tidbits vernon 223 may 22 2015 piano online

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May 22 - 28, 2015 Issue 00223

by Janet Spencer

In May 27, 1796, the first U.S. patent for a piano was issued in the U.S. to James McLean of New Jersey, for “an improvement in piano fortes.” Although there were many patents on improved designs for pianos over the years, this was the first piano patent awarded in the U.S. Come along with Tidbits as we play the piano!

A LONG HISTORY

• The piano’s ancestors include the harp, the hammered dulcimer, and the psaltery, which is a box-type instrument with strings that were either plucked or bowed. When a new design allowed strings to be plucked when keys were depressed, the harpsichord was born and it quickly became a popular instrument in the 1600s. From there came similar but slightly different instruments: the clavichord and the spinet, which led to the invention of the piano.

• On a harpsicord, the strings are plucked when the musician’s fingers hit the keys. It has a higher pitch than the piano, the notes cannot be sustained, and there’s no way to vary how loudly the instrument plays. The piano, by contrast, has strings that are hit by hammers, meaning the musician can play either softly or loudly. “Piano” is the Italian word for soft and “forte” is the Italian word for loud. The piano’s original name was “pianoforte” meaning “soft/loud” and was then shortened to just piano. (Continued next page)

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• An Italian man named Bartolomeo Cristoforti built the first practical piano in 1700. He originally called it a “gravicembalo col piano e forte” (the “great harpsichord with soft and loud capabilities”). Three Cristofori pianos survive today. They were made in the 1720s, making them the oldest pianos in existence.

• The piano replaced the harpsichord in popularity by the end of the 1700s. Piano building began in America in 1775. The Industrial Revolution made high-quality piano wire readily available. In England, John Broadwood developed machines to manufacture pianos, reducing the cost. By 1870, Steinway & Sons were in business. By 1911, there were 301 piano builders in the U.S. Production peaked in the 1920s and declined during the Great Depression.

• Today, there are approximately 15 piano manufacturers in the United States, but more pianos are built in Japan than any other country.

• The piano has the largest range of volume of any acoustic instrument, as well as the widest range of notes, from below the lowest note of the double bassoon to above the top note of the piccolo. It allows more notes to be played simultaneously than any other instrument and is the only instrument (aside from the organ) that can play both the melody and the accompaniment at the same time. It’s also the largest instrument. The piano’s design has not changed for nearly 100 years.

IT’S A FACT• Pianist Arthur Rubinstein was in the lobby of the

concert hall, watching the capacity crowd come in to hear him play when the ticket agent put out the “Sold Out” sign. The agent, mistaking Rubinstein for a member of the audience, informed the pianist that there were no seats available. “May I be seated at the piano?” he asked.

PIANO PEDALS• Why do most pianos have three pedals? When

you hit a piano key, a hammer hits the strings. The strings ring until the key is let up, when a damper falls on the strings and stops the sound. When the right pedal is depressed, the strings are not dampened and continue to ring, giving a rich resonating tone. Each piano hammer normally strikes three strings for a full tone, but when the

left pedal is pressed, the hammers shift position so that they fall on only two of the three strings for a softer tone. When the middle pedal is pressed, it will sustain the notes of the keys that are down when the pedal is pressed, but no other notes that are played afterwards, so a pianist can play rumbling notes at the bottom of the scale and have them sustained while playing tinkly high notes at the top of the scale.

• When you soft-pedal something, you are referring to the pedal on a piano which is used to mute the tone. When you pull out all the stops, you are acting like an organist who pulls out all the knobs, or stops, in order to use all the organ pipes.

NOTED COMPOSERS• Mozart challenged Haydn to play an impossible

piece of music which resulted in hands at both ends of the piano and a note to be played in the middle, which Haydn could not do. But Mozart triumphantly bobbed down and used his nose to strike the key.

• “I always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before I start to play.” -Artur Schnabel, Australian pianist, when asked the secret of piano playing.

