But it has not been made
sufficiently clear by any writer how it was that Chopin became the
Wagner of the pianoforte, so to speak, by revealing for the first time
the infinite possibilities of varied and beautiful tone-colors
inherent in that instrument. To understand this point fully, it is
necessary to bear in mind a few facts regarding the history of the
pianoforte.
The name of pianoforte was given about a century and a half ago to an
instrument constructed by the Italian Cristofori, who devised a
mechanism for striking the strings with hammers. In the older
instruments--the clarichords and harpsichords--the strings were either
snapped by means of crow's quills, or pushed with a tangent. The new
hammer action not only brought a better tone out of the string, but
enabled the pianist to play any note loud or soft at pleasure; hence
the name _piano-forte_. But the pianoforte itself required many years
before all its possibilities of tone-production were discovered. The
instruments used by Mozart still had a thin short tone, and there was
no pedal for prolonging it, except a clumsy one worked with the
knee--a circumstance which greatly influenced Mozart's style, and is
largely responsible for the fact that his pianoforte works are hardly
ever played to-day in the concert hall.
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