11
Probably nobody knows that I descend exactly from another instrument, the clavichord (3) that had
never became famous as the harpsichord, although it was sure that it was the favourite instrument of
Johann Sebastian Bach (4).
But going on with my tale, there is still a very long way to arrive to my actual shape.
Coming back to Cristofori, the news of my birth had been spread by Scipione Maffei (5), with an article
appeared on the “Newspaper of Italian Literates “, where he lauded me and completed my description
with the illustration of a very clear scheme of the mechanics invented by Cristofori.
Although it was very easy , it still container the essential parts of the actual mechanics: articulated little
mallets, independents from the keys, with a simple escapement and single dampers for each string.
Using this kind of mechanics it was possible to graduate the loudness of the sound, using more or less
strength on the mallet by pressing the key.
3 The clavichord is a keyboard instrument with strings which are stroken; its shape is generally rectangular and its
dimensions are variable.
Each key is made up of only one stick oscillating on a gudgeon and with a metal tablet at the end of it. This metal tablet is
called tangent; this tangent, inside the body if the instrument, generally strikes the relative string from the bottom.
As these are the main characteristics, the intensity and the duration of the sound are adjustable directly by the touch of the
finger on the key. This allows a slurred and a singable which are impossible on a harpsichord and a particular effect on the
vibrato.
The clavichord dates back to the 14th century; then, little by little, it was replaced by the harpsichord and by other keyboard
instruments, but thanks to its low cost and to its modest dimensions, it had been always used as a domestic instrument.
(see the voice “Clavicordo “in DEUMM, Il Lessico, vol. I, Torino, UTET, 1985, p. 601).
4 Joahnn Sebastian Bach (born in Eisenach 1685 – died in Lipsia 1750), son of a violinist, received his first musical
education by his father and, after his death (1695), by his elder son. He had twenty sons who became famous at the most
eminent Courts of Europe as instrumentalists and composers.
During the last years of his long life, Bach became nearly totally blind. His musical production regards all the musical
genres , but during his life he had been appreciated more as organist than composer. This is why the most of his music had
been written for local or personal purpose.
The musical production had no limits; the holy songs and the passions had been written in order to fulfil his obligations.
On the other side, concerts had been written for many reasons, also for his son’s studies. They are influenced by Vivaldi
and, with regards to some aspects, also by Corelli.
The famous concert held in Brandeburgo belong to this field. They are eight concerts for harpsichord, two concerts for
violin and a concert for two violins.
The production for solo instrument is also wide. When we speak about Bach, it is always said that his genius was a
posthumous fame after centuries of oblivion. This was not true. Maybe proposing to the public some of his masterpieces
allowed to his fame to come out, since some periods. Anyway he had never been ignored (see the voice Bach Joahnn
Sebastian in DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. I, Torino, UTET, 1985, p. 208).
5 Maffei Scipione, educated and playwright (born in Verona 1675 – died 1755). He was one of the first literary journalist.
He was also interested in politics, theology, philosophy, history and archaeology (Verona illustrata, 1732). He also took
part in the revival of the Italian tragic theatre with Merope (1714) (see the voice Scipione Maffei in Nuovissima
enciclopedia generale, vol. XII, Novara, De Agostini, 1988, p. 181). 10
12
The mallet fell back even if the key remained pressed down. Otherwise, as a matter of fact, it would
have obstructed the normal vibration of the string. The problem had been solved by the application of
an escapement, at first simple but later modified in 1720.
They gave me the para-hammer ( a sort of brake that had the function to slow down the repercussion of
the mallet after having stricken the string). The system of dampers had been also improved.
Some years later another instrument maker tried to refine me with the hope of producing me.
He was the German Christoph Gottlieb Schröter6.
But his demands, unfortunately, had no answers.
The support and the luck that Cristofori and Schröter had never had, smiled on another German,
Gottfried Silbermann (7).
Silbermann in the first half of the 18th century was one of the most appreciated German harpsichord-
maker. He had known me thanks to Scipione Maffei’s article and the first model of mechanics invented
by him was a fusion of elements coming from the drawings of Cristofori and Schröter.
At first Joahnn Sebastian Bach didn’t like me. He noticed the sound shortage in the acute register and
the heaviness of the mechanics.