• Musician Max Reger played piano in Schubert’s “Trout” quintet in a concert and later received a basket of trout from an admirer. He wrote the fan a letter thanking him for the gift, and casually mentioned that in his next concert he was going to perform Haydn’s “Minuet of the Ox.”

• Russian composer Anton Rubinstein would often sleep late. His wife devised a scheme to get him out of bed. She would go up to the piano above his bedroom and loudly play unresolved chords. Rubinstein, who couldn’t stand unresolved chords, would jump out of bed and rush up to the piano to play the final chords, and his wife

(Continued next page)

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doing it secretly to avoid trouble with the local union guild. He started with zithers and guitars before moving on to pianos. In 1935 he built a square piano as a wedding gift for his bride, and a baby grand he constructed in 1836 is now on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

• Because of the unstable political situation in Germany, Steinweg sent one of his sons over to the U.S. to scope out possibilities. A year later, he followed with his wife and five more sons, leaving one son behind in Germany to continue the family piano-building business there. He and his sons worked in various piano factories in New York until they were able to establish their own

during the middle of the piece, a phone began ringing very loudly off-stage. Levant continued to play but the phone kept ringing. Finally he paused, turned to the audience, and said, “If that’s for me, tell them I’m busy.” Once he was annoyed when a woman arrived late for a concert and began walking down the center aisle to find her seat as he was playing. He began to play in time to her steps. She walked quickly, he played quickly. She hesitated, he hesitated. She slowed down, he slowed down. By the time she reached her seat, the audience was hysterical.

Noteworthy InventionsHEINRICH STEINWEG

• Heinrich Steinweg was born in Germany in 1797. After being orphaned at the age of 15, he went to work as a carpenter. Later he apprenticed to an organ builder, where he discovered a natural talent for music. Soon he became the organist for the local church.

• He began to build instruments in his kitchen,

would sneak into his bedroom and make up the bed.

• Russian pianist Vladimir Pachmann enjoyed teasing audiences. A favorite trick was to play endlessly with the piano stool before starting to play. He would twist it up then lower it, adjusting and readjusting it until the audience became impatient. Then he would rush offstage and return with a large book, placing it on the stool. He would settle down, ready to begin the recital when suddenly he’d stand up one more time, rip a single page from the book— and then begin to play.

• When the cat belonging to composer Domenico Scarlatti walked across his piano keys, it inspired him to write “Cat’s Fugue.”

• Polish pianist Josef Hofmann walked on stage at a concert, waited for the applause to die down, sat blankly at his piano for a moment, then leaned over and asked a woman in the first row, “May I see your program for a moment? I have forgotten what comes first!”

• Oscar Levant was giving a piano concert when, (Continued next page)


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• During World War II, Steinway built 2,436 special models called the “Victory Vertical” or “G.I. Piano.” It was a small piano that four men could lift, painted olive drab, and designed to be carried aboard ships or dropped by parachute from an airplane to bring music to the soldiers.

• Until his death in 2008 at the age of 93, Henry Z. Steinway, the great-grandson of the Steinway founder, still worked for Steinway. He was the last Steinway family member to be president of the

company in 1853.

• At this point Heinrich Steinweg changed his name to Henry Steinway, and called his company Steinway & Sons. Just two years later, one of their pianos earned them first prize at the New York Industrial Fair. This was followed by more awards. By 1862, Steinway pianos had received more than 35 medals. Composers Franz Liszt and Anton Rubinstein swore that Steinways were the best pianos available. Steinway’s fame spread.

• In 1866 Steinway invented and constructed the first upright piano. That’s also the year they founded Steinway Hall in New York City. The acoustics were excellent and the theater seated 2000 people. This served as New York’s premiere concert hall until Carnegie Hall opened in 1891.

• Anyone attending an event at Steinway Hall had to pass through the lobby where a variety of Steinway pianos were diplayed. This increased demand for the pianos, and they sold an extra 400 pianos the first year alone.

