First piano to have 88 notes?

[slovenian6474]

I'm curious when the first piano was made that had 88 keys. I'm particularly curious if it was made prior to 1800. If you have a link or something to where it is written that would be excellent!

[Barrie Heaton]

I'm curious when the first piano was made that had 88 keys. I'm particularly curious if it was made prior to 1800. If you have a link or something to where it is written that would be excellent!

About 1880 see
http://www.uk-piano.org/history/compass.html

When I contacted quite a lot of makers they had no idea when 88 notes was added to their pianos Still waiting for a reply from quite a few 2002 is when I first contacted them

I would say it was Steinway's who was the first c1880

Barrie,

[Tom Tuner]

You can check in David Wainwright's book,Broadwood by request. to see how and when they expanded the keyboard. Nothing before 1800 ran to more than six octaves at most.
In this hemisphere any piano made after 1885 would have 88 keys. However, let me do a bit of further checking on this.

Tom Tuner

[Barrie Heaton]

You can check in David Wainwright's book,Broadwood by request. to see how and when they expanded the keyboard. Nothing before 1800 ran to more than six octaves at most.
In this hemisphere any piano made after 1885 would have 88 keys. However, let me do a bit of further checking on this.

Tom Tuner

I was told Chickerings started to used 88 notes on their pianos in c1850s I have asked on pianotec I was also informed that Steinway's was the first to ship to the UK with 88 in c1880 but no data to back it up and Steinway don't seem to know.

Barrie,

[Bill Kibby]

Huge numbers of pianos were made right up to the 1970s with LESS than 88 notes. Erards were using 85 from the 1830s, but I will look for early references to 88, I believe it was one of the little-known English firms who claimed to be first.

[Bill Kibby]

In 1870, Chickering shipped a piano from Boston to New York with 88 notes. Possibly as early as 1853, and certainly by 1870, some pianos had a range of 88 notes A-C, which is the normal and the maximum range today, as far as most pianos are concerned. One of the arguments for having a keyboard up to C, with such high notes, and consequently short, stiff strings, is that the other top notes sound better if these are added above them! This is because the top A's strings are further from the end of the bridge, and also further from the edge of the soundboard. As you can judge from the dates mentioned above, many of the "great" or "classical" composers didn't even have these notes, and sheet music which shows them has obviously been re-written, so it is not as the composer intended it to be.

[Bill Kibby]

In their 1871 ad, Pohlmann & Son, Halifax, claimed to be the first manufacturers in Britain to adopt overstringing. Earlier, they were also said to have been the first British manufacturer to adopt the 88-note keyboard, which they said they had introduced to Britain at the same time that Erard did - whenever that was!

[Barrie Heaton]

Johannes Pohlmann of Saxony served his apprenticeship with Silbermann in Freiburg and probably settled in London by 1760
found this

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/flashba ... id=3006818

They seem to claim he was the first to make a piano in the UK , Zumpy was making them before that but they were both trained by Silbermann

[Tom Tuner]

In Stringed Keyboard Instruments Franz Josef Hirt gives this table:

1700 till approximately 1765 - 5 octaves
1765 " " 1794 - 5 octaves and a 4th
1794 " " 1804 - 6 octaves
1804 " " 1824 - 6 octaves and a 4th
1824 " " 1880 - 7 octaves
1880 " " present day & octaves and a 3rd

I take it this refers to common practice as I have a reference to a grand piano made in Philadelphia in 1810 with a compass of 7 and-a-half octaves.
In regard to supernumerary strings to avoid "end-of-the-bridge" effects, on at least an experimental basis Yamaha added a couple of courses of (non-speaking) strings to the bottom of the treble bridge.

Tom Tuner

[Barrie Heaton]

In
I have a reference to a grand piano made in Philadelphia in 1810 with a compass of 7 and-a-half octaves.
Tom Tuner [/u]

Is it in a Book Tom

Barrie,

[Bill Kibby]

Pohlmanns' claim was doubly misleading: Firstly, there is no evidence to connect them with the early Pohlmann. Secondly, the piano which they owned, and described as the first piano made in England, is dated too late! Erards' Paris archives show no regular production of 88-notes pianos until the 1890s, but there were odd, quirky pianos with larger keyboards, such as Mott's 90-note one in 1851.

[Tom Tuner]

Oops! The control codes for text enhancement seem to have gotten a bit out of hand. Haven't done that since the days of the Commodore C=64. I guess that is why there is a preview option.

Yes, Bill, the note on the Loud Bros. grand was from Dolge, P & TM, Vol. 1. No citation, Alfred probably knew the Loud Bros. in person.

