Microsoft Word - Piano Book.docx

consistent and permitted wider dynamic ranges as hammer weights and string tensions
increased.

The sostenuto pedal was invented in 1844 by Boisselot and improved by the Steinway
firm in 1874.

Over-stringing was invented by Jean-Henri Pape during the 1820s and was first patented
for general use in grand pianos in the United States by Henry Steinway in 1859. The
over-strung scale, also called ‘cross-stringing’, involved the strings being placed in a
vertically overlapping slanted arrangement, with two heights of bridges on the keyboard
rather than just one. This permitted larger, but not necessarily longer, strings to fit within
the case of the piano.

In 1872 Theodore Steinway patented a system of duplexes or aliquot scales to control
different components of string vibrations by tuning their secondary parts in octave
relationships with the sounding lengths. Similar systems were developed by Blüthner in
1872, as well as by Taskin.

The earliest pianos by Cristofori, about 1700, were lightweight objects, hardly sturdier in
framing than a contemporary harpsichord with thin strings of wrought iron and brass, and
tiny hammers covered with leather. During the classical era, when pianos first became
used widely by important composers, the piano was little more robust than in Cristofori’s
time. It was during the period from about 1790 to 1870 that most of the important
changes were made that culminated in the modern piano.

These changes were:

! increase in range from five octaves to the modern standard of seven and 1/3

octaves;

! iron frames, culminating in the single-piece cast iron frame;

! tough steel strings, with three strings per note in the upper 2/3 of the piano’s range;

! felt hammers;

! cross-stringing;

! repetition action; and

! increase in weight and robustness.

A modern Steinway grand piano Model D weighs 480 kg (990 lb) which is about six
times the weight of a late eighteenth century Stein piano. Hammers and action became
much heavier so that the touch (keyweight) of a modern piano is several times heavier
than that of an eighteenth century piano.