2. 自考
  3. Piano For a century and a half the piano has been one of the most popular solo instruments for Western music. Unlike string

Piano For a century and a half the piano has been one of the most popular solo instruments for Western music. Unlike string

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问题                                 Piano
    For a century and a half the piano has been one of the most popular solo instruments for Western music. Unlike string and wind instrument, the piano is completely self-sufficient, as it is able to play both the melody and its accompanying harmony at the same time. For this reason, it became the favorite household instrument of the nineteenth century.
    The ancestry of the piano can be traced to the early keyboard instruments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—the spinet(小型立式钢琴), the dulcimer(洋琴), and the virginal(小键琴). In the seventeenth century the organ(管风琴), the clavichord(古钢琴), and the harpsichord(大键琴)became the chief instruments of the keyboard group, a supremacy they maintained until the piano supplanted them at the end of the eighteenth century. The clavichord’ s tone was metallic and never powerful; nevertheless, because of the variety of tone possible to it, many composers found the clavichord a sympathetic instrument for intimate chamber music. The harpsichord with its bright, vigorous tone was the favorite instrument for supporting the bass of the small orchestra of the period and for concert use, but the character of the tone could not be varied save by mechanical or structural devices.
    The piano was perfected in the early eighteenth century by a harpsichord maker in Italy(though musicologists point out several previous instances of the instrument). This instrument was called a piano e forte(soft and loud), to indicate its dynamic versatility; its strings were struck by a recoiling hammer with a felt-padded head. The wires were much heavier in the earlier instruments. A series of mechanical improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality , finally produced an instrument capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid, singing tone to a sharp, percussive brilliance.
Which of the following instruments was widely used before the seventeenth century?
选项 A、The harpsichord.
B、The spinet.
C、The clavichord.
D、The organ.
答案B
解析 事实细节题。第二段第一句话列举了15和16世纪最常用的键盘乐器。题干问的是17世纪之前的，因此选择B。
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