaginings, but because of its companionship and 

 sympathy. The creator of new musical forms, while engaged in his 

 silent work in the comparatively slow process of writing the indi- 

 vidual parts for all the instruments employed in the orchestra not 

 only exercises the faculty of expression, but also the power to with- 

 hold. This power this muscular strength of the brain, to grasp and 

 retain whatever has been conceived, notwithstanding the perplexity 

 as to means of expression, which commonly attends a crowd of ideas 

 and feelings is sometimes in danger of being overtaxed. On these 

 occasions great relief is found by opening the piano-forte, and throw- 

 ing off the i^iece at full speed on this plastic instrument. After realiz- 

 ing his ideals in this immediate and satisfactory manner, the composer 

 returns refreshed to his patient labor to the detailed record on paper 

 of those emotions which fill him with such passionate energy. Or, 

 should he wish merely to find relief in utterance to commune Avith 

 himself, and obtain recreation by driving temporarily from his thoughts 

 the work in hand then this comprehensive instrument, this minia- 

 ture orchestra, enables him to extemporize elaborate contrapuntal 

 forms, clashing Cyclopean harmonies, or highly-involved melodic 

 strains. The sovmds thus evoked fall back on his delighted ear, 

 exhibiting to him, in audible form, his psychologic condition. During 

 these fleeting moments he thus beholds his subjective state, as clearly 

 and definitely as in a mirror he would see, similarly reflected in visi- 

 ble form, the expression of his countenance. 



But the piano-forte, by making domestic music at all times easily 

 and immediately attainable, without the preliminary adjustments re- 

 quired for the harp or other stringed instruments, has become uni- 

 versally popular. Its literature is larger than that of any other, and 

 whatever musical forms have found favor with the public are imme- 

 diately adapted and rearranged for reproduction on it. 



The piano-forte appears in four principal forms : as grand, square, 

 upright, and curved, the latter being a newly-designed model, by Mr. 

 J. W. Otto, of St, Louis, Missouri. The American grand piano-forte 



' Lecturer on Harmony and the Science of Music, at the General Theological Seminary, 

 New York ; Musical Director of Columbia College Glee- Club, etc. 



