Of priority of invention he
says, in a letter to an English friend, "If it were desirable to analyze
all the inventions which have been brought forward, we should find that
in scarcely any instance were they the offspring of the brain of a
single individual, but that all progress is gradual only; each worker
follows in the track of his predecessor, and eventually, perhaps,
advances a step beyond him." And concerning the relative value of
inventions in musical instruments, it appears, from an essay of his
which has been recently published, that he considers improvement in
acoustical proportions the chief foundation of the higher or lower
degree of perfection in all instruments, their mechanism being but of
secondary value.
I will now proceed to recount briefly the history of the pianoforte from
the earliest mention of that name, continuing it to our contemporary
instruments, as far as they can be said to have entered into the
historical domain. It has been my privilege to assist in proving that
Bartolommeo Cristofori was, in the first years of the 18th century,
the real inventor of the pianoforte, but with a wide knowledge and
experience of how long it has taken to make any invention in keyed
instruments practicable and successful, I cannot believe that Cristofori
was the first to attempt to contrive one.
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