Whether Hebenstreit built on Cristofori, Cristofori on the French, or the French on the Germans, is unknown. Possibly the pianoforte was invented thrice over, in Italy, France, and Germany. In France appears Marius in the year 1716 as the inventor; in Germany it would seem that a certain Schröter, incited by the success of Hebenstreit, invented it in 1717; at least he himself says so in a writing first published in Freiberg in 1763, ten years after the death of the instrument-maker, Silbermann. But Silbermann had in any case the merit of having, at a more fortunate time than Cristofori, worked so hard at the perfecting of the pianoforte, that from him its increasing spread and the gradual displacement of the clavicymbal and clavichord may be dated. Yet this very Gottlieb Silbermann had constructed a “cimbal d’amour,” which by a cleverly devised mechanism heightened the tone of the clavichord--so “lonesome, melancholy, and inexpressibly sweet.” But his later renown rests on his exquisitely manipulated pianoforte. He had a good master in this difficult work--John Sebastian Bach. When he brought his first model to Bach the latter found it too weak in the treble and too hard to play. Silbermann was first vexed, then stimulated by this censure. He then sold no more, and went on making improvements in it until the old Bach, as Agricola[94] says, gave him unmixed commendation. If we play Bach to-day on our extremely refined pianofortes, we are inclined to imagine that his fine effects are solely due to the perfection of the instrument. And this opinion is not wholly false. Though in the cembalo there sounded in his ear something of the accustomed solemnity of the organ, there is yet in his music a cry for a subtle and expressive instrument which he as little possessed as Beethoven possessed an orchestra suited to his ideas. In every great tone-creator lives a superabundance of imaginative form which the instruments of the time cannot embody, and to which the instruments instantly strive to become equal. Because Berlioz was, the modern orchestra is. Because Bach was, the pianoforte is, which knows how to express with justice the subtleties of his soul-music. I think for example of the never-to-be-forgotten theme of the C sharp minor prelude in the first volume of the Wohltemperiertes Klavier. The clavichord could only give this theme in a thin lament; the spinet in a rigid and unmanageable form. But what features does not the motive show as the piece runs on! Now it has the slow-breathing rhythm of a noble aspiration, now the opening eyes of an expectant Cecilia, now the heavy oppression of a martyr soul, now the holy rage of a last noble complaint, now the sweet weariness of Christian humility. And with these various tints the piece builds itself up into a broad picture, which leads from renunciations through pain to renunciations; with these tints every line, every note of the theme is given an