Brief history of the piano

Harpsichord:

The Harpsichord is an early keyboard instrument and dates from the early 14th century. It became the most important domestic keyboard musical instrument from the 16th century through to the end of the 18th century, the harpsichord began to lose acceptance due to the introduction of the pianoforte by Cristofori.

At the beginning of the production, harpsichords had only four octaves and a single string for each note. Later during the 17th century, they were mainly made with two keyboards and three strings for each note. Finally during the 18th century, harpsichords with five octaves were more common. Tough this instrument has been made in many different shapes and styles, it is similar to the pianoforte in terms of appearance.

The keys are placed on one end with the strings stretching away from the player through most of the length of the instrument. The strings pass under the jack rail and continue to the far end of the instrument where they are attached to the hitch pin rail. The soundboard is under the strings with bridges that the strings cross over. These bridges send the vibrations from the strings to the soundboard and the sound is amplified.

Harpsichords, the predecessor of the piano, has the disadvantage of lacking "dynamic range" unabling to make changes in the motion and expression of the music performed by the player.

The clavichord

The Clavichord is dated from the early 15th century. This instrument is a rectangular box with the keyboard in the side, all the strings are stretched from hitch pins on the left end across the bridge to the tuning pins on the right. It has as a simple mechanism witch allows to have some control over the volume and the sustain of the tone.

The pianoforte

In 1709, the Italian Harpsichord maker, Bartolomeo Cristofori built the World's first piano named "The Piano et Forte" (this means: soft and loud). The pianoforte had a more sophisticate mechanism witch allowed to have control over the volume of each note. The pianoforte replaced the harpsichord and clavichord at the end of the 18th century.

Cristofori's invention was based in a "Hammer-String" instrument enabling the player to make differemces through the use of playing soft or loud.

The principal of this invention, was to make the hammers strike the string and return to its rest position without bouncing violently and enable to repeat a note rapidly.

This invention of the pianoforte was benefited from centuries of experience on the harpsichord construction. Cristofori built about twenty pianofortes in his life but only three of them remain until today.

It was in 1711 when an italian published an article about this invention, that the pianoforte started to be well known, and as a result, many of the next generation piano makers began to develop the pianoforte construction. In 1850, the name "pianoforte", was replaced with the "piano" name.