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Monster Essays - The History of the Piano
The History of the Piano
The idea of fitting a keyboard to an instrument with strings, which started
to vibrate when struck by hammers, was conceived probably in the fourteenth
and certainly in the fifteenth century. For the next two hundred and fifty
years, however, the harpsichord with plucked, rather than struck, strings,
held undoubted sway. The clavichord also, had its adherents and within its
severe limitations was responsive to gradations of finger touch, its
strings struck by miniature tangents.
In the late seventeenth century a new realisation was afoot of the
possibilities contained in broad melody, in a phrase growing louder and
then softer, and....
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