Listen To Love

Author’s NoteThe meaning of pianoforte (literally ‘soft-loud’) derives from its ability to produce gradations of volume by act of touch. In mid-eighteenth century England, it somewhat confusingly began life as a fortepiano, but the name was changed to pianoforte towards the end of the century. Bartolommeo Cristofori (1655-1731) devised his pravecembalo col piano è forte in Florence in about 1709 and it is from him that the modem piano stems. But it was not until the nineteenth century development of metal bracing that the potentialities of Cristofori’s remarkable action were fully realised. Mozart first played a Stein piano in 1777 and the Viennese pianos were perfectly suited to his style of playing, a singing tone, a quiet steady hand and smoothness of execution in which passage work ‘flowed like oil’. C. P. E. Bach mentions his endeavour ‘to play the pianoforte’ in his Versuch über die wahre Art das Klaviar zu Spielen, ‘despite its deficiency in sustaining tone as much as possible in a singing manner. This is by no means an easy task, if we desire not to leave the ear empty or to disturb the noble simplicity of the cantabile by too much noise.’ But J. C. Bach played the piano by choice and was largely responsible for popularising it in England, where he gave his first piano recital on a Zumpe Square in 1768. After 1806 the piano, as a result of the increasing demands of composers and performers, began a rapid growth to its modem form, which, for practical purposes, it reached in 1859. The main stimulus was the gigantic pianism of Beethoven followed by the efforts of others to emulate his style and to excel in his works. Although admired by Ravel, this clever invention seems destined to share the oblivion of any instrumental innovation that does not attract the imagination of leading composers and performers, who no doubt feel that the twentieth century grand piano is demanding enough without additional complications.