The Early Pianoforte.

The origins of most musical instruments are obscure. Many are derivations and subspecies whose ancient origins cannot be traced. Equally problematic is the fact that throughout the ages there were constant changes of constructional details, resulting in the eventual reclassification into distinct instruments. Therefore, it is rare in the history of musical instruments that we should have access to the documents which give the approximate date and circumstance of the invention of an instrument, as well as the surviving instruments that support those documents. Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731) has been regarded as the inventor of the pianoforte, and his invention of the principle of striking the string marked the beginning of a continuum of developments that led to the modern piano. His contemporary also believed the pianoforte was a "nuova inventione" made in Florence around 1700 by Cristofori, then in the service of Prince Ferdinand de' Medici.

Contrary to the widely accepted theory on the invention of the piano, Stewart Pollens argues that the striking mechanism that distinguishes the pianoforte from other stringed keyboard instruments was known long before Cristofori, and that what Cristofori achieved was the "rediscovery" of the principle of striking the string and the adaptation of the hammer action to his instrument. The earliest written document Pollens examines is a treatise written ca. 1440 by Henri Arnaut of Zwolle, a physician and astrologer to Philip the Good. Arnaut provides technical descriptions and drawings of several instruments, among them dulce melos. Pollens believes that Arnaut's description of the dulce melos provides ample evidence for the existence of the striking action similar to the one employed on Cristofori's pianofortes and that Arnaut recorded the technique from an earlier source. The exchanges of musical instruments and musicians between the court of Burgundy and the court of Ferrara provide tangible evidence that Arnaut's dulce melos or the idea of striking action on a string keyboard instrument was exported to Italy in the fifteenth century. Indeed, the next reference to keyboard instruments with the facility for playing piano and forte comes from Ferrara (and Modena) around the end of the sixteenth century. A court instrument maker, Hippolito Cricca, reported to Cesare d' Fate in 1598 his building of the "instromento plan et forte." The nomenclature suggests this instrument's capability of playing notes at widely varying degrees of loudness in response to changes in the force with which the keys are struck. That some instruments from the Ferrarese court later found their way to Florence makes plausible that Cristofori might have heard of, or even seen, Cricca's instrument.

The strength of Pollens's argument concerning the development of the mechanism of the pianoforte is based on his discussions and detailed examination of important primary sources (which are reproduced and translated), and his technological study which is derived from his own examination of many of the surviving early pianofortes. He gives informative discussions of the action, soundboard, case structure, and measurements, in a book that is devoted to detailed examination of the extant pianofortes by Cristofori and his imitators in eighteenth-century Portugal, Spain, Germany, and France; only the first two chapters deal with the documents before 1700. Pollens's The Early Pianoforte is the most important book on this subject, in that the continuity in the development of the hammer action before Cristofori has not been treated in great depth in the previous books on the history of the piano. The book is thus highly recommended for the technical specialist, restorer, and organologist.

HIROYUKI MINAMINO Mission Viejo, CA