House and Garden 
Vol. IX 
JUNE, 1906 
No. 6 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO 
By k. L. Smith 
T HERE hangs in the splendid Crosby-Brown and 
Drexel collections of musical instruments in 
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an odd-looking, 
discolored piece of bronze, battered and worn by 
time which at first glance has little significance. 
There is a handle, a rim and three pieces of old bronze 
held loosely in place. This modest affair, resurrected 
from some ancient city’s site is a sistrunr, used in the 
worship of Isis and is one of the earliest forms of 
musical instruments of which any record remains. 
From this primitive instrument to clavichords, 
virginals and spinets the road is a long one but man’s 
inventive genius has bridged the way until now there 
is little left to suggest in the perfecting of instruments 
to secure notes. 
In all ages the musical instruments, because ex¬ 
pressing alike religion and passion, have possessed 
peculiar significance. The koto of Japan, the 
Celtic harp, the Italian violin, the cosmopolitan 
piano each is typical of the race which originally 
fashioned it. Since man first became a living soul 
he has been breathing the life that vivifies into his 
works and in none of the arts has he more nearly 
succeeded than in the piano. 
The primitive instruments of the world were the 
whistle and rattle, later came a pipe with finger holes 
and the use of the bowstrings arose from the hunter’s 
habit of fondling bis weapon. The first savage who 
found his bowstring sound louder when attached to a 
block of wood than when simply stretched by his 
bow, crossed in one bound the chasm between 
barbarism and art and ever since a few basic prin¬ 
ciples have been applied by humanity at large. As 
a result, among modern inventions Italy has per¬ 
fected the violin, France the harp, Spain and Italy 
the guitar and many countries the piano; for artisans, 
musicians and literati have all worked at the last. 
Whether Italy built on the German and the German 
on the French is not known; possibly the piano forte 
was invented in all these countries simultaneously, 
but the credit is given to Italy. 
It seems probable that the immediate ancestor of 
the piano is the monochord of the Middle Ages, once 
used in training voices in convents. It is supposed 
that Pythagoras found the monochord in Egypt, 
where its principle of a stopped string upon a finger 
board had been known, as monuments testify, long 
before his time and it may also have been known in 
Babylonia. Eater the monochord became in Greece, 
where polychord instruments had prevailed and in 
Europe generally, the rule for the measurement of 
intervals. A long box of wood, bridged at either 
end, with a central movable bridge over which was 
stretched a catgut string—this was the monochord. 
Early historians say it is not known who invented the 
clavichord by adding keys to the monochord, but it is 
certain the latter instrument was gradually trans¬ 
formed into a polychord with four strings and a key¬ 
board and the clavichord being a’development of the 
monochord long bore the same name. As the early 
clavichords were strung with wires of equal lengths 
the instrument was long regarded as a set of mono¬ 
chords. 
As all various instruments have in common the 
apparatus of levers and touch keys for eliciting sound, 
the applications of keys to shorten strings was at¬ 
tempted with instruments of the hurdy-gurdy class 
and in this monochord the interval measure was stop¬ 
ped by means of little bridges, up to A. D. 995. 
While the spinet, which was used later, followed the 
organ closely in the disposition of the keyboard, the 
clavichord adhered to the conception of its inventor 
Guido, who adapted the keyboard to a polychord 
stringed instrument. The oldest dated clavichord 
known is of Italian origin, inscribed A. D. 1547. 
It was in the Elizabethan age that the clavier 
or clavichord began for the first time to play 
a part in the world. Circumstances seemed to favor 
it for a certain dependence upon art came upon the 
society of that day. The heavy churchiness of the 
organ and the light secularity of the lute needed to 
unite themselves in an instrument sufficiently flexible 
to represent and follow with some degree of ease the 
voice parts and embrace the whole tonic scale so as 
to expand the limits of the voice. Ehe clavier offered 
itself for this and as a light and convenient instrument. 
It was in England that the clavier first recognized its 
mission for the orchestra and chamber music and in 
London we find the first clavichord books that were 
ever published. Among them is a virginal book of 
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Copyright , igo6, by The 'John C. Winston Co. 
