prototype in 1694. The three Cristofori instruments that survive today date from the
1720s.j
The piano was based on earlier technological inventions. The mechanisms of keyboard
instruments such as the clavichord and the harpsichord were well known. In a clavichord
the strings are pressed by tangents while in a harpsichord they are plucked by quills.
Centuries of work on the mechanism of the harpsichord had shown the most effective
ways to construct the case, soundboard, bridge and keyboard. Cristofori, who was an
expert harpsichord builder, was well acquainted with this body of knowledge.
Cristofori succeeded in solving the fundamental problem of piano design. The hammers
must strike the string but must not remain in contact with the string (as a tangent remains
in contact with a clavichord string) because this would damp the sound. The hammers
must return to their rest position without bouncing violently and it must be possible to
repeat a note rapidly. Cristofori’s piano action served as a model for the many different
approaches to piano actions that followed. Cristofori’s early instruments were made with
thin strings and were much quieter than the modern piano. Compared, however, to the
clavichord (the only previous keyboard instrument capable of minutely controlled
dynamic nuances through the keyboard) they were louder and had more sustaining power.
In 1711 an Italian writer named Scipione Maffei wrote an enthusiastic article about
Cristofori’s piano including a diagram of the mechanism. The article was widely
distributed and most of the next generation of piano builders started their work because of
reading it. One of the builders who read the article was Gottfried Silbermann who is
better known nowadays as an organ builder. Silbermann’s pianos were direct copies of
Cristofori’s with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the
modern damper pedal which lifts all the dampers off the strings at once.
DAYAS
William Dayas was born in New York in 1863 of English parents and died in Manchester,
England, in 1903. He was orphaned at an early age but thanks to private patronage was
able to travel to Berlin for advanced piano studies under Kullak and Ehrlich. While his
first encounter with Liszt in the summer of 1883 may have been somewhat unnerving,
Liszt soon recognised his talent.
At a Weimar masterclass in 1885 Dayas performed Julius Reubke’s Sonata in B flat
minor in the presence of Liszt who was visibly moved. On 2 September 1885 Dayas
played Liszt’s Sonata in the composer’s presence at the festival of the Allgemeiner
Deutscher Musikverein, held that year in Leipzig. After Liszt’s death in 1886 Dayas
moved to England and on 26 June 1891 married the twenty-one year old Margarethe
Vocke in Peterborough.
Dayas was appointed principal piano professor at the Manchester College of Music in
1896 and again in 1901. He also taught piano in Helsinki, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden and
Cologne. He was an organist as well as a pianist, and he wrote piano, organ, chamber