Its 88 keys encompass everything from J.S. Bach to Jerry Lee Lewis, from Frederic Chopin to Liberace. As the piano marks its 300th birthday this year the instrument remains pervasive, as important to gospel choirs as it is to symphony orchestras. Perhaps no other instrument (save for the human voice) has spanned as many cultures and centuries as the piano. With its rumbling low notes and shattering high ones, it is nothing less than an orchestra condensed onto 52 white keys and 36 black ones.
Though no one can pinpoint the precise moment that the instrument emerged, most scholars date Bartolomeo Cristofori’s invention to around 1700, which is why the music world is celebrating the anniversary this year. A sprawling new exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, titled “Piano 300,” surveys the instrument’s grand history and runs through March 4, 2001; it can be viewed, in part, on the Internet at www.piano300.org.
Why has the instrument flourished when others have disappeared? Perhaps because the piano accommodates virtually all forms of Western music. It can produce the buoyant rhythms of boogie-woogie, the lilting melodies of European classical music, the down-and-dirty chords of rural Southern blues.
An enormous range of human experience has resonated from the piano, and what follows is a look at two parallel universes: the instrument and the people surrounding it.
THE INSTRUMENT
c. 1700 (tilde) In Florence, Italy, Bartolomeo Cristofori creates the gravicembalo col piano e forte, a keyboard instrument on which the strings are not plucked (as on the harpsichord) but are struck by hammers. This enables the instrument to sound forte (loud) or piano (soft). The instrument eventually will be known as fortepiano or pianoforte, before emerging simply as the piano.
c. 1730 — Gottfried Silbermann begins building the new instrument in Germany.
1732 — Ludovico Giustini publishes the first piano music.
1739 — Domenico del Mela creates the first upright piano, in Gagliano, Italy.
1747 –J.S. Bach plays a Silbermann piano in the court of Frederick the Great.
1759 — “A harpsichord of new invention called piano e forte” is advertised in France
1763 — First reports of public piano performances in Vienna.
1766 –Johannes Zumpe invents the “square piano” — a small instrument — in London.
1768 — Paris hears its first public piano performances.
1770s –Johann Andreas Stein develops the Viennese grand piano.
1771 — Americus Backers makes the English grand piano, in London. David Propert plays the earliest known public piano performance in North America.
1773 — Henry Fowler Broadwood establishes his piano manufacturing firm in London, producing instruments capable of a larger sound than predecessors.
1774 — John Brent begins making pianos in Philadelphia.
1786 — The Erard firm begins manufacturing pianos in London.
1794 — John Broadwood creates a 5–octave grand piano in London. William Stodart patents a large upright piano, in London.
1796 — Broadwood creates a six-octave piano for the Queen of Spain.
1797 –The first piano magazine, The Pianoforte, is published in London.
1803 — Erard Brothers, of Paris, present Beethoven with a piano.
1807 — Pleyel, which will become the most famous piano maker in France, opens in Paris.
1818 — Broadwood presents a grand to Beethoven in Vienna; the instrument produces an enormous sound, but the pianist-composer already is nearly deaf.
1821 — Erard patents the double-escapement “repetition” action, the basis of modern grand-piano technology, in Paris.
1822 — Erard makes a seven-octave piano.
1823 –Jonas Chickering begins making pianos in Boston.
1825 — Babcock’s one-piece metal frame is patented, in Boston.
1826 — Henri Pape patents use of felt for hammer covering, in Paris.
1828 — Ignaz Bosendorfer begins making pianos in Vienna.
1853 — Steinway & Sons is established in New York.
1856 — Wurlitzer Company is established in Chicago.
1867 — Steinway and Chickering take top prizes at Paris Exposition.
1874 — Albert Steinway patents the sostenuto pedal (the middle pedal on the modern piano).
1881 — Mason & Hamlin Company begins manufacturing pianos, in Boston.
1890 –1913 – Various player-piano devices invented.
1891 — Baldwin begins making pianos in Cincinnati.
1895 — Story & Clark Company begins making pianos in Chicago.
1899 — Torakusu Yamaha begins producing pianos in Japan. First major piano competition takes place in Russia.
