EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO.

Evening Post, Volume LXIX, Issue 118, 20 May 1905, Page 10

EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO.

Nebuchadnezzar's dulcimer and psaltery were tho precursors of the modern domestic piano, and tho psaltery, which survives as tho zither, is the ancestor of tho spinet, says Chambem's Journal for March, on the authority of Mr. Oeorge lloso. About 500 years ago a key-board was added to tlus psaltery, and it became the clavichord, an inbtrument which was long in vogue, and which ladies would play standing in front of it. This wap tho favourite instrument of Bach, so that we may be suro that it possessed several good points, lie did not care for the •vpinet, which he found wanting in soul; and as for tho nfwly-invented pjanoforle, it was fuy too clumsy and hur»h to win his taste. The luupsichord m.\r the diluct predecessor of the pianoforte, and was far more ambitious in its design thiui any of its predecessors, lor it hud three Miingt> to each note, and wa& generally furnished with two rows of keys. The Venetian swell common to organs was invented by Sejindi. the. founder of the firm of Bnwdwood and Sons, who was making harpsichords' h» London in 1728. This method Decontrolling the volume of sound was applied by him both to harpsichords and pianofortes. It i« interesting to note llwt the earliest recorded nublic performance on thh pianoforte took place at Covonb Garden Theatre, London, on 16th May. 1767, when tho play-bill announced that, at tlifi end of Act 1. of the "Beg-

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