Square Pianos

By looks, the square piano evolved from reconstructing the clavichord - but the sweet and timid sound of the clavichord could no longer satisfy the musicians appetite for the stronger, more expressive sounds afforded by the piano. This new piano-making industry was still very much in its infancy and was evolving into a competitive business with plenty of scope for experimentation and development.

Remodelling a clavichord-type case to become a square piano demanded some enlargement, a beefed up construction and being fitted with a hammer action.

While the main evolution of the piano followed more along the lines of the harpsichord - ultimately to become what is now the modern grand piano, the square piano was smaller and less expensive and enjoyed immense popularity from about 1760 until declining during the late 1800s.

In London there were many makers but, Johann Zumpe is mostly held responsible for the surge in demand for pianos. These pianos were designed, made and sold from his house in Princes Street, Hanover Square from about 1766. John Broadwood - another big name in piano history - began making square pianos from 1771. 

In Paris, Sebastien Erard made one in 1776 - a copy of the English piano. In America, Johann Behrend of Philadelphia exhibited his square piano in 1775. Within a decade, the square piano was now being made in England, France Germany and America. Chales Albrecht of Philadelphia probably the best of the American makers in the 1780s.

The ’English’ and the ‘German’ or ‘Viennese’ school of action design differed mainly in how the hammer was placed and set in motion. The ‘English’ layout placed the action over the back end of the key with the hammer heads very close to the end of the key. The hammer set in motion via an intermediate lever.

The ‘German’ layout had the action over the back end of the key but this time, with the hammer heads close to the mid point of the key. The hammer pivot point being fixed to an extension on the back end of the key.

Eventually, efforts to improve the ‘German’ approach could not match the kind of performance achieved by the ‘English’ approach and so, it  fell out of favour 

Square pianos were constantly being modified to extract a stronger, more powerful tone. Wooden frames were clearly incapable of meeting these demands. 

String gauges were increased to enhance the volume and tone, thus increasing up to four times, the strain on the earlier, eighteenth-century pianos. To handle this augmented tension and stress, from about 1825, Alpheus Babcock invented the full iron frame. Chickering was granted a patent in 1840 for further improvements to the frame.

To match these striking enhancements, the hammers too, were made larger and heavier, perhaps losing some of its former lightness of touch. 

At the World Fair, Crystal Palace, New York in 1855, Steinway created a sensation with a square piano with a full iron frame and an overstrung scale. After significant initial resistance, accepting the iron frame and the overstrung construction was eventually adopted universally.

Steinway’s celebrated iron-framed, overstrung square grands were more than two and a half times the size of Zumpe's wood-framed instruments that were successful a century before. 

In Europe, square pianos were made until about 1866. By then the upright piano had become the popular choice for the domestic setting. The last American square pianos were made until about 1905. 

© Steve Burden

Johann Andreas Stein

Johann Andreas Stein was born 16 May 1728 in Heidelsheim. Stein settled 140 or so miles away in Augsburg about 1750. He learned his trade as an organ builder from his father and he built the organ at the Barfüßerkirche - this was the first Protestant church in Augsburg. As a bonus, he became the organist at the church! By 1760, he had decided to give up the organ building trade in favour of building stringed keyboard instruments.

Taking Schroters action design as a model, he set out to improve it, making his first piano in 1768. By 1780, Stein’s daughter Nannette, a musician but also, having a sound scientific grasp of piano-building, was involved in refining the Schroter design. This action was the preferred choice of the likes of Mozart and Beethoven.

With this action, the ‘German’ or ‘Vienna’ School of piano building was firmly established. The advantages over the ‘English’ School was the very easy, lighter touch and the sweeter tone. What these pianos lacked was the capacity for a stronger, powerful tone. But, for the time being, and with the endorsement of the great masters, there was strong demand for Stein pianos.

A further development of the Stein action came in 1824, designed by Stein’s grandson, Johann Baptist Streicher. Piano-building was clearly a genetic condition passed down through the generations! This action was instantly approved by players and other makers.

Over Stein’s career as piano maker, he made about 700 pianos. His pianos were widely reproduced - especially in Vienna. Good grounds for his being called the ‘father’ of the Vienna School.

 He died in Augsburg 29 February 1792. 

© Steve Burden

 

Christophe Schroter

Christophe Schroter was born 10 August 1699 in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, and became a composer and organist. Schroter’s part in Piano History, though small, is worthy of being noted. He is one of those figures who is rarely mentioned in books on piano history. Perhaps, if he had been an instrument maker with some financial backing, things might have been different. As it was, he was a man if ideas who tried to sell the idea when the piano was still in its infancy and speculation on such a project would have seemed incautious.

Impressed by the tone and dynamic range of Hebenstreit’s Panteleon, Christophe Schroter realised the potential in making a keyboard instrument using hammers to strike the strings, so invented two ‘piano actions’ - one striking the strings from above, and one from below - diagram of 1717 action. He persuaded a cousin who was a cabinet maker, to produce a working model.

His ‘actions’ were basic, even primitive, but worked well enough as a prototype to be demonstrated to the King of Saxony, the King declined any help or investment. Schroter did not seek to develop his invention any further but his idea did find a following among the instrument makers of Germany who, used the principles of his action and adapted them to make their own pianos.

In 1724 some pianos were being made in Dresden using actions very like Schroter’s and in 1728, Silberman was making pianos at Freiberg using an action based on Schroter’s model. Thus, what became known as the ‘German’ school of piano construction was born.

Christophe Schroter died 20 May 1782 in Nordhausen.

© Steve Burden