1900 — Aeolian Company patents the pneumatic player piano, the “Pianola.”
1913 — Aeolian Company patents the “Duo-Art Reproducing Piano.” American Piano Co. makes “Ampico” player mechanism.
1928 — The Neo-Bechstein piano emerges as the first electric piano.
1933 — Challen Company makes the largest grand piano to date, stretching 11 feet 8 inches, in London.
c. 1960 — Harold Rhodes develops the electric piano.
1966 — Bosendorfer acquired by Kimball, of Chicago.
1980s — Bosendorfer, Baldwin, Yamaha and PianoDisc create computerized, digital player pianos.
1985 — Boston businessmen buy Steinway & Sons. Aeolian Corporation disbands. Wurlitzer buys Chickering name.
1988 — Klavins creates a 12-foot-high upright in Germany.
1995 — Baldwin buys Wurlitzer and Chickering names.
2000 — The piano completes its third century.
THE PEOPLE
c. 1700 — In Florence, Italy, Bartolomeo Cristofori creates the gravicembalo col piano e forte.
1736 — Johann Sebastian Bach, a baroque organist and composer, tries a piano in Dresden, finding it weak in tone and generally unappealing.
1753 — Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, J.S. Bach’s son, publishes the first volume of his influential “Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments” (part two is published in 1762).
1768 — Johann Christian Bach, another son of J.S. Bach, gives one of the earliest public performances on piano, in London.
1770 — C.P.E. Bach performs on a piano in Hamburg. His playing, notes one reviewer, “compelled the admiration of all, especially when he allowed us to observe his dexterity upon the magnificent-sounding pianoforte.”
1778 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart embraces the new instrument during a trip to Paris. “In whatever way I touch the keys, the tone is always even,” writes Mozart, raving about the new Stein pianos. “It never jars, it is never stronger or weaker or entirely absent.”
1779– Muzio Clementi publishes his first piano sonatas, in London.
1781 — Mozart and Clementi hold a piano “duel” in Vienna, though opinion is split on who won. Writes Mozart in a letter to his sister, “Clementi is a charlatan.”
1790– Franz Joseph Haydn, mentor to Mozart, declares that he rarely uses the harpsichord anymore, preferring the more powerful piano.
1792– Ludwig van Beethoven stuns Vienna with the physical force and surging energy of his pianism, with strings routinely breaking during his performances.
1804 — Jan Ladislav Dussek, in Prague, plays a piano concert with his profile to the audience, establishing a precedent that endures for centuries. “After the few opening bars of his first solo, the public uttered one general Ah,’ ” writes pianist Johann Wenzel Tomaschek after the concert.
1831 — Frederic Chopin arrives in Paris, where his compositions and improvisations take the art of pianism to new heights. In technically daunting works such as the Etudes, narrative pieces such as the Ballades and melancholy masterpieces such as the Nocturnes, Chopin gives the piano an unprecedented degree of lyricism and exquisitely detailed voicing.
1839 — Franz Liszt plays a solo concert from memory, thereby establishing the piano recital as a musical forum. Audiences are mesmerized. “I saw Liszt’s countenance assume that agony of expression, mingled with radiant smiles of joy, which I never saw on any other human face except in the paintings of Our Saviour by some of the early masters,” writes Henry Reeves.
1845 — Louis Moreau Gottschalk, born in New Orleans, emerges as America’s first piano virtuoso, with a triumphant recital in Paris. “Give me your hand, my child,” says Chopin after the concert. “I predict you will become the king of pianists.”
1854– Clara Schumann, following the mental breakdown of her husband, Robert Schumann, returns to the stage and takes her place as the first great female concert pianist.
1862 — Anton Rubinstein, the fountainhead of the Russian piano school, founds the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music, the first in Russia.
1891 — Ignace Jan Paderewski, a sensation in Europe since 1888, makes his first tour of the U.S., emerging as the first superstar of the instrument and the biggest moneymaker in American musical history. Eventually, his fame catapults him to Prime Minister of Poland.
1894 — Josef Hoffman, perhaps the greatest piano virtuoso of the 20th Century, makes his debut in Munich.
