Dating Square Grands and 8' Old Uprights

[Paul T Williams]

Hi Ginny!

When I started here after Richard West at UNL, he left behind some posters 
for the office.  One was put out by Baldwin in 1960 on the evolution of 
the piano.  It says, (to paraphrase);

Square grands originated in 1742 in Germany notably by Johannes Socher to 
adapt Cristofori's piano-forte to a more traditional rectangular shape of 
clavichords.  Higher tension of shorter strings forced new developments in 
metal bracing of the wooden frame giving it more stability in tuning and 
making possible farther extensions of the keyboard.  They remained popular 
until around 1900...about what you figured.

The upright on this same poster says something like this:  There were some 
upright designs way back in the 16th century, but for harpsichords.  The 
first "upright" piano sucessfully designed was in 1800 indepentantly by 
Hawkins of Philadelphia and Mueller of Vienna.  There is an illustration 
of an 1825 Mueller which looks very tall like what you're talking about.

I hope this helps and my poster is accurate!

Paul





"Ginny Bear" <bearginny at gmail.com> 
Sent by: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org
04/16/2008 12:02 PM
Please respond to
Pianotech List <pianotech at ptg.org>


To
pianotech at ptg.org
cc

Subject
Dating Square Grands and 8' Old Uprights






A piano technician friend who is not on this list asked me to put his 
question to you all.  He is writing a newsletter.   I had suggested 
Google, the library, and Wikipedia, but he said the answers were not 
there.   Does anyone have any suggestions beyond those?
 
"When were square grands made? Dates I've seen have ranged from 1830 to 
1900. I wanted to know about the big solid wood ones with three foot 
pedals, which I think was 1845 to 1890 but not sure."
 
"The other one was for the first upright pianos that were very tall, about 
8 feet. The strings were from the keyboard height up and had wooden foot 
pedals. I saw the information somewhere but cannot find it now. The date 
that comes to mind is 1820, but again not sure."
 
Thanks,
 
Ginny Bear
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080416/d677e826/attachment.html