was more common for girls than boys and it was thought that an ability to play the piano
made girls more marriageable. Women who had learned to play the piano as children
often continued to play as adults, thus providing music in their households. Emma
Wedgwood (1809-1896), the granddaughter of the wealthy industrialist Josiah
Wedgwood, took piano lessons from Chopin. Following her marriage to Charles Darwin,
Emma still played the piano daily while her husband listened appreciatively.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the middle classes of Europe and North
America increased both in numbers and prosperity. This increase produced a
corresponding rise in the domestic importance of the piano as more families became able
to afford pianos and piano lessons. The piano also became common in schools and hotels.
As the Western middle class lifestyle spread to other countries the piano became common
in those countries.
Before mechanical and electronic reproduction, music was performed daily by ordinary
people. The working people of every country generated a body of folk music which was
transmitted orally down through the generations and sung by all. The parents of Joseph
Haydn (1732-1809) could not read music yet Haydn’s father, who worked as a
wheelwright, taught himself to play the harp and the Haydn family frequently played and
sang together. With rising prosperity the many families that could now afford pianos
adapted their musical abilities to the new instrument and the piano became a major source
of music in the home.
Amateur pianists in the home often kept track of the doings of the leading pianists and
composers of their day. Professional virtuosi wrote books and methods for the study of
piano playing and these sold widely. The virtuosi also prepared their own editions of
classical works which included detailed marks of tempo and expression to guide the
amateur who wanted to use their playing as a model. The piano compositions of the great
composers often sold well among amateurs despite the fact that, starting with Beethoven,
they were often too hard for anyone but a trained virtuoso to play perfectly. Amateur
pianists obtained satisfaction from coming to grips with the finest music even if they
could not perform it from start to finish.
A favourite form of musical recreation in the home was playing piano works for four
hands in which two players sit side by side at a single piano. Sometimes members of the
household would sing or play other instruments along with the piano.
Parents whose children showed unusual talent often pushed them towards professional
careers sometimes making great sacrifices to make this possible. The great pianist Artur
Schnabel wrote of this in his book ‘My Life and Music’.
The piano’s status in the home remained secure until technology made possible the
passive enjoyment of music. The player piano from about 1900, the reproducing piano
and the gramophone and disc recordings from about 1905, then the radio in the 1920s, all
dealt a blow to amateur piano playing as a form of domestic recreation. During the Great