Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 by Various
page 57 of 130 (43%)
page 57 of 130 (43%)
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the determining agents of the piano music and style of playing of the
Vienna school. Thus arose a fluent execution of a rich figuration and brilliant passage playing, with but little inclination to sonorousness of effect, lasting from the time of Mozart's immediate followers to that of Henri Herz; a period of half a century. Knee-pedals, as we translate "geuouilleres," were probably in vogue before Stein, and were levers pressed with the knees, to raise the dampers, and leave the pianoforte undamped, a register approved of by Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, who regarded the undamped pianoforte as the more agreeable for improvising.. He appears, however, to have known but little of the capabilities of the instrument, which seemed to him coarse and inexpressive beside his favorite clavichord. Stein appears to have made use of the "una corda" shift. Probably by knee-pedals, subsequently by foot-pedals, the following effects were added to the Stein pianos. The harpsichord "harp"-stop, which muted one string of each note by a piece of leather, became, by the interposition of a piece of cloth between the hammer and the strings, the piano, harp, or _celeste_. The more complete sourdine, which muted all the strings by contact of a long strip of leather, acted as the staccato, pizzicato, or pianissimo. The Germans further displayed that ingenuity in fancy stops Mersenne had attributed to them in harpsichords more than a hundred and fifty years before, by a bassoon pedal, a card which by a rotatory half-cylinder just impinging upon the strings produced a reedy twang; also by pedals for triangle, cymbals, bells, and tambourine, the last drumming on the sound-board itself. Several of these contrivances may be seen in a six-pedal grand pianoforte belonging to Her Majesty the Queen, at Windsor Castle, bearing the name as maker of Stein's daughter, Nannette, who was a |
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