During the following years Silbermann improved the mechanics and the sonority and so also Bach, the
Maestro, appreciated me.
But I didn’t receive the so hoped success.
The harpsichord, as a matter of fact, went on catching the attention of composers for his sonorous
qualities that met the crystalline character of baroque compositions.
6 Christoph Gottlieb Schröter (Hohnstein, Sassonia, 1699 – Nordhausen 1782) organist, composer and instrument maker. He
claimed the invention of the piano. His huge production had been completely lost (see the voice Schröter Christoph
Gottlieb in DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. VII, Torino, UTET, 1985, p. 60).
7 Gottfried Silbermann (born in 1683 – died in 1753) invented new technical constructions and realized the most famous
organs of the eighteenth century, refining the harpsichord and the forte- piano of Cristofori (see the voice Silbermann
Gottfried in DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. VII, Torino, UTET, 1985, p. 286).
13
In the middle of the 18
th
century the general tendency about choices was tied and this demanded
compositions where the intensity of sounds should be adjustable and graduated : it was time for the
Piano (Yes I was!). In this phase of transition towards a new expressive world, simpler and immediate,
two of sons’ Bach, Joahnn Christian 8 , whose performances represented the chivalrous style, but most
of all, Carl Philipp Emanuel9. He represented the effort for the formal and expressive renewal in many
performances, Fantasies, rondeaus, typical pieces, concerts; he used a systematic method for the
fundaments and the principles of the performances of his times (see Versuch über die wahre Art das
Klavier zu spielen- 1753 and 1762 -).
But it is now time to tell you when I was lucky for working with the most famous composers.
Franz Joseph Haydn10 was considered the father of classic style. We were not in a close relationship, as
he was an orchestral genius, but in his piano production there were not behaviours of instrumental
virtuosity. Although I have to say that when one of his 52 Sonata is performed I always feel a kind of
pleasure, especially in the last, where it is possible to notice a heavier assimilation of writing for the
piano.
8 Joahnn Christian Bach (Lipsia 1735 – London 1782) he was the younger son of Bach. His instrumental production
includes 60 symphonies and ouvertures , concerts for piano, chamber music, sonatas, and other performances for piano.
He was the first solo piano. At those times this instrument was not very common. He introduced the clarinets in the
orchestra. His music influenced Mozart (see Bach Joahnn Christian voce in DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. I, Torino, UTET,
1985, p. 204).
9 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Weimar 1714 – Amburgo 1788), he was the second son of Joahnn
Sebastian Bach and he is considered the beginner of modern music. He didn’t refused, at all, the polyphony typical of his
father’s music. He affirmed the gallant style, purifying it from any sentimental mannerism: he intensified the double-themes
sonata in a poetic and expressive way. He collaborated for its ripening as a classic form. His opera influenced Haydn and, at
the beginning, Beethoven (see Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel voce in DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. I, Torino, UTET, 1985, p.
199).
10 Franz Joseph Haydn (Rohrau 1732 – Vienna 1809) Austrian composer. He represents all the efforts, aspirations and the
progresses realized in the previous century by generations of European musicians who worked and developed the
instrumental music. He was considered the “father of symphony” , of the “sonata”, of the “ quartet” as he realized the
formal and resounding equilibrium. The modern musical civilization derives from Haydn. In his opera it is possible to
understand the origin of those characters that made the history of symphonic instrumentality as far as tonal area is
concerned (see the voice Haydn Franz Joseph in DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. I, Torino, UTET).
14
THE HAYDN WORK
The teacher's work is very wide:
ƒ 52 sonatas for piano
ƒ 108 symphonies
ƒ 118 between Rotten Dances and other pieces for orchestra
ƒ 20 concerts for several tools and orchestra, some which 3 for violin, 2
ƒ for violoncello, 4 for harpsichord
ƒ 25 entertainments for together instrumental
ƒ 75 quartets for arcs
ƒ 62 Trii
ƒ 170 compositions for Baryton, of which 126 Trii
ƒ 14 masses
ƒ 147 profane pieces for voices and tools, between cantatas, Lieder and canons
ƒ 31 jobs for the theatre, some lost or ones incomplete
ƒ More than 300 popular singing processings
This is, instead, the big Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 11, while we were ringing one of his changes. He
was enthusiast of me and also I of him. Really enjoyable times those! Mozart, as he was a famous
concert performer, was moving in his compositions all his brilliant character, crystalline, but also lyric
and sentimental, and even if in his production he still heard the influence of my ancestor, the
harpsichord, it was making me ring as only few could do before and after him.
