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Square Piano
The square piano is a type of piano that has horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long side, with the sounding board above a cavity in the short side. It is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and was improved by Petzold and Babcock. The English and Viennese square pianos were built in many different designs, including within the action as well as general appearance, from roughly 1760. Because of the competitive industry and relative youth of the instrument design itself, experimentation ensued in the early years, creating a range of moderators (sound-altering effects) and other technical devices (knee levers; hand stops) not seen today. In London, the explosion of the trade is generally attributed to the maker Zumpe. The overwhelming popularity of his instruments was due to inexpensive construction and price. Over time, square pianos were built in larger sizes with more keys and a w ...
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Muzeum Sułkowskich - Zabytkowy Fortepian
Muzeum () is a Prague Metro station providing the interchange between Lines A and C, and serving the National Museum. It is located at the top end of Wenceslas Square. The Line C station was opened on 9 May 1974, with the first section of the Prague Metro, between Sokolovská and Kačerov. It is a single hall station, long and only deep. Two escalators and a staircase go to the vestibule. The Line A station was opened on 12 August 1978 as part of the inaugural section of Line A, between Leninova and Náměstí Míru. It is a three-bore station with a shortened, middle tunnel. It is long and deep. The station at Line A was damaged during the 2002 floods and station at Line C was terminus. Nearby Attractions *National Museum *Wenceslas Square Wenceslas Square (Czech language, Czech: , colloquially ''Václavák'' ; German language, German: ''Wenzelsplatz'') is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town, Pr ...
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Piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal temperament. A musician who specializes in piano is called a pianist. There are two main types of piano: the #Grand, grand piano and the #Upupright piano. The grand piano offers better sound and more precise key control, making it the preferred choice when space and budget allow. The grand piano is also considered a necessity in venues hosting skilled pianists. The upright piano is more commonly used because of its smaller size and lower cost. When a key is depressed, the strings inside are struck by felt-coated wooden hammers. The vibrations are transmitted through a Bridge (instrument), bridge to a Soundboard (music), soundboard that amplifies the sound by Coupling (physics), coupling the Sound, acoustic energy t ...
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Keyboard (music)
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the interval of an octave. Pressing a key on the keyboard makes the instrument produce sounds—either by mechanically striking a string or tine ( acoustic and electric piano, clavichord), plucking a string (harpsichord), causing air to flow through a pipe organ, striking a bell (carillon), or activating an electronic circuit (synthesizer, digital piano, electronic keyboard). Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often referred to as the piano keyboard or simply piano keys. Description The twelve notes of the Western musical scale are laid out with the lowest note on the left. The longer keys (for the seven "natural" notes of the C major scale: C, D, E, F, ...
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Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – August 4, 1753) was a German builder of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organ (music), organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two. Life Very little is known about Silbermann's youth. He was born in Kleinbobritzsch (now a part of Frauenstein, Saxony) as the youngest son of the carpenter Michael Silbermann. They moved to the nearby town of Frauenstein, Erzgebirge, Frauenstein in 1685, and it is possible that Gottfried also learnt carpentry there. He moved to Straßburg in 1702, where he learnt organ construction from his brother Andreas Silbermann and came in touch with the French-Alsatian school of organ construction. He returned to Saxony as a master craftsman in 1710, and opened his own organ workshop in Freiberg, Saxony, Freiberg one year later. His second project in Germany was the "Grand Organ" in the Freiberg Cathedral of St. Mary, finished in 1714. In 1723 he was bestowed ...
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Guillaume-Lebrecht Petzold
Guillaume-Lebrecht Petzold (2 July 1794 – ) was a piano maker in Paris in the early 19th century. Petzold was born in Lichtenhain, a village in Saxony. His father, a Protestant minister, wanted him to learn an artistic trade and in April 1798 brought him to Dresden where he apprenticed with Charles Rodolphe August Wenzky, maker of organs and pianos to the court. After five years, Petzold travelled to Vienna with a letter of recommendation from Wenzky to Walther Walther () is a masculine given name and a surname. It is a German form of Walter, which is derived from the Old High German '' Walthari'', containing the elements ''wald'' -"power", "brightness" or "forest" and ''hari'' -"warrior". The name was ... for whom he worked until departing for Paris in December 1805. Petzold formed a partnership with J. Pfeiffer in April 1806, and their first products were a cabinet upright which Petzold called the ''harmomelo'', and a well received triangular piano, followed by an improved s ...
