Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/757

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PIANOFORTE-PLAYING.
PIANO-VIOLIN.
745
Eduard Wolff   1816–1880
Leopold von Meyer   1816–
Antoine François Marmontel   1816–
Emile Beunie Prudent   1817–1883
Alexander Dreyschock   1818–1863
Ignaz Tedesco   1817–
Antoine de Kontski   1817–
Alexandra Philippe Billet   1817–
Henri Ravina   1818–[ ]
Theodor Kullak   1818–[1882]
Mortier De Fontaine   1818–[1883]
Louis Lacombe   1818–[1884]
Adolph Gutmann   1818–[1882]
Clara Schumann, née Wieck   1819–
Albert Loeschhorn   1819–
Carl Evers   1819–[1875]
Carl Halle (Charles Hallé)   1819–
Alexander Ernst Fesca   1820–1849
Henry Littolf   [1818]–
Louis Köhler   1820–[1886]
Wilhelm Krüger   1820–
Charles Edward Horsley   [1822]–1876
Rudolph Willmers   1821–1878
Alexandre Edouard Gorla   1823–1860
Wilhelm Kuhe   1823–
Adolph Blassmann   1823–
Theodor Kirchner   1824–
Carl Reinecke   1824–
Edouard Franck   1824–
Anton Herzberg   1825–
Charles Wehle   1825–[1887]
Julius Schulhoff   1825–
Moritz Strakosch   1825–[1887]
Hermann Berens   1826–1880
Walter Cecil Macfarren   1826–
Lindsay Sloper   1826–[1887]
Wilhelm Speidel   1826–
Hermann A. Wollenhaupt   1827–1863
Edward Silas   1827–
Adolfo Fumagalli   1828–1886
Hans Seeling   1828–1862
Conrad Baldenecker   1828–
August Dupont   1828–
L. M. Gottschalk   1829–1869
Ernst H. Lübeck   1829–1876
Otto Goldschmidt   1829–
Anton Rubinstein   1829–
Heinrich F. D. Stiehl   1829–
Hans von Bülow   1830–
Adolph Schloesser   1830–
Carl Klindworth   1830–
Joseph Ascher   1831–1869
Salomon Jadassohn   1831–
Julius von Kolb   1831–
Alfred Jaell   1832–[1882]
Julius Epstein   1832–
Francis Edward Bache   1883–1858
Franz Bendel   1833–1874
Johannes Brahms   1833–
Wllhelmine Clauss-Szarvady   1834–
Alexander Wlnterberger   1834–
Guglielmo Andreoll   1835–1860
Camille Saint-Saëns   1835–
Joseph Wieniawskl   1837–
Constantin Bürgel   1837–
Theodore Ritter   1838–[1886]
John Francis Barnett   1838–
Arabella Goddard   1838–
Joseph Rheinberger   1839–
Friedrich Gernsheim   1839–
Peter Tschaikowski   1840–
Louis Brassin   [1836]–[1884]
Carl Tausig   1841–1871
Heinrich Hofmann   1842–
Caroline Montigny-Rémuaury   1843–
Edvard Grieg   1843–
Edward Dannreuther   1844–
Erika Lie   1845–
Anna Mehlig   1848–
Xaver Scharwenka   1850–
Marie Krebs   1851–
Moritz Moszowski   1854–
Nathalie Janotha   1854–

Among living pianists whose names are favourably known and deserve ample recognition are—Vincent Adler, Carlo Andreoli, Walter Bache, Carl Bärmann, jun., Heinrich Barth, Oscar Beringer, Ignaz Brüll, Charles Delioux, Mme. Essipoff, Herr Grünfeld, Frits Hartvigsen, Richard Kleinmichel, Ernst Rudorff, Giovanni Sgambati, Franklin Taylor, Marie Wieck, Agnes Zimmermann.

[ P. ]

PIANO MÉCANIQUE. An invention of the late M. Debain of Paris (died 1877), for the mechanical performance of musical compositions upon a pianoforte without disturbing its keyboard, or its capability for manual performance. To manage this the pinned barrel employed in the street pianos and barrel-organs has to give place to a novel and ingenious apparatus invented and adapted to his 'Piano mécanique' by Debain, about thirty years since. To an ordinary upright piano he supplied a second set of hammers working the reverse way to the ordinary ones, that is, from above. These hammers are set in motion by iron levers, the further ends of which are tempered hard, and project as 'beaks' through a comb of four or five inches long, in which space five octaves of the keyboard are ingeniously compressed. The comb crosses transversely a smooth iron plate fixed along the top of the instrument. 'Planchettes,' or small boards upon which the piece to be played is pinned (as on a barrel), are by simple machinery connected with a handle, made to travel along this plate, the pins doing the work of the fingers upon the levers. The dynamic shades of piano and forte, accent, etc., are produced by varying the height of the pins. In this way a mechanical substitute for expression is obtained. The planchettes may be endless, and are sold by the metre or yard. Perhaps the greatest merit of Debain's invention is that his upper system of hammers has the same 'striking-place' (i.e. measured division of the string for the impact of the hammers) that the keyboard hammers have. This is achieved by moving the latter forward when the mechanical apparatus comes into play. The great defect of the contrivance is the want of damping during performance, but the dampers can be brought down bodily upon the strings by a stop adjacent to the 'beaks' when the playing is over. The additional cost of the planchette mechanism is 25 guineas; it does not disfigure the instrument. When applied by Debain & Co. to the organ or harmonium it is styled 'Antiphonal.'

The mechanical pianos called 'Handle pianos' that are so much used in and about London, come principally from Italy. According to particulars supplied by Messrs. Imhof & Mukle of Oxford Street, London, there are about 400 of these instruments in daily use in the metropolis, ranging in value from £16 to £100. Some are let upon hire by masters who charge from 8s. to 18s. a week for them; but in most instances they are the property of the Italians who take them about, the price having been paid by instalments. These instruments are strongly made, to stand hard work and weather; the felt hammers have leather coating, and there are three, and in the treble often four, strings to each note. The action is of the simplest kind, the pin of the barrel pressing down a crank, which gives the blow; a spring causing the immediate return of the hammer. There are no dampers excepting in a few instances in the lowest bass notes, and no attempt to regulate the pinning of the barrel to produce louder or softer notes. Messrs. Imhof & Mukle make superior mechanical pianos with chromatic scale; the perambulating 'handle-pianos' having at best a diatonic scale, with one or two accidentals.

[ A. J. H. ]

PIANO-VIOLIN (Fr. Violin Quatuor; Germ. Geigenwerk). Schroeter, the German claimant to the invention of the pianoforte, refers in an autobiographical sketch[1] to a 'Geigenwerk,' that is fiddle-work, from Nuremberg, which partly solved the problem of a keyed instrument capable of more expression than the clavichord; but the trouble of working

  1. See Dr. Oscar Paul's 'Geschichte des Claviers,' Leipzig, 1808.