11 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Salzburg 1756) - (Vienna 1791) compositor and Austrian violinist.Before learning
to read and write, the Mozart child revealed prodigious musical dowries, as much than at four years he was
playing the clavicordo and when he was five years old, he was composing minuets that the father was
transcribing. He died at nearly thirty-six years old, and he is one of the most miraculous cases of all the music
history. Using a language which was common to many epoch compositors, he did not do revolutions, but could
raise the models to a classicality than apparve to Goethe like the final crowning of the rationality and the spirit
balance, comparable only to what marks the gold period of the Greek art. However, under the appearing levità
mozartiana anxieties, sudden accumulations and mysterious blind areas are informed, that are not able to turn
over the image but they are sufficient to darken expressive more complex and stratified contents, more than
could appear at a first glance. (see Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus voce in DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. V, Torino, UTET,
1985, p. 223).
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THE MOZART WORK
The mozartiana work counts 626 compositions, a number well raised if we thinks of his short existence
and of the quality and ingeniousness that a great deal of his works have:
• 55 symphonies
• 23 concerts for piano
• 2 concerts for flute
• 1 concert for oboe
• 1 concert for clarinet
• 1 concert for bundle
• 4 arrange for horn
• 1 concert for flute and harp
• 7 concerts for violin
• Quartets and quintets for arcs
• 17 sonatas for piano
• 5 sonatas for piano for four hands
• 42 sonatas for violin and piano
• 10 theatrical works
• 3 Singspiele
• holy music
Around 1770 there was the meeting with one person who took many positive changes in my life:
Clement Muzio 12.
In his tombstone, placed at Westminster Abbey in London, the title of "piano father" is engraved. It
was well-known in all Europe, and I considered him as a father. As a matter of fact it was thanks to him
that I made remarkable progress. In his production the characters of a writing are at once purely
informed for pianoforte. The new style was rich of full and round sonorities, continue contrasts among
legato and staccato, wealth of dynamic colours. Furthermore he widened towards the acute one and the
heavy one the useful keyboard zone, he strengthened the writing, he intensified the proceeding use with
double notes, he explored the agility virtuosity based on stairs and arpeggios passages.
12 Clementi Muzio (Rome 1752) - (Evesham, Worcestershire, 1832) pianist and compositor. In spite of his
youthful Rococo and Classicists assimilations, the most personal characters of the piano language of Clementi
can only find a checking in Beethoven. What, however, distinguishes Clementi is the detached attitude, also
known as Enlightenment. He looks at technical and expressive conquest using this attitude. Everyone would say
that Clementi receive the new stimuli and musically express the images without adhering sentimentally, using a
bright rationality, with a mentality still belonging to the eighteenth-century. (cfr. Clementi Muzio voce in DEUMM. Le
Biografie, vol. II, Torino, UTET, 1985, p. 263).
16
The "A hundred studies of the Gradus To Parnassum", his most famous work, preserve intact their
didactic values, which do not get exhausted in the technical and manual aspects, but are also the major
form models of style and expression. In the sonatas there are these elements, technical and stylistic, and
they will even affect the Beethoven work. This was the deep difference with Mozart, which he had
been often considered as a rival. Mozart was deeply bound to the harpsichord and, even though he
played me fluently during his concerts, his mentality constantly remained bound to the dear ancestor.
On the contrary it was love at a first glance with Clementi and in 1773 we published the first three
sonatas for piano.
CLEMENTI WORK
Clementi's work is composed of 113 compositions between sonatas, caprices, escapes and other few
piano pieces; also his didactic works are various:
• More than 100 sonatas for piano
• 100 studies of Gradus to Parnassum
• 24 preludes and exercises for piano
• 24 waltzes for piano
• 6 monferrino for piano
• 6 symphonies
This it is a nice caricature that represents me in company of the friend Ludovico van (how Stanley
Kubrick film was called by his big fan Alex, the Anthony Burgess novel protagonist, "Clockwork
Orange and then the namesake), to everybody notice like the teacher Ludwig van Beethoven 13.
