" She's aware that she can sound like an "overstrung contessa.
|
|
Furthermore, the University of Washington Libraries has rated one of her works "Temptation: a drama of Sind country life in three acts" published in 1942 and "Aeolian: notes of an overstrung lyre" published in 1920 amongst the best South Asian literature that emerged before the Partition of India in 1947.
|
|
Ernst Kaps, Dresden, Germany Percy Grainger’s childhood practice piano, late 19th century Walnut, ivory; 133 x 158 x 69cm Donated by Mr and Mrs Thomas P. Husband, 1935 Accession number 00.0057 Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne In 1865, Kaps built the first double overstrung grand piano. Named ‘the system Kaps’ which referred to a triple bridge arrangement to aid the awkward scaling design, limited by the previously unsuccessful, small sized grand, which were only about 1.50 m long. These, at the time were characterised as having both "solidity and durability of tone" as well as "a lovely yet powerful sound for such a small piano". Previous attempts at producing a successful small grand piano failed until this time and subsequently, the Kaps Double overstrung 5 ft grand piano, quickly became a revelation.
|
|
After his death his son-in-law, P. van Limburg Brouwer, a physician and writer, wrote a dull biography, but with some crucial details. The statesman J.R. Thorbecke in his Historische Schetsen ("Historical Sketches"), published in 1860, criticised the biographer, his subject and his florid jargon. Some authors regard Wiselius as forceful, sharp-witted, animated or even overstrung. Simon Schama hardly ever has a positive opinion of Wiselius and the Patriot brotherhood, describing them as only quasi- intellectual,Schama, S. (1977) Patriots and Liberators.
|
|
The overstrung scale in a square piano earned the Steinway Piano first prize at the New York Industrial Fair of 1855. In 1862 they gained the first prize in London in competition with the most eminent makers in Europe; and this victory was followed in 1867 by a similar success at the Universal exposition in Paris. According to pianistic giants such as Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, and other high authorities, the Steinways have done more to advance the durability, action, and tone-quality of their instruments than any other makers of Europe or America.
|
|
United States Patent 26,550, December 20, 1859; F. Mathushek. Piano. United States Patent 30,279, October 2, 1860 These overstrung pianos had closely spaced strings arranged at sharp angles to the keyboard following the same principles as the bichord parlor grands introduced in America by Chickering and Sons in the early 1850s (now known as cocked hats) as well as spinet harpsichords, and were also meant to have string clamp bridge agraffes deflecting the strings in order to draw the concave sounding board upwards.N. E. Michel Historical Pianos, Harpsichords and Clavichords Pico Rivera, California, 1970. "Orchestral harp shaped or 'cocked hat' grand piano", p.
|
|
15 In 1874 he was associated with David H. Dunham, of Dunham & Sons, with whom he patented improvements in iron frames and wrestplank bridges,F. Mathushek and D. H. Dunham. Piano-Fortes. United States Patent 154,062, August 11, 1874 and in 1877 the Mendelssohn Piano Company advertised their latest trichord squares used "Mathushek's new Duplex Overstrung Scale, the greatest improvement in the history of Piano making," and claimed to have received unanimous recommendation for the highest awards at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876,advertisement, The Phelps County [Missouri] New Era, April 7, 1877 where the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Co. had also exhibited pianos.
|
|
It was Jean-Henri Pape (1789–1875), the teacher of Carl Bechstein, who invented and put into use the system of high tension steel strings and copper wound over steel in pianos. Pape, who was also the true inventor of the overstrung piano in 1826, along with many other successful and not so successful inventions, invented the design of an additional pressure bar or individual capo/s located between the hitch pins and the bridges (a similar system later patented by Theodore Steinway in 1872) now known as "duplex scaling". He also introduced the use of compressed felt for hammers. A good number of these are still in use today.
|
|
There were the groaning and > crying, the struggling and dying, crowded side by side, while attendants > sought to aid and relieve them as best they could.... As we entered the > basement or cellar-kitchen of the house, we found many nurses making beef > tea for the wounded. Seeing that we were crying they inquired as to the > cause. We told them where we had been and what we had seen.... They soon > dispelled our terror and caused us to laugh so much that many times when we > should have been sober minded we were not; the reaction having been too > sudden for our overstrung nerves.Alleman, At Gettysburg, or What a Girl Saw > and Heard of the Battle.
|
|