The "Pianoforte" -
where did this
name originate?
Have you ever heard the modern piano referred to as a
"pianoforte"? Where did this name originate and why?
An early keyboard instrument was the harpsichord. The
harpsichord has a keyboard like a piano. When a key is pressed,
it moves a quill (still called a quill today although they are
made of a plastic or composite material) up to pluck a string.
Regardless of how hard or quickly the key is pressed, the
volume and tone of that string remains constant. It also plucks a
single string. The sound was, although pleasant, somewhat
delicate and difficult to hear in a large performance hall. A
clavichord was invented that struck the string instead of
plucking the string. However, it had similar limitations on
controlling the volume and tone, thus limiting the expression of
the sound controlled by the player.
Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) set out to solve these issues
and numerous additional issues encountered in creating a new
mechanism for activating the strings. One issue was that if a
semi-soft hammer struck the string, instead of plucking, it
could not remain in contact with the string. Not only must it
recoil back from the string once struck, it must not bounce and
repeatedly strike the string.
Early attempts moved closer to solving these problems and
others that eventually necessitated the dampers and the damper
pedal that was added by a harpsichord & organ builder,
Gottfried Silbermann. These early instruments were a bit
primitive as many new inventions are during the design
process. When Silbermann showed the instrument to Bach,
legend notes his response was to have been something like “the
sound was destroyed like with an axe”. However, later when
Bach tried a much-improved version of the instrument around
1747, he approved it. The instrument eventually caught the
attention of composers across Europe.
Most people still referred to it as a harpsichord. However, since
the performer could control the volume and tone by how the
keys were pressed, the addition of the word “forte” was added.
Thus, the instrument became known as a “pianoforte” to
distinguish from the older instruments. More improvements
were made over the years such as the damper mechanism and
having multi-string unisons for more power and volume. Via
some trial-and-error experimentation, the mechanism in the
modern piano was pretty much perfected in the late 1800s and
little changes have been made to the design of the action (the
mechanism that strikes the strings). I have tuned instruments
made in the 1885 -1900 time-frame and the core construction is
quite similar to those manufactured today. Note that the
materials used to construct the action continue to be improved
and there remains some element of trial-and-error and
continued improvements still taking place.