rld but follow it in their work. Many minor
improvements have been introduced in America by Steinway & Sons and
others, whereby the artistic qualities and the durability of the best
American pianos are now generally acknowledged throughout the world.
The solidity of construction is such that with a compass of seven and
one-third octaves the tension of the strings amounts to about 50,000
pounds avoirdupois. The hammers are larger and heavier, the action
more responsive, and the singing quality and sustaining power has
reached remarkable perfection. Perhaps the most curious and important
of all American improvements in this direction is the so-called
"duplex scale" of Steinway & Sons, patented in 1872, in which a
fraction of the string is made to vibrate sympathetically, thereby
strengthening the super-octave harmonic, and imparting to the tone a
brightness and sweetness not so well secured in any other way at
present known.

If space permitted it would be interesting to follow the course by
which the difficulties of the upright piano have at length been
surmounted, and the tone of this form of instrument rendered nearly
equal to that of the grand. This was first accomplished by Steinway &
Sons between 1862 and 1878, by a succession of improvements having for
their object, first, the solidity of the instrument, then its prompt
action, together with as much of the tone quality of the grand as
possible. Many other American builders have taken part in this
development, whereby the American pianoforte to-day is the strongest,
the fullest-toned and the most expensively constructed of any in the
world. Still later, quite a number of more or less successful attempts
have been made to increase the stability of the tuning of the
pianoforte by a different system of stringing, the tension of the
strings being regulated by means of a tuning pin of "set-screw"
pattern, working through a collar of steel, instead of being thrust
into a wooden wrest-plank, where it holds fast by friction alone, as
has been the universal way previous to these inventions.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIV.

GERMAN OPERA; WEBER, MEYERBEER AND WAGNER.

I.

German opera reached an extraordinary development during the
nineteenth century, the distinguishing characteristics being an
extremely full and dramatically conceived treatment of the orchestra,
and a mode of delivering the text partaking of the character of melody
and recitative in about equ