According to Larry Fine in The Piano Book, the Steinway D went to 88 notes in 1865. Hmm, amazing if true. None of the smaller grands went 88 note until 20 years later. Which accords with my experience of older Steinways.

Tom Tuner

[Tom Tuner]

Roseamund Harding cites an 1845 patent by Pape showing an 8 1/2-octave keyboard with no indication that it was actually built. Both Arthur Loesser and edwin M. Good in Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos. contend that Pape did buid an 8-octave piano in 1844 which was played until 1849 and not heard of again. Good also shows a Steinway grand of AAA-ccccc compass dated 1864.
Contradicting Alfred Dolge, in the History of the American Pianoforte. Daniel Spillane asserts that the Loud Bros. 90-note piano was built in 1825.
In general, it appears that the 88-note keyboard did not become a regular production item until 1885 when it was generally adopted. Apart from their concert grands Steinway was still making 85-note pianos through the mid-1880's as I know from my own observations.

Tom Tuner

[Bill Kibby]

Two points I would add: Firstly, the occurence of 88 notes has no direct relationship to 8-octave pianos, they developed separately, rather than increasing note by note. Secondly, the general statements so often quoted on the net are American, and do not apply this side of the ocean. When I joined the London retail trade in 1965, 85 was still the norm, and continued to be for years.

[Tom Tuner]

Well, that's very interesting. My encounters with British pianos have been almost entirely limited to over-damper uprights so elderly that some couldn't even muster seven octaves. I note that Nalder (1927) implies 88 notes to be standard and illustrates it as such. The German and Austrian pianos that have come my way have nearly all been 88 notes except for some genuine antiques from the 19-th century (and , of course, some Boesendorfer Imperials, which are another matter).
Increases in keyboard range seem to have increased by 1/2 octave jumps for the most part. Unless you are referring to 'short octaves' in the bass or divided sharps or somesuch.

Tom Tuner

[Bill Kibby]

Yes, it's fascinating to me that some people over here love to dig at American pianos, yet London produced far more rubbish (in between the good ones) than anyone else. "Antique" is synonymous with "Overdamper" here, but incredibly, we still made some overdamper uprights with underneath pedals in the fifties! Even Bluthner, who was slow to dump overdampers, did convert long before a few of the London makers. It's not as if they had to make the actions, they had specialist firms doing that. As to the idea of compass increasing in half-octaves jumps, I see absolutely no evidence of that. Up to the 1870s, many London pianos had 80 notes C-A, oddly described as 6 7/8 octaves. 85 notes was then a special sales feature, and 88 was rare. Small London or German uprights with 61 notes were not uncommon a century ago, and in the twenties and thirties, 73 notes was common for small uprights.

[Tom Tuner]

The 1/2 octave jumps were from Broadwood's lists of models and a couple other sources. Most of pianos I've seen have been 61, 73, 85, or 88-note, except for some 64-note AEolian spinets.
A reason overdampers never made it here was that until late in the 1800's nearly all upright actions were imported from France. When domestic production got started after the long overdue demise of the square they were still labeled "French Repeating Action". The relatively few action makers turned out substatually the same product for all. Other than an occasional lost-motion compensator or a rare sostenuto there was no such thing as a "premium" or "economy" action. Quite otherwise for grand actions however.

Tom Tuner

[Bill Kibby]

I am obviously being too pedantic, but I don't see any half-octaves there. Interestingly, a great many London pianos had imported French actions too, from Schwander, Gehrling, etc., and these were overdampers like many of the French uprights. I'd have to add that the demise of the square was only overdue because the makers lost touch with the public's love for the neat, sweet, petite ones, which they STILL love, despite all the technical arguments. You can't explain art!

[Tom Tuner]

You're being pedantic? I thought that was my role.
My last words on the topic: I will stick with Loud Bros. 1824 grand as the first piano with at least 88 notesThis was a dead-end as far as piano history or development goes. If you down-load (free) Spillane's book, History of the American Pianoforte. from Google you can read an amusing account of it, p.113 (p.138 in Google's pagination). Presumably Steinway's concert grands were the first production pianos with 88 notes in 1865 (Good's date seems to be in error).

Tom Tuner

[Bill Kibby]

I love the idea of the free download, but can't find it, and your link doesn't work. Help?!

[Tom Tuner]

? I didn't do anytthing special, just summoned up Google and typed the title on the search line. Lots of books out of copyright on there.

Tom Tuner

P.S. Let me know if it doesn't work I may be able to e-mail it as a compressed file which is not very large. Reading it on line is a bit more convenient as there is a "finder" which is handier than an index. T.T.