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Broadwood Square Pianos: Their Historical Context, and Technical Development, Together with a New Biography of John Broadwood. By Michael Cole. Cheltenham: Tatchley Books, 2005. [205 p. ISBN 0-9551777-0-7. £48 (cloth) including shipping to USA]
Between circa 1775 and 1850 the most commonly found keyboard instrument in upper- and middle-class drawing rooms of England and the Continent was the square piano. First developed in the 1760s by John Zumpe, formerly a workman in Burkat Shudi's harpsichord shop, it was the instrument most people thought of when the word "piano" (or "fortepiano," or "pianoforte") was mentioned. It was a simple, relatively inexpensive product, costing about a third as much as a two-manual harpsichord or grand piano, and its clear, sweet sound was perfectly adequate to meet the modest demands of arrangements of opera airs, popular tunes, dance music, and simple accompaniments that were its most common fare. The popularity of Zumpe's invention was quickly capitalized upon by other builders, but it was not until 1780 that the first Broadwood square piano appears. Sturdy, plain, conservative in detail, and for the most part eschewing the tone-altering devices of most of his rivals' instruments, the Broadwood squares were nevertheless well regarded, a cut above those of their competitors. Author Michael Cole goes to some length to explain these differences, finally concluding
. . . what is special about John Broadwood's design is not a specific, easily identified feature, but a combination of ideas which were not in themselves original, plus a few neat little innovations which go easily unnoticed. (44)
One of these "little innovations" was, without doubt, the outstanding workmanship of the Broadwood shop.
Cole also tells of two pivotal moments in the piano's history: first, when the harpsichord yielded to the upstart; and second, when individually made instruments, hand-crafted in batches by small groups of trained journeymen, were superseded by the products of large factories using mass-production methods. He describes the process of this development of the square piano in England, as well as the social context in which the instrument was used. Cole chooses the square rather than the grand as the vehicle for this narrative, since sales of these small, light, compact instruments initially far outstripped those of the larger, more expensive, and more...