A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



hammers to an harpsichord of the common 

 kind already made so as to render it such 

 compound harpsichord.' Merlin effected 

 another improvement in harpsichords in 1775. 

 The larger instruments had ordinarily two 

 rows of keys and three strings to each note, 

 two of the strings being in unison and the 

 third sounding an octave higher. Merlin 

 abolished the latter and replaced it by another 

 unison string which left the tone equally full 

 and rendered the instrument less liable to get 

 out of tune, the octave stop being very sus- 

 ceptible to atmospheric influences. He died 

 in May 1804, and the 'celebrated musical 

 instruments invented and manufactured ' by 

 him were sold by auction on 21 July 1837. 



The Pianoforte. The manufacture of piano- 

 fortes is an industry for which London has 

 been long and justly famed. The origin of 

 the invention has caused much controversy, 

 but it is now generally conceded that the 

 inventor of this beautiful instrument was 

 Bartolomeo Cristofori, a harpsichord maker of 

 Florence and custodian of the musical instru- 

 ments of Prince Ferdinand dei Medici ; he 

 had in 1709 made four pianofortes in Florence, 

 where they were seen by Scipione Maffei. 

 The invention is described by Maffei 30 in the 

 Giornale de Litterati if Italia, 1711, and the 

 idea seems also to have been independently 

 arrived at by two other musicians, viz. : 

 Marius, a French manufacturer, who in 1716 

 submitted his instruments to the Academic 

 des Sciences, and Christopher Gottlieb 

 Schroter, a German musician, who constructed 

 a model of a pianoforte at Dresden in 1717. 

 Two instruments made by Cristofori still 

 exist; one dated 1 720 in the Metropolitan 

 Museum of New York, the other dated 1726 

 in the private museum of the Signori Kraus 

 at Florence. The invention constituted a 

 vast improvement upon the action of the 

 harpsichord, which was the immediate pre- 

 cursor of the pianoforte. This was done by 

 substituting for the quills formerly used 

 leather-covered hammers to strike the strings. 

 By this means the jarring noise of the old 

 instrument described by Dr. Burney as a 

 ' scratch with a sound at the end of it ' gave 

 place to a clear, precise, and delicate tone until 

 then unknown. The great invention lay 

 dormant in Italy, but was taken up in 

 Germany, where Gottfried Silbermann, after 

 some unsuccessful attempts, made a pianoforte 

 which gained the unstinted praise of J. S. 

 Bach ; Frederick the Great also ordered some 

 of Silbermann's instruments for his palace at 



10 Venice, v, 144. Reprinted and trans, by 

 Rimbault, Pianoforte, 95-102. 



Potsdam. Other famous German makers 

 were Johann Andreas Stein of Augsburg, 

 Johann Gottfried Hildebrand, and Johann 

 Andreas Streicher. In France the chief 

 manufacturers and inventors were Sebastian 

 Erard and Ignace Pleyel. 



The earliest pianos were horizontal and 

 wing-shaped like the harpsichord, the oblong 

 or ' square ' of clavichord shape is said to have 

 been invented by Frederici, the celebrated 

 organ builder of Gera. The first piano seen 

 in England was made, Burney tells us, in 

 Rome by Father Wood, an English monk. 

 This was copied by Roger Plenius, but with- 

 out any attempt to place the enterprise on a 

 commercial basis. Another German, Johannes 

 Zumpe, who is said to have worked for Shudi 

 the harpsichord maker, was more successful. 

 At his manufactory in Princes Street, Hanover 

 Square, he made small square pianos of very 

 sweet tone, similar in shape and size to a vir- 

 ginal. These, from their low price and con- 

 venient size, soon became so popular that there 

 was hardly a house in the kingdom where a 

 keyed instrument had ever had admission but 

 was supplied with one of them, and there was 

 nearly as great a call for them in France as in 

 England. 31 The oldest Zumpe piano known 

 bears the date 1766 and is now owned by 

 Messrs. Broadwood. Johann Pohlmann, an- 

 other German maker in London, helped also 

 to supply the demand, and his instruments 

 also became widely known, although greatly 

 inferior in quality to those of Zumpe. The 

 action which Zumpe adopted or invented was 

 simple and easy, and is said by some to have 

 been suggested by the Rev. William Mason, 

 composer, poet, and friend of the poet Gray. 

 Zumpe had a partner named Meyer in 

 1778, and was joined by Buntlebart in 1784 ; 

 after realizing a handsome fortune he re- 

 turned to Germany to end his days in retire- 

 ment. 



The list of early German makers of 

 the pianoforte in London is, however, not 

 yet complete. A maker named Victor, 

 resident in London, made several improve- 

 ments in the instrument. He was fol- 

 lowed by Americus Backers, who calls 

 himself on one of his pianos which still 

 exists, ' Americus Backers, factor et inventor, 

 Jermyn Street, London 1776.' Backers had , 

 been in the employ of Silbermann of Neuberg, 

 and is described by Burney as a harpsichord 

 maker of second rank, who constructed several 

 pianofortes, and improved the mechanism in 

 some particulars, ' but the tone, with all the deli- 

 cacy of Schroeter's touch, lost the spirit of the 



11 Charles Burney in Abraham Reefs Cyclopaedia, 

 art. ' Harpsichord.' 



184 



