Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) HOW THE PIANO CAME TO BE [Illustration: UPRIGHT HARPSICHORD (_From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City_)] HOW THE PIANO CAME TO BE BY ELLYE HOWELL GLOVER ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1913 THE.PLIMPTON.PRESS NORWOOD.MASS.U.S.A LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Upright Harpsichord _Frontispiece_ Clavicytherium or Upright Spinet _Facing page_ 12 Clavichord 12 Spinet 16 Queen Elizabeth's Virginal 16 Double Spinet or Virginal made by Ludovicus Grovvelus 20 Clavichord made by John Christopher Jesse 24 Dulcimer 28 Christofori Piano 32 Piano made by Matthaeus Andreas Stein 40 Piano made by Benjamin Crehore 48 Piano made by Charles Albrecht 50 Piano, Primitive German Action 52 A Stodart Piano 56 HOW THE PIANO CAME TO BE How the Piano Came To Be From the dried sinews stretched across the shell of a dead tortoise to the concert-grand piano of the present day is a far flight. Yet to this primitive source, it is said, may be traced the evolution of the stringed instrument which reached its culmination in the piano. The latter has been aptly called "the household orchestra," and in tracing its origin one must go far back into the annals of the past. If we accept the Bible as history, and it is the greatest of all histories, the stringed instrument is of very ancient date. It is recorded that the ambassadors who came to the court of Saul played upon their _nebels_, and that David, the sweet singer of Israel, wooed the king from his sadness by singing to his harp. We must go back to the civilization of ancient Egypt, more than five hundred years before that morning nearly two thousand years ago when, it is written, the angelic choir chanted above the historic manger the glorious message, "Peace on earth, good will to men," and the morning stars sang together. In the olden times the Greeks laid claim to everything which bespoke culture and progress. The pages of ancient history record no other one thing so persistently as "the glory that was Greece." And so they tell of the time when-- "Music, heavenly maid, was young, And yet in ancient Greece she sung!"