Books › The M. Steinert collection of keyed and stringed instruments : with various treatises on the history of these instruments, the method of playing them, and their influence on musical art, 1893 › scan 93
Scan 93
The M. Steinert collection of keyed and stringed instruments : with various treatises on the history of these instruments, the method of playing them, and their influence on musical art, 1893
10 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 91. See the scan on archive.org.
1highest tones of the piccolo flute, thus can be used to reproduce orchestral compositions by one performer only. Furthermore, on account of the producing of sound by means of hammers, the piano possesses certain dynamic elements, which in the orchestra, are attained by means of kettledrums, basedrums and cymbals and in the more refined parts, by means of brass instruments. This dynamic element produces a certain feeling of rest on the nervous constitution of the piano player, and thereby, he is enabled to continue at his task longer than at any other instrument.
3Aside from the action, the most essential part of the piano is the construction of the sounding-board, the soul of every musical instrument. The tone of the pianoforte depends upon the movement and variable pressure of the strings at the point of contact with the bridge by which their vibrations are conveyed to the belly or sounding-board to be intensified by the vibrations of the fibres of this elastic support. It is to be regretted that the science of acoustics furnishes no fixed laws for the construction of a toneful sounding-board, but leaves it to experiments only. The difference in the character of tone of pianofortes by different makers depends very much upon variations in the proportions, direction of the grain and burring of the belly.
5Aside from both action and sounding-board there must exist other requirements in the construction of the piano, which lend the instrument a singing and soul inspiring tone, one that can express all the sensations of the heart, the lyric, tragic and pathetic moods.
7While there have been no improvements made during the last two centuries in the construction of the violin and other kindred stringed instruments, it has been the aim of pianoforte builders during that same period to excel each other and to produce an instrument more perfect than any other heretofore known.
9As before mentioned, New York, the metropolis of this country, up to 1853 occupied a subordinate place in the production of
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