• The company moved to its current location in Astoria, New York, and built Steinway Village. Virtually its own town, Steinway Village had its own foundries, factory, post office, parks and housing for employees. With a workforce of 350 men, production increased from 500 to 1,800 pianos per year.

• The Steinway company was granted 127 patents for improvements in the piano over the years. By the time Henry died in 1871, leaving his sons to carry on, Steinway pianos were known as the world’s finest.

• By 1900 the company was producing 3,500 pianos a year. Steinway & Co. presented their 100,000th grand piano to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, and in 1938, the Steinway’s 300,000th piano was given to President Franklin Roosevelt. It still occupies the East Room in the White House.


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• Steinway & Sons crafts approximately 2,500 pianos a year worldwide not only in Astoria, New York, but also in Hamburg, Germany. Each Steinway takes about a year to build. Prices start at $50,000 and a Steinway never loses its value.

VICTOR BORGE

• Victor Borge was born Borge Rosenbaum in 1909 in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father was a musician and his mother was a pianist, and Victor followed in their footsteps, starting out as a classical pianist but finding he also had a gift for humor. By the 1930s he was one of Denmark’s most popular performers.

• When the Nazis occupied Denmark during World War II, Borge was playing a concert in Sweden. Instead of going home to Denmark, he escaped to Finland and then traveled to America on the last neutral ship to make it out of Finland. He arrived in New York City in 1940 with $20 to his name.

• He didn’t speak a word of English but learned the language by going to the movies. One of his first gigs was at a large club in Florida, for which he was to be paid one dollar for each member of the audience. Three hundred guests saw his show. When it came time to be paid, Borge pointed out to the management that the club’s 40 waiters had also greatly enjoyed his performance. He got $340.

• The gimmick that launched Borge to fame almost immediately in the U.S. involved him reading perfectly normal sentences, while making different sounds for every punctuation mark. In 1941 he performed his gig to warm up the radio audience for the Bing Crosby show, and ended up being a regular on the Bing Crosby show for the next 56 weeks. The following year he was proclaimed “the best new radio performer of the year” and later had his own radio show on NBC.

• His wacky brand of musical comedy propelled him to great heights. He made a habit of falling off piano stools, getting tangled up in the sheet music, and completely missing the piano keyboard with his hands. He played elaborate renditions of “Happy Birthday” in the style of Mozart, Brahms, Wagner, and Beethoven with great wit.

• He would sometimes begin a performance by asking if there were any kids in the audience. He would say, “We do have some children in here; that means I can’t do the second half in the nude. I’ll wear the tie. (pause) The long one. (pause) The very long one, yes.”

• Borge would play a strange-sounding piano tune from sheet music, looking increasingly confused. He would then turn the sheet upside down, and then play the actual tune. When his energetic playing would cause him to fall off the piano bench, he would open the seat lid, take out the two ends of an automotive seat belt, and buckle himself onto the bench. After finishing

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the song, he would stand to take a bow, but the bench would be lifted up because he forgot to unbuckle the seat belt.

• The theater program always listed 19 numbers he was to perform. They were: 1) Frankly 2) We 3) Don’t 4) Know 5) What 6) Mr. Borge 7) Will 8) Do 9) But 10) We’re 11) Sure 12) He’ll 13) Keep 14) Us 15) Posted 16) From 17) Time 18) To 19) Time.

• “Would you like a picture?” he would ask fans approaching with a camera. He would then pull a snapshot out of his pocket and hand it over to them.

• He wrote a book called “My Favorite Intermissions” published in 1971.

• His one-man show “Comedy in Music” ran for 849 performances on Broadway, setting a record for a one-man show and earning him a slot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

• Victor Borge continued to tour until his last days, performing up to 60 times per year when he was 90 years old. Borge died in Connecticut at the age of 91, after more than 75 years of entertaining. He died peacefully in his sleep a day after returning from a concert in Denmark. He earned his reputation as “the comedian of the keyboard” and “the clown prince of Denmark.”

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tidbits vernon 223 may 22 2015 piano online

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