Showing posts with label piano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label piano. Show all posts

May 4 - Happy Birthday, Bartolomeo Cristofori

Posted on May 4, 2021

This is an update of my post published on May 4, 2010:



On this day in 1655, Bartolomeo Cristofori was born in Padua in the Republic of Venice (below shown in green). Of course, this region is now a part of Italy.



We don't know much about his early life, but we can assume that he received training in music and in making or repairing musical instruments, for when he was 33 years old, a prince from a nearby country, Florence (also now part of Italy), recruited his services to take care of his many musical instruments.

Prince Ferdinando de Medici furnished Cristofori with a house in Florence where the latter could tune, repair, and even restore musical instruments, including valuable harpsichords. He invented two new keyboard instruments, the spinettone and the oval spinet, and he built new instruments of already invented types, such as the clavicytherium (or upright harpsichord).

Finally, Cristofori started to work on a new keyboard instrument that was called an arpicembalo (harp-harpsichord), which Cristofori said could play soft and loud: ch fa il piano, e il forte. It is the Italian word for “soft,” piano, that ended up being attached to the new kind of instrument.


By 1711, Cristofori had built three pianos, one of which was given to a Catholic cardinal in Rome; the other two were sold. None of these first pianos have survived the three centuries between then and now. In 1713, Cristofori's patron, Prince Ferdinando, died. We know that Cristofori continued to make pianos, however, because the only three that have survived were all built in the 1720s.



One of Cristofori's pianos is pictured above. The three pianos are displayed or stored in museums in New York City (U.S.), Rome (Italy), and Leipzig (Germany). They are all inscribed “Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor, made this in Florence in 172-.” Of course, the words are in Latin, not English, and the actual year iss noted.

We don't know how many instruments Cristofori made altogether.
 
Another thing that didn't survive is the only known painting of Bartolomeo Cristofori. It was destroyed during World War II, and all we have now are black-and-white photos of the piece:


It's a pity that we know so little about this man who apparently was quite ingenious - the man who invented what is today one of the most popular musical instruments.

Celebrate Cristofori!

Play the piano. Here is a virtual keyboard you can use if you don't have one! (An electronic or virtual keyboard is not at all like Cristofori's invention!)

Listen to some piano music. Try Scott Joplin's “The Entertainer” or the Beatles' "Let It Be."

 

Composer Scott Joplin is considered the King of Ragtime!


Here is a fascinating look at a piano performance requiring more than one person! (Look, ma! Three hands!) 

Sometimes it's fun to listen to music that wasn't originally composed for piano or performed on piano, now played on piano. As examples, check out this medley of hip-hop songs on piano and this punk rock song played as a beautiful ballad.

 

Hiromi

To hear piano combined with other instruments, try jazz composer Hiromi or George Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue."

There are lots of fun things you can do with a piano, including some games for little kids and apps for learning piano for older kids.

 



Learn how we make pianos today!

Find out here.

Have you ever seen...?

...this giant piano? (It makes it more fun to use the stairs!)



...Rowan Atkinson playing an invisible piano? (Not really, of course--but it's funny!)


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February 4 – Liberace Day

Posted on February 4, 2017

The people we know by just one name generally have the normal number of names. Singer Adele was born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, and rapper Usher was born Usher Terry Raymond IV. Dearly departed Prince went by just his first name, too; his full name was Prince Rogers Nelson. Some people make up a one-name stage name – like rockstar Bono (whose real name is Paul David Hewson) and singer Pink (whose real name is Alecia Beth Moore).


Today is named for an entertainer who went by one name—in this case, just his last name. He was born Władziu Valentino Liberace, which sounds foreign, but he was born in Wisconsin and died on this date in 1987 in California.

Liberace was the son of working-class immigrants from Italy (his dad) and Poland (his mom). Liberace's dad played the French horn for pay, but he more often worked in factories or did hard manual labor. His dad loved music and wanted to make sure his kids learned about music – but his mother thought that music lessons, concerts, and even a record player were luxuries the family just couldn't afford.

Somehow, Liberace's dad managed to get piano lessons anyway. And, it turned out, Liberace was a child prodigy!

