| Contents |
Preface / by Jacques Barzun -- Section one: Germany. Each keyboard has its place -- "Feeling" seems better than logic -- The super-chopping-board arouses much feeling, why not fit it with key? -- An Italian thought of it first, he cleverly made hammers rebound -- The Italians soon lose interest in the new idea -- The new "soft-loud" makes modest but steady progress in Germany -- Townspeople become richer and more assertive -- Singing warms a home, and a keyboard helps the singing -- Clavichords make weeping easier -- The claviers are feminine -- Improved music printing favors the keyboards -- Clavier playing becomes lighter, and often more trivial -- The clavier favors the music of "humanity" -- Connoisseurs and amateurs are influential, concerts may be meeting or shows -- "Here they have pianofortes everywhere" -- The "German-action" pianoforte and its master maker, a lesson from Mozart -- The three claviers are neck and neck, but the pianoforte wins out -- Section two: Austria. Society and music -- "Clavierland" -- An old "new deal" -- Pianos become a business -- Aspiration and pretense -- What did Vienna pianos look like? -- Who could afford pianos? -- Beethoveniana pianistica -- What did they play on Vienna pianos? -- The piano in public -- Section three: England. Gentility and money, music and virginals -- Virginal music -- Virginals at home -- The virginal becomes a harpsichord, the instrument according to Mr. Pepys -- The harpsichord grows feet -- Music becomes an article of commerce -- But music's stock goes down -- The harpsichord begins to pall -- The pianoforte arrives and stays: its early promoters -- Better and bigger -- Keyboard music of the later eighteenth century -- The pianoforte and the industrial revolution -- The pianoforte in London concerts -- The piano as furniture -- The music business grows wide and shallow, the piano thrives on it -- Clementi, and company -- The piano as a female "accomplishment," the writers' testimony -- Anti-"accomplishment" -- Later London pianists and their adventures -- "Brilliant but not difficult" -- Boarding school music, Logier and his chiroplast -- Iron enters the pianoforte -- Section four: France. The great monarch, music, and the myth of Paris -- Before "the deluge" -- "Cet instrument bourgeois" -- France produces her own piano maker -- An inventory under the terror -- Sequel to the inventory -- Aspasia strums a cithara, Caesar smites a lyre -- The Erards grow, the piano aspires and pretends to sing -- Another great piano name -- The modern piano evolves -- The restoration rich make likely piano customers -- The piano becomes a purpose in itself -- The financiers win -- Mammon on parade -- The piano catches glory from the opera -- The more pianos the merrier -- The great rave -- More rave -- Piano teaching could be lucrative -- The business -- Piano fodder -- Hopeful gadgets -- The champion gadgeteer -- Thesis and antithesis: piano begets antipiano -- Section five: Interlude: The high plateau -- Section six: United States of America. Rich colonials have daughters and harpsichords -- The pianoforte floats over and strikes root -- The lively young nation sings songs her mother taught her, with piano accompaniment -- The American piano takes its own shape -- A change of apron strings -- Other American piano trends -- The Germans invade and establish a beachhead -- Humbug hums -- More Germans come, they make American pianos -- New York hears a good deal of fine piano playing -- Labels are more powerful than music -- The American piano wins out at home, then conquers Europe, how "Ruby" played it -- The American piano's little country cousin -- A whole is made up of parts -- Pianos, and stencils, for "the people" -- Piano firms play virtuosos, and conversely -- Many Americans study piano more seriously, some become hadjis, and some do gymnastics -- Light good music, better light music -- The keyboards go west -- Market screaming, with counterpoint, imitation, and variations -- Household goods are all related -- Sometimes, better is no good -- If you can't fight, join -- Section seven: General developments. "An instrument that Goethe with a whele withoute playinge uppon" -- The case of Germany -- Other lands: the piano in Partibus Infidelium -- The dusk of the idol -- The low plateau. |
| Abstract |
As the "social anchor" in middle-class homes of the nineteenth century, the piano was simultaneously an elegant piece of drawing-room furniture, a sign of bourgeois prosperity, and a means of introducing the young to music. In this admirably balanced and leisurely account of the popular instrument, the late, internationally known concert pianist Arthur Loesser takes a "piano's-eye view" of the recent social history of Western Europe and the United States. Drawing on newspapers, music manuscripts, popular accounts, and other sources, Loesser traces the history of the piano from its predecessors, the clavichord and the harpsichord, to the modern spinet and concert grand. Chapter headings such as "Clavichords Make Weeping Easier," "The Harpsichord Grows Feet," "The More Pianos the Merrier," and "The Keyboards Go West" suggest the author's lighthearted approach to topics ranging from the piano's European origins and its introduction in the United States to the decline of piano manufacturing in the early twentieth century and the "victory of airborne music" by mid-century. |