Thanks to him the piano writing develops his new possibilities per maximum degree. The influence of
my friend's sinfonismo is from now onwards that he became orchestral. I start undergoing it and my
teacher too.
13 Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn 1770) - (Vienna 1827) German compositor. In the context of his musical
profession, Beethoven was born as pianist, and for this, he was very well appreciated in youth. Between the
1790 and the 1800 his interest started turning also towards other sons-in-law. In the central period, between the
1800 and the 1815, the author's creativity oriented himself above all towards the big forms of the symphony and
concertante kind. It was in those years that 7 of the 9 symphonies arose. But also memorable piano sonatas
belong to that period of fifteen years, the 2 trii majors with piano and three quartets for arcs. About the 1815
Beethoven started being tormented by the deafness. The bad luck consciousness took the musician to terrible
crises of depression, from which Beethoven was able to emerge thanks to his natural optimism, step by step
sublimated in ideal love for the whole humanity; but these crises contributed to embitter his already difficult social
contacts. In particular his women's relationships. He was between the first musicians fully to live the detachment
between the artist and company. But Beethoven was also the first to reflect in his work the ideals, the struggles
and the defeats which were taking place in the world and in man's mind. His work is the image of his thought and
his affective life. These moral and intellectual demands were finding arrangement perfect in the formal sonata
scheme: sparks of the dramas which continuously force the traditional structure of the symphony, of the sonata
the quartet arise from the opposition of the first and the second theme. (cfr. Beethoven Ludwig van voce in
DEUMM. Le Biografie, vol. I, Torino, UTET, 1985, p. 375).
17
Allusions to instrumental contrasts and mixtures of several families are clear and constant: instrumental
pieces played with violin, pinched basses, flicker of tympana, grant made of woods, heroic rings of
trumpets, etc., all sonorities which would have been unrealizable with the ancient harpsichord. I came
so exploited in the fullness of my most typical resources and the affirmative, violent, imperial strength
of the new one sinfonismo finds his whole development in that so called “pianismo”. That art which
had urgency to find the tool suitable for expressing its eloquence, its historical impulse, was finding,
thanks to Beethoven and I, his full realization. Boys, what beautiful days! We were passing whole
hours to practise and compose new passages. We were an exceptional couple!
The fulcrum of the piano Beethoven’s work is formed by the block of the thirty-two sonatas which
extend themselves through the whole creative process, between the 1795 and the 1822. One of the
showiest results regarded the Viennese tradition sonata transformation. In the last Ludovico van sonatas
the escape arrived absorbing an obsolete form in the invention fire to the “Sonatistica” architecture
what was. I always try an adrenalin discharge when someone has my cords struck on the notes of the
striking one "moving" ( op sonata. 13) or on those some violent "Storm" ( op sonata. 31 no.. 2), but he
happens also with all the other sonatas. He never made use of the virtuosity as he purely forms outward
and of way. The thought which carries out the Beethoven’s world, keen and drunk with excitements,
refuses every concession to the decorative one, to the accessory. The fast stair steps, of octaves, of
broken arpeggios, the full-bodied or essential agreements always have an expressive meaning and
enrich a loaded vibrations and feelings atmosphere which free themselves in music. What a musical
genius you were, friend Ludovico van!
THE BEETHOVEN WORK
The Beethoven work is not very wide (if related to the work of Mozart or Haydn) but rich of
fundamental innovations on many fronts.
The catalogue registers 138 compositions. The main are:
• 9 symphonies
• 5 concerts for piano and orchestra
• 1 concert for violin
• 2 masses
• the theatrical Fidelio work
• 32 sonatas for piano
• 16 quartets for arcs
And we are arrived to the Romantic epoch, which represented the period of bigger brightness for me.
Compositors, guided by a new sensitivity and necessity of being intervened with a bigger
immediateness, tested new musical expression forms increasing the rules of the classical art. The
continuos search for more refined colours and the development of the virtuosity contributed to increase
my technical dowries. I became the major tool of the romantic epoch. The always growing number of
the cords, their length and the biggest diameter were imposing an always more robust and resistant
framework.
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