1896 –Ernesto Lecuona is born in Cuba, his works (such as “Danzas Afro-Cubanas” and “Malaguena”) eloquently merging classical forms with Cuban dance rhythms.
1899 — Scott Joplin publishes “Maple Leaf Rag,” a signature piece for the high priest of ragtime.
1901 — Maurice Ravel publishes his “Jeux d’eau,” launching a composing career that will extend the art of the piano as dramatically as Chopin did, with shimmering, technically Herculean works such as “Gaspard de la Nuit.”
1906 — A young Arthur Rubinstein makes his American debut, startling audiences with the bravura and romantic ardor of his pianism, though not its pre-cision. By the time Rubinstein returns in 1937, he has become a romantic piano interpreter without equal.
1909 — Sergei Rachmaninoff premieres his Piano Concerto No. 3, possibly the most demanding — and rewarding — of 20th Century concertos.
1912 — Tony Jackson moves to Chicago from New Orleans and becomes a jazz/ragtime piano virtuoso.
1917 — James P. Johnson begins making piano rolls that, along with subsequent acoustic recordings, codify the art of “stride piano.”
1923 — Based in Chicago, Jelly Roll Morton cuts his first solo recordings, landmark works that make the piano sound like a jazz band.
1924 — George Gershwin premieres his jazz-meets-the-classics masterpiece “Rhapsody in Blue,” in Aeolian Hall, in New York
1928 — Earl “Fatha” Hines records his landmark “Weather Bird,” with Louis Armstrong, in Chicago, showcasing a trumpet-like right hand that pianists will imitate for generations. Vladimir Horowitz makes his American debut, immediately seizing the throne as the most flamboyant classical keyboard star of the century.
1929 — Mary Lou Williams begins a career as arranger-pianist for Andy Kirk’s band, modernizing an entire band, as well as the art of jazz piano.
1933 — Art Tatum, the greatest jazz pianist who ever lived, begins his recording career.
1940 — Thelonious Monk plays at Minton’s, in Harlem, where he develops an idiosyncratic, percussive, stop-start approach to jazz piano.
1945 — Bud Powell becomes the pre-eminent pianist in bebop, his brilliant right-hand lines widely imitated but rarely equalled.
1949 — Oscar Peterson makes his American debut, soon establishing himself as the rightful heir of Art Tatum. Professor Longhair begins recording, his extroverted pianism eventually inspiring Fats Domino, Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, among others.
1953 — Liberace wins two Emmy Awards for his network television broadcasts, proving that even mediocre pianism — when coupled with a candelabra — can reach wide audiences.
1957 — Jerry Lee Lewis releases “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” bringing unprecedented fury to the instrument.
1958 — American pianist Van Cliburn wins the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow, a political coup at the height of the Cold War. “Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing” brings worldwide popularity to a jazz pianist whose use of silence and sudden keyboard eruptions redefine the art.
1965 — Cecil Taylor ascends as the most influential pianist in “free jazz.” Ramsey Lewis scores a hit with “The In Crowd,” launching a career that will straddle the border of jazz and pop.
1972 — Keith Jarrett records his first solo album for the ECM label, bringing stream-of-consciousness soliloquizing to jazz piano.
1979– Marian McPartland launches her “Piano Jazz” program on National Public Radio, establishing herself as one of the country’s prominent jazz ambassadors.
1998 — Marcus Roberts releases a radical, improvised version of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
1999 — The exceptional Cuban pianist Ernan Lopez-Nussa makes his U.S. debut in Chicago.
2000 –The celebrated but reclusive classical pianist Martha Argerich, long absent from the concert stage due to cancer, makes a triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.
Sources: “All Music Guide to Jazz,” by various authors (Miller Freeman Books, 1998); “The History of Musical Instruments,” by Curt Sachs (W.W. Norton & Co., 1940); “The Great Pianists,” by Harold C. Schonberg (Simon and Schuster, 1963); “The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music,” edited by Donald Clarke (Penguin Books, 1990); “My Young Years,” by Arthur Rubinstein (Alfred A. Knopf, 1973); “Piano 300: Celebrating Three Centuries of People and Pianos,” an exhibition at the Smithsonian International Gallery.
