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• Instruments
• Classical
• Classical Era

When the player’s fingers press down its keys, the lever mechanism of the fortepiano (meaning ‘loud-soft’) causes the string to be struck once by a covered hammer, rather than plucked as in a harpsichord. The mechanism allowed it to play variously loudly or softly, and in an age producing music of increasing emotional diversity the dynamic range of ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Late Baroque

pipes; they can be heard to wonderful effect in music such as the shepherd’s dance in Rameau’s Les fêtes d’Hébé. Styles & Forms | Late Baroque | Classical Instruments | Fortepiano | Classical Era | Classical ...

• Instruments
• Keyboards

– from the late-sixteenth to the early-nineteenth centuries. Apart from the organ, it was the grandest and most versatile of all keyboard instruments until the advent of the mature fortepiano in the mid- to late-eighteenth century. Rise and Fall of the Harpsichord Its prevalence may be gauged by the fact that the first 14 of Beethoven’s epoch-making piano sonatas, ...

• Instruments
• Keyboards

foot shifts the entire keyboard, action and hammers to the right, so that the hammers strike one less string than usual – one in the case of the fortepiano (hence una corda, literally ‘one string’ – and two on the fully fledged grand. Just as the sustaining pedal is not primarily a ‘loud’ pedal, so the una ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Early Romantic

means of a pedal, was in Stein’s instrument controlled by a knee lever. It was only after Stein’s daughter Nanette and her husband J. A. Streicher set up a fortepiano business in Vienna that the German piano-making school can strictly be regarded as making the ‘Viennese’ action. Also working in Austria at this time were the firms of Bösendorfer (still ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Classical Era

model, was shared between a violin-playing concert master, leading from the first violins, and a director playing the harpsichord, located in the continuo group. As the fortepiano proved capable of undertaking more of what the classical composer required, the harpsichord was dropped. By the first few years of the nineteenth century the entire continuo section found ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

(Yo’-han Krest’-yan Bakh) 1735–82 German composer J. S. Bach’s youngest son was known as the London Bach. Earlier he was the Milan Bach: after studying with his father and his half-brother Carl Philipp Emanuel in Berlin, he had gone to Italy, studying in Bologna, embracing Roman Catholicism and becoming organist at Milan Cathedral, and composing operas for theatres ...

• Classical
• Classical Era

The Enlightenment was a great wave of thought in the eighteenth century that combated mysticism, superstition and the supernatural – and to some extent the dominance of the church. Its origins lie in French rationalism and scepticism and English empiricism, as well as in the new spirit of scientific enquiry. It also affected political theory in the writings of ...

• Styles & Forms
• Classical
• Classical Era

contrast to the classical and mythological subjects of serious Italian opera. Developments in technology and publishing meant that the middle classes could own a keyboard instrument, such as a fortepiano, and buy sheet music to play at home. Indeed, keyboard skills became an important social skill for young women. Composers thus produced music that could be played by ...

• Styles & Forms
• Classical
• Late Baroque

, composers now explored the idioms and capabilities of a specific instrument. Scarlatti’s Sonatas Domenico Scarlatti wrote over 500 sonatas for harpsichord (though a few were probably intended for the fortepiano and a few for organ). All of them are in one movement, made up of two sections (this is called binary form). Written in honour of Maria Barbara, ...

• Inside the Music
• Classical
• Late Baroque

A crucial centre for the emergence of the symphony was the electoral court at Mannheim, where the orchestra achieved an international reputation under its director Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz (1717–57). Elsewhere in Europe, orchestral music figured significantly in the mixed programmes of the public concerts that formed a feature of musical life in many cities from the early 1700s. ...

• Influences
• Classical
• Classical Era

In the seventeenth century, a Turkish army was driven back from the walls of Vienna. As diplomatic relations replaced hostilities, Turkish embassies in Vienna used ‘janissary’ or military bands as part of their parade and a Turkish band was presented to the Polish king by the Sultan. In the eighteenth century a fashion for Turkish sounds such as shawms ...

• Performance
• Classical
• Early Romantic

necessary to ensure the instrument’s ability to cope with the increasing tension of the strings. The earlier wooden frames would have collapsed under the strain. In addition, the old-style fortepiano could not withstand the new way of performing, with its greater emphasis on ‘attack’ and drama. Now that the frame was stronger, makers were able to try using ...