s a peculiarity quite unique in the
melodic and harmonic family. Rhythm is, after all, the starting-point
of music. More than melody, more than harmony, it stirs the blood of
the savage, and since the most vital forces within man are those which
date back to his primitive state, so the sense of rhythm is the most
universal of the musical senses among even the most cultured of
peoples to-day. By themselves the drums, triangles, and cymbals of an
orchestra represent music but one remove from noise; but everybody
knows how marvellously they can be utilized to glorify a climax. Now,
in a very refined degree, every melody on the pianoforte, be it played
as delicately as it may, is a melody with drum-beats. Manufacturers
have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the
strings, and familiarity with the tone of the instrument has closed
our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the
blow which excites the string to vibration, and thus generates sound,
is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte
music. The recurrent pulsations, now energetic, incisive, resolute,
now gentle and caressing, infuse life into the melody, and by
emphasizing its rhythmical structure (without unduly exaggerating it),
present the form of the melody in much sharper outline than is
possible on any other instrument, and much more than one would expect
in view of the evanescent character of the pianoforte's tone. It is
this quality, combined with the mechanism which places all the
gradations of tone, from loudest to softest, at the easy and
instantaneous command of the player, which, I fancy, makes the
pianoforte, in an astonishing degree, a substitute for all the other
instruments. Each instrument in the orchestra has an idiom, which
sounds incomprehensible when uttered by some other of its fellows, but
they can all be translated, with more or less success, into the
language of the pianoforte--not the quality of the tone, though even
that can be suggested, but the character of the phrase. The pianoforte
can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like
the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone.

[Sidenote: _The instrument's mechanism._]

[Sidenote: _Tone formation and production._]

In the intricacy of its mechanism the pianoforte stands next to the
organ. The farther removed from direct utterance we are the more
difficult is it to speak the true language o