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Alpheus Babcock
Alpheus Babcock (September 11, 1785 – April 3, 1842) was a piano and musical instrument maker in Boston, Massachusetts and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the early 19th century. Babcock is best known for patenting a complete iron frame in a single casting used to resist the strain of the strings in square pianos, he also patented a system of stringing in squares, and improvements in piano actions. Biography Babcock was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts Dorchester () is a Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood comprising more than in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Originally, Dorchester was a separate town, founded by Puritans who emigrated in 1630 from Dorchester, Dorset, E ..., and worked for musical instrument maker Benjamin Crehore (d.1828) before 1809. He established a workshop and music warehouse in Boston with brother Lewis at 44½ Newbury Street, but by 1812 they entered a partnership with organ maker Thomas Appleton (1785–1872) with workshop ...
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Johannes Zumpe
Johannes (Johann Christoph) Zumpe (pronounced ''zumpy''; 14 June 1726 in Fürth, Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, modern Germany – buried 5 December 1790 in London, UK) was a leading maker of early English square pianos, a form of rectangular piano with a compass of about five octaves. The pianos sounded like mellow harpsichords, and had a damper stop in the left cheek of the case. Zumpe is known as the creator of English square pianos. Biography Of German/Saxon origin, Johnannes Zumpe was born in June 1726. He trained with the Gottfried Silbermann. He was one of the “twelve Apostles”, German makers of keyboard instruments who fled to London at the time of the Seven Years' War. He worked briefly for Burkat Shudi, before setting up his own shop “at the sign of the Golden Guittar” in Princes Street, Hanover Square, in 1761. From 1769 until 24 September 1778, Zumpe was in partnership with Gabriel Buntebart. Meincke Meyer joined Zumpe in 1778. The business was take ...
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Grand Piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal temperament. A musician who specializes in piano is called a pianist. There are two main types of piano: the #Grand, grand piano and the #Upupright piano. The grand piano offers better sound and more precise key control, making it the preferred choice when space and budget allow. The grand piano is also considered a necessity in venues hosting skilled pianists. The upright piano is more commonly used because of its smaller size and lower cost. When a key is depressed, the strings inside are struck by felt-coated wooden hammers. The vibrations are transmitted through a Bridge (instrument), bridge to a Soundboard (music), soundboard that amplifies the sound by Coupling (physics), coupling the Sound, acoustic energy t ...
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Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in New York City by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to a move to a larger factory in New York, and later opening an additional factory in Hamburg, Germany. The New York factory, in the borough of Queens, supplies the Americas, and the factory in Hamburg supplies the rest of the world. Steinway is a prominent piano company, known for its high quality and for inventions within the area of piano development. Steinway has been granted 139 patents in piano making, with the first in 1857. The company's share of the high-end grand piano market consistently exceeds 80 percent. The dominant position has been criticized, with some musicians and writers arguing that it has blocked innovation and led to a homogenization of the sound favored by pianists. Steinway pianos have received numerous aw ...
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Geib Company
The Geib Company was a family business which under various partnership names, produced and sold pianofortes, organs, and sheet music in New York City in the nineteenth century. History Johannes Geib (John Geib, Sr.) was an organ maker from Staudernheim, Germany. Trained there, he resettled to England about 1760 to practice his craft. He first worked with established firms, and later with Lenkfeld as a partner. There he was awarded several patents for innovative piano mechanisms such as the grasshopper action. Marrying an English woman, they had twins John Jr. and Adam ca.1780, George ca 1782, and William ca. 1793. In 1797 he elected to resettle again, to New York. There he established Geib & Company as an organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ... maker from 1800 t ...
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Fortepiano
A fortepiano is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1700 up to the early 19th century. Most typically, however, it is used to refer to the mid-18th to early-19th century instruments, for which composers of the Classical period (music), Classical era, such as Haydn, Mozart, and the younger Beethoven and Schubert, wrote their piano music. Starting in Beethoven's time, the fortepiano began a period of steady evolution, culminating in the late 19th century with the modern grand piano, grand. The earlier fortepiano became obsolete and was absent from the musical scene for many decades. In the later 20th century, the fortepiano was revived, following the rise of interest in historically informed performance. Fortepianos are built for that purpose, in specialist workshops. Construction The fortepiano has leather-covered hammers and thin, harpsichord-like strings. It has ...
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Clavichord
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance music, Renaissance, Baroque music, Baroque and Classical period (music), Classical eras. Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces sound by striking brass or iron strings with small metal blades called tangents. Vibrations are transmitted through the bridge(s) to the soundboard. Etymology The name is derived from the Latin word ''clavis'', meaning "key" (associated with more common ''clavus'', meaning "nail, rod, etc.") and ''chorda'' (from Greek χορδή) meaning "string, especially of a musical instrument". An analogous name is used in other European languages (It. ''clavicordio'', ''clavicordo''; Fr. ''clavicorde''; Germ. ''Klavichord''; Lat. ''clavicordium''; Port. ''clavicórdio''; Sp. ''clavicordio''). Many languages also have ...
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