The modern piano was invented on the transition of the 17th to the 18th century in Italy, by Bartolomeo Cristofori, official of the court of Ferdinando de Médici in Florence. Although some point out the year of 1698 as the year in which this italian built his first piano, it’s in 1700, in a Médici family inventory that we find references to the existence of an instrument pointed out as being a piano (Ripin, 1988: 3-8).
Although it was created in the beginning of the XVIIIth century and there was already piano repertoire created at least since 1732, only at the first half of the 19th does the piano dethrone completely the harpsichord, being banished all the music for that instrument from that period on (Winter, 1988: 107). It is known that since the third quarter of the 18th century the piano occupied a special place in the professional and the domestic music life in some European countries (Ripin, 1988: 1), but it took around 100 years, since the first Cristofori’s inventions, for the piano to become a central piece in the everyday life of the European bourgeois families.
In Portugal, specifically in Lisbon, the piano began it’s diffusion in a massive way on the first quarter of the 19th century. According to documents of this period, between 1809 and 1821, the city of Lisbon went from 20 existing pianos to proximally 500 (Brito e Cranmer, 1990: 50). Like in the rest of Europe, in Lisbon the piano did not dethrone the harpsichord immediately and it was usual to find many composers writing for harpsichord.
In Madeira it is yet unknown when did it exactly enter in the madeiran family’s life, but there are documents that indicate that at least since the 1820’s there were some pianos in Funchal. For example, the pianist and composer Duarte Joaquim dos Santos, during his first stay in Madeira in 1827, played a piano concert and, in the same year, the French musician Carlos Guigou was teaching piano classes in Funchal (Carita e Mello, 1988: 35).
Through the 19th century, the piano gained way progressively in the madeiran culture, being several the documents that confirm the presence of this instrument in the social events and in the domestic day life. Example of which are the testimonials of the foreigners that visited Madeira, it is common to find references to the piano practice in Funchal, at least since the end of the 1830’s, time that the American writer Fitch Taylor, in his book The Flag Ship or a Voyage around the World in the United States Frigate Columbia, refers to a musical piano moment in Santa Clara’s Church, near the altar:
«A piano-forte also occupied a position near the altar; and the nuns, some of them were standing and others sitting upon the carpet […]. A harp, also, stood at the end of the piano-forte; and now a lady in full and rather gaudy dress, but tasteful, advanced to the harp, and music was expected» (Taylor, 1840: 72).
A few years later, around 1850, another foreigner visitor, the British Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley was impressed by the music for piano played in a house in Funchal, referring that the inhabitants played in a «quite beautiful» way (Wortley, 1854: 257). This great execution level that some pianists from Funchal had is also confirmed by another visitor, the American Robert Winter, who also wrote in the mid 20th century about the existence of several admirable piano executors in Madeira, between which he points out a composer thought to be Ricardo Porfírio de Afonseca or Duarte Joaquim dos Santos:
«There are severa1 excellent performers on the piano in the city; among others, a private gentleman of the highest musical taste and genius, who not only executes admirably, but has written a number of pieces which would do honor to almost any composer, and on which the inhabitants justly pride themselves» (Winter, 1850: 73).
References to piano practice in the madeiran houses are found through the second half of the 19th century. The British Dennis Dembleton refers that the piano sound is heard in the most respected families of Funchal in the 80’s decade (Dembleton, 1882:42) and a few years later, in 1891, the Lisbon visitor João Augusto Martins referred that the madeiran ladies «know languages and know how to play the piano as any of our downtown bourgeois ladies [of Lisbon]» (Nascimento, 1950: 68), which proves that piano practice was taken seriously in Madeira and was a status source for the families.
Although the status matter was important for the piano success among the wealthy social classes, one cannot forget that the piano was above all a source of family animation and entertainment. A proof of such fact is found in a text written by the madeiran author Alberto Artur Sarmento who, describing his memoires of his childhood family Christmas festivities, affirms that the piano was played in the houses and they would dance to the sound of this instrument (Sarmento, 1951:1).
But the piano also went beyond the doors of the madeiran houses. Frequently, this instrument was used on the social events, as in dinners, benefit parties or even in concerts at the Theater. In 1853, Isabella de França describes a party in which a German lady sang an aria accompanied by her husband (França, 1970: 170-1). In 1860, the Archduchess Maria Carlota, of Belgium, describes a social dinner in which the Governor accompanies on the piano a young singer that interpreted several arias (Nascimento, 1951: 99); and, still in the 60’s decade, there’s news about several benefit parties in which the piano occupied a central spot (F. M., 1949: 4).
The piano kept it’s spotlight at the madeiran domestic and social entertainments at least until the 20th century 30’s decade, time in which the diffusion of a set of new technologies – radio, phonograph and cinema – was close to banish the piano from education and the family entertainments. The decline of the musical cult due to this new respectful contestants of the entertainment area is shown in a text by Luiz Peter Clode, written in 1949, where the author describes the motivations in the base of the foundation of the “Sociedade de Concertos da Madeira” (Concert Society of Madeira) six years before:
«From 1930 to 1943, I may say, without mistake that for the boys and girls from 15 to 18 years old didn’t matter the Spirit Policy. Their main concern was the improvement of the phonographs, the cinema actresses and actors, the radio, “jazz” and the exaggerated fun for soccer. It was sadly this the mentality of that time, even that in Madeira, at our grandparents time it existed the real sense of art, cultivating music, with great enthusiasm (Clode, 1949: 1).»
There was a cultural resistance that allowed the piano practice survival, being the Academia de Música, founded in 1945, the biggest attempt to fight the abandon of musical learning in Madeira. Due the timely intervention of this music school, predecessor of the “Conservatório” and the “Gabinete Coordenador de Educação Artística”, the piano survived the new technologies of the beginning of the 20th century in Madeira and kept part of the education of many madeiran youngsters. Even so, the golden age of the piano as the main source of family entertainment and social prestige of the ascending bourgeoisie had come to an end.
