e many church choirs. During the great eleventh century, Guido,
a Benedictine monk of the town of Arezzo (the birthplace of the poet
Petrarch) gave us our modern system of musical annotation. Some time
during that century, when there was a great deal of popular interest
in music, the first instrument with both keys and strings was built. It
must have sounded as tinkly as one of those tiny children's pianos which
you can buy at every toy-shop. In the city of Vienna, the town where
the strolling musicians of the Middle Ages (who had been classed
with jugglers and card sharps) had formed the first separate Guild of
Musicians in the year 1288, the little monochord was developed into
something which we can recognise as the direct ancestor of our modern
Steinway. From Austria the "clavichord" as it was usually called in
those days (because it had "craves" or keys) went to Italy. There it
was perfected into the "spinet" which was so called after the inventor,
Giovanni Spinetti of Venice. At last during the eighteenth century, some
time between 1709 and 1720, Bartolomeo Cristofori made a "clavier" which
allowed the performer to play both loudly and softly or as it was said
in Italian, "piano" and "forte." This instrument with certain changes
became our "pianoforte" or piano.

Then for the first time the world possessed an easy and convenient
instrument which could be mastered in a couple of years and did not need
the eternal tuning of harps and fiddles and was much pleasanter to the
ears than the mediaeval tubas, clarinets, trombones and oboes. Just as
the phonograph has given millions of modern people their first love of
music so did the early "pianoforte" carry the knowledge of music
into much wider circles. Music became part of the education of every
well-bred man and woman. Princes and rich merchants maintained private
orchestras. The musician ceased to be a wandering "jongleur" and became
a highly valued member of the community. Music was added to the dramatic
performances of the theatre and out of this practice, grew our modern
Opera. Originally only a few very rich princes could afford the expenses
of an "opera troupe." But as the taste for this sort of entertainment
grew, many cities built their own theatres where Italian and afterwards
German operas were given to the unlimited joy of the whole community
with the exception of a few sects of very strict Christians who still
regarded music with deep suspicion as something