History of Piano Tuning – THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PIANO

As has been stated in the preface, there is hardly any literature available which details the lives and careers of piano tuners.  Indeed, it could be justifiable to ask why a musicologist should be interested in these people any more than in other tradespeople of the era.   To answer this question, it is necessary first to examine the development of the piano in the period I have elected to study.

Before the piano came to be such a dominant instrument in the average British home, the clavichord and harpsichord were the keyboard instruments which prevailed in the domestic environment.   Clavichords were suitable for small private performances only; the action of the clavichord – if indeed one could call it an action, as it was so very basic – comprised a brass tangent embedded into the end of the key.  The balance rail acted as a fulcrum, and as the player depressed the key, the far end of the key rose and the tangent struck the string.  Since there was no escapement the tangent remained in contact with the string and the player could therefore bend the string by varying the pressure upon the key, similar to the vibrato effect obtained by violinists or guitarists.  The force with which the tangent struck the string was very limited, as the tangent itself was very small and the distance between the tangent at rest and the string was also too close to gather much momentum, even if the player struck the note with some velocity.  Consequently the clavichord was unsuitable for giving performances in public, since the volume required to make the performance audible in a large room could never be obtained.   These instruments are the earliest keyboard instruments in domestic use, dating from the fifteenth century.

Spinets and virginals were small versions of the harpsichord, which was the performance keyboard instrument of choice from the late sixteenth century.  The strings of this keyboard instrument were plucked rather than struck: a wooden jack stands on the far end of the key, and a quill plectrum, set into a tongue inserted into a slot in the top of the jack, plucks the string on the way up as the player depresses the key, and then settles back into its slot on the way back down, passing the string silently.  The plucked string proved to be far more audible to an assembled audience.   Harpsichords grew in size as time went on, with longer strings, heavier frames – to withstand the increased tension – and more manuals.  The one drawback to the harpsichord was that of its inflexibility of tone: regardless of the force applied to the key by the player, the volume remained constant.   This was taken for granted by the players of the time, and they relied on different combinations of stops to give different qualities of tone, but it was difficult to change stops in the midst of a piece.   As there was no alternative to this state of affairs, harpsichordists remained sanguine about the lack of dynamic control – until the invention of the pianoforte around 1700.   Capable of varying tone and volume by touch alone, Bartolomeo Cristofori’s new instrument was an almost instant success, and despite a fierce rearguard action on the part of the established makers of harpsichords, the piano became the most favoured domestic and concert instrument.

Burkat Shudi invented a ‘Venetian Swell’ in 1765 for his harpsichords which he made to great acclaim in his workshops in Soho.   His patent application of 18th December 1769 describes the louvre shutter device covering the strings as ‘a piece of mechanism or machinery by which the harpsichord is very much improved’ and he was confident that this would see off the threat of the pianoforte.   However, in the same year as his patent, his daughter, Barbara, married his employee, John Broadwood, and in 1790, 19 years after Shudi’s death, the firm of Schudi and Broadwood ceased harpsichord production altogether in favour of John Broadwood’s new love, the pianoforte.

The first pianofortes were square pianos, actually rectangular in shape, measuring around two feet six inches by five feet, but by the period in which our interest lies the grand pianoforte had begun to displace the square, and was to be found in all the best homes.

The predominant firm in Britain until the end of the 19th century and a few decades into the 20th was undoubtedly Broadwoods, but since the influx of ‘the twelve apostles’ – a group of piano makers fleeing Saxony’s Seven Years War – in 1760, firms such as Kirckman, Pohlmann and Zumpe were renowned piano makers by the beginning of the 19th century.   Collard and Collard, Clementi, Chappell, Brinsmead and Cramer were major English firms throughout the 19th century, and the French Revolution brought the fleeing Erard to our shores from Paris.   The German giants such as Bechstein and Steinway invaded at the very end of the 19th century, which event prompted John Brinsmead to found the Pianomaker to decry all things German in the piano trade.

Examination of London piano firms shows much incestuous cross-pollination, with erstwhile partners drifting off to form new liaisons which in turn bore offspring which went on to form and break new alliances.  The firm of Longman, for instance, became Longman and Broderip in 1778, until Broderip broke away to form Broderip and Wilkinson.  Longman, Clementi and Co. was the next venture in 1773, until Clementi entered partnership with Collard.  Longman then joined Bates who eventually branched out on his own: Longman went bankrupt in 1795.  All this activity took place in less than thirty years, demonstrating the constant state of flux of the piano trade.

Rimbault neatly sums up the importance of the pianoforte by the mid-1850s:

Amongst the entire range of musical instruments, there is not one, in our day, that possesses so many claims to notice as the Pianoforte – the “household orchestra” of the people. 

He later waxes lyrical: