learly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that
reason good pianoforte music, _i.e._, "idiomatic" music, irrespective
of its content.

[Sidenote: _Development of the pianoforte._]

In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument
compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning
to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now
are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English
manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six
octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's
pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half
octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in
1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material
improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is
far from being the most important improvement since the classic
period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been
much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use.

[Sidenote: _The Pedals._]

[Sidenote: _Shifting pedal._]

[Sidenote: _Damper pedal._]

Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the
music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting
pedal was invented by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied
it to an instrument which he named "Saiten-harmonika." Before then
soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the
hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square
pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly
called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only
one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate
sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the
possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in
G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin,
and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the
damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the
vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of
tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody
and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the
dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings
when they vibrate sympathetically.

[Sidenote: _Liszt._]

[Sidenote: _A dual character._]

It is no part of