Crossword clues for pianoforte
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Piano \Pi*an"o\, Pianoforte \Pi*an"o*for`te\, n. [It. piano soft (fr. L. planus even, smooth; see Plain, a.) + It. forte strong, fr. L. fortis (see Fort).] (Mus.) A well-known musical instrument somewhat resembling the harpsichord, and consisting of a series of wires of graduated length, thickness, and tension, struck by hammers moved by keys.
Dumb piano. See Digitorium.
Grand piano. See under Grand.
Square piano, one with a horizontal frame and an oblong case.
Upright piano, one with an upright frame and vertical wires.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1767, from Italian, from piano e forte "soft and loud," in full, gravicembalo col piano e forte "harpsichord with soft and loud" (c.1710), said to have been so named by inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731) of Padua because the ability via dampers to vary the tone is one of the main changes from the harpsichord. Italian piano (adj.) ultimately is from Latin planus "flat, smooth, even," later "soft" (see plane (n.1)).
Wiktionary
n. (context music dated English) A piano.
WordNet
n. a stringed instrument that is played by depressing keys that cause hammers to strike tuned strings and produce sounds [syn: piano, forte-piano]
Wikipedia
Pianoforte is a 1984 Italian drama film. It is the debut film of director Francesca Comencini. Pianoforte won the "De Sica" award at the 1984 Venice Film Festival.
For her performance Giulia Boschi, at her film debut, was awarded as best actress at the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival and won a Silver Ribbon for best new actress.
Usage examples of "pianoforte".
Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever .
The later form was the so-called cithara, the most common shape of which is that made familiar to all by the pedal piece of the square pianoforte.
Bates, deprived of her usual employment, slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax, standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte.
He occupied a roomy dilapidated garret, au sixieme, in the Rue Tire-Liard, with a trucklebed and a pianoforte for furniture, and very little else.
She went off to the theater with Ella and Skippy and Ruff, confident the young woman would be content with the latest novel, the daily papers, the finely tuned pianoforte.
In spirit Cramer was a disciple of the last named, but from living to a good old age, he naturally surpassed his ideal in the treatment of the pianoforte.
The concerti, the often flashy and tinselly pianoforte compositions of Liszt and Rubinstein were the immediate and surface result of that deeper sense of the instrument which arrived during the nineteenth century, and intoxicated folk with the piano timbres, and made them eager to hear its many voices in no matter how crude a form.
He sees himself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a Brocken mist, several feet taller on the strength of the pianoforte, and he is satisfied.
The concerti, the often flashy and tinselly pianoforte compositions of Liszt and Rubinstein were the immediate and surface result of that deeper sense of the instrument which arrived during the nineteenth century, and intoxicated folk with the piano timbres, and made them eager to hear its many voices in no matter how crude a form.
It is very likely, as Sir Hubert says, that most modern composers have used the pianoforte a good deal--not so much to help them to find out their ideas, as to test the details and intensify their musical sensibility by the excitant sounds, the actual sensual impression of which is, of course, an essential element in all music.
Most of it was unchewable - old picture frames, a pianoforte, an ancient unconnected gas cooker, that sort of thing.
MY HIGHLY ESTEEMED FRIEND, I have received no reply to my two letters of July 3, entrusted to the care of a composer, Herr Diettenhofer, by whom I likewise sent the pianoforte arrangement of an andante in one of my new symphonies.
To return to the aforesaid symphonies, I must tell you that I sent you a pianoforte arrangement of the andante in C minor by Herr Diettenhofer.
An acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever .
This marvel, according to the tattered guide-book he dragged from his pocket, was a musical lady, who was advertized, rather alarmingly, to perform most of the functions of animal life, and to play sixteen airs upon an organized pianoforte, by the actual pressure of the fingers.