Wednesday, July 26, 2023 | Uncategorized

Instruments such as the harpsichord and clavichord pre-date the development of the instrument we think of today as the piano. Around 1700, Bartolomeo Cristofori, whilst working for the famous Medici family in Florence, tried to bring together the best elements of these predecessors of the piano into an instrument initially named a ‘gravicembalo col piano e forte’. The aim was to produce an instrument where the sound was made by striking the string, like a clavichord, but allowing the string to resonate like in a harpsichord. This new instrument allowed both soft and loud dynamics, using a sophisticated hammer action with escapement mechanism, as well as dampers. The new instrument was smaller than today’s modern pianos with around 54 keys rather than our 88, and it was not initially able to match the full volume available from a harpsichord at that time. This meant that the new piano, therefore, did not become popular until much later, almost a century later, when the volume of the instrument was improved by piano makers across the world including the UK, Austria, France and the USA.

If you’re interested and would like to read more there are some great articles:

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cris/hd_cris.htm

http://www.piano.instruments.edu.pl/en/history/gravicembalo-col-piano-e-forte

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