Piano
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in music, a term meaning soft, or low; used in contraforte. Pianissimo, the sudistinction to for perlative of piano. PIANOFORTE (Italian piano soft, anl forte = strong, loud; so-called from producing both soft and loud efits p fects), a musical instrument, the sounds by blows from of which are produced by hammers, acted on by levers called keys. Originally the strings were placed in a small and portable cox, and struck by hammers held in the hands. In this early shape, known as the "dulcimer," the instrument can be traced in nearly every part of the globe, and it now survives, almost in its original form, both in Europe and Asia. The dulcimer was also called psaltery, sautrie, or sawtry. The name given to the first instrument with keys acting on hammers was clavicytherium, or keyed cithara, which was introduced in the 15th, or early in the 16th century; next came the clavichord, or clarichord, sometimes called monochord, in which quills plucked the strings; the VIRGINAL (q. v.) soon followed; this was succeeded by the spinet, of similar construction but generally triangular in shape; then came the harpsichord, a vast improvement on its predecessors, having a more extended compass and often two manuals. The earliest form of pianoforte, early in the 18th century, was perhaps, in some respects, inferior to a fine harpsichord, but it possessed the elements of expansion, as now exhibited in a modern grand trichord pianoforte of more than seven octaves compass, with every gradation of sound.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The instrument Collier's described in 1921 — a "grand trichord pianoforte of more than seven octaves compass" — is still built to essentially the same design, with 88 keys now standard, and Bartolomeo Cristofori of Florence, unnamed in the account, is universally credited with inventing it around 1700. What has collapsed is the piano's place in the home: American production peaked at roughly 350,000 instruments a year just before the First World War, then fell away as radio and the phonograph replaced the parlour piano and the player roll. Since the 1980s, electronic instruments — Yamaha's Clavinova and its many rivals — have outsold acoustic pianos, while the harpsichord and clavichord that Collier's treated as mere stepping stones were revived by the early-music movement and are played and recorded seriously again. One detail in the old text has also been corrected: it is the harpsichord and spinet whose strings are plucked by quills, while the clavichord strikes its strings with brass tangents.
Written for this edition, 2026.