By age seven Liberace was mastering really difficult pieces, and he worked to become more like his idol, a concert pianist from Poland.

His talent didn't save him from teasing and bullying. Liberace was not much like most of the neighborhood boys. He avoided sports, and he loved to cook and paint, and of course he especially loved music. Liberace suffered from a speech impediment, and he became interested in fashion and dressing up – and all of these differences meant that he had a steady diet of mockery and ridicule from other kids.

But Liberace stuck with who he was. Soon he was making pretty good money by playing music in theaters, on the radio, for dancing classes and clubs and weddings and school and even cabarets. This was during the Depression, and it wasn't easy to earn money...but Liberace was skilled enough to do so.

Liberace even turned his oddnesses into attention-getting “schtick” – and he earned some popularity (at long last) to go along with the ridicule.

There's a saying:
"Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing."
But Liberace embraced actress Mae West's version:
"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."

Above, too much cape?
Below, too many cars? Too many rings?
Too much...everything?
As an adult, Liberace's entertainment career included concerts, recordings, TV, movies, and endorsements (ads and commercials). He became Mr. Showmanship, with a crazy, flamboyant lifestyle off stage to match his flamboyant clothing on stage. And, at the height of his fame, Liberace was the highest paid entertainer in the world!

Liberace's first love was piano, and he had a piano-themed kitchen,
a piano-themed pool, and several grand pianos!

Also on this date:


Facebook's birthday 












Ice Cream for Breakfast Day



Composer Johann Ludwig Bach's birthday






























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October 22 – Happy Birthday, Franz Liszt


Posted on October 22, 2015

I've read that Franz Liszt was the rock star of classical music!

I've read that some rate him THE greatest virtuoso pianist who ever lived!

He pretty much invented the master class and the symphonic poem. And he popularized other composers' music by transcribing it for piano. And he met important musicians, taught important upcoming musicians, and influenced and helped important musicians...

Franz Liszt was born in Hungary on this date in 1811, and he grew up to become an important and influential musician, composer, and music teacher.

And he started young!

Franz Liszt's father was a musician, and he saw that Franz was interested in music as a small child. At age seven, Franz started to learn to play piano, at age eight he began to write simple music, and at age nine he began to play in concerts!

By age 11, Liszt was taking piano lessons from a fellow who had, himself, learned from Beethoven, Liszt was meeting important composers such as Beethoven and Schubert, and one of his compositions was published as one of 50 composers in an anthology (the only child composer who was included).

Learn more about Liszt from this video, and listen to one of his pieces here. (The latter is ten minutes long! If you don't feel like listening to it all, after you have given the first minute or two a good careful listen, be sure not to miss the middle. Fast forward to the five minute mark and see how fast and complex it gets. And continue to listen a bit past the six minute mark, because I think you might recognize that part....)

If you want an enormous, hour-long compilation of Liszt's music, check out this video.



Did you know...?

  • The reason for the “rock star” description of Liszt is that he got so many rave reviews for his piano playing – so many honors, so much praise – people have said that “Lisztomania” swept Europe. Women, in particular, were crazy about him—fighting over his handkerchiefs and gloves, which ended up being ripped to shreds among all the women trying to obtain souvenirs! Some men were quite jealous of this heartthrob!







  • Liszt gave away a lot of the money he earned for his concerts to charity. He had made so much money by the time he was forty-something, all the rest of his performing fees, from 1857 on, went to humanitarian causes. He gave to the building fund of the Cologne Cathedral in what is now Germany, and he gave private donations to a variety of hospitals, schools, churches, gymnasia, and other charitable organizations. When much of Hamburg (now in Germany) burned down, Liszt gave concerts to aid the thousands of homeless people.
  • Liszt played so passionately, he often broke piano strings when he played! I read that audiences used to be disappointed if he didn't break one!
  • When Liszt was born, Hungary was part of the Austrian Empire. So you sometimes see him listed as a Hungarian composer and sometimes as an Austrian composer...


Also on this date:














Free Speech Week (October 19 - 25)
























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Check out my Pinterest boards for:
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