Are you curious to know just how old of an instrument the piano actually is? We can help. It definitely goes back a few years, or shall we say a few hundred.
It looks like we have to turn back the clock to 1709 or so, so let’s do that math. As of this writing we would have to place 311 candles on the birthday cake.
According to medium.com, Bartolomeo de Francesco Cristofori can get the credit for this clever update to the very limited harpsichord. Anyone who plays one will know that a harpsichord prevents you from playing softer or louder It’s one volume only - keys on or off basically. Of course, music isn’t like that. There are multiple volume changes throughout a musical piece -especially the classical music of the period. And it’s WAY more than just volume changes. There are many, many levels of “touch” Some changes very obvious, others much more nuanced.
He originally named his brilliant upgraded invention the “GRAVICEMBALO COL PIANO EL FORTE” (roughtly translated to “keyboard that can be loud or soft”) but that name was just a tad too big to fit on a logo, or to pronounce, for that matter. It was cleverly shortened to “FortePiano” (loud-soft) . The only remnant of this original design can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Here is a photo courtesy of Wikipedia Creative Commons .
Boy- how far we’ve come. Now we have pianos with built-in wifi, bluetooth, usb, video capability and so much more of the latest and greatest in technology. Here’s just one example..
But we always try to pay tribute to where we came from musically. if you are a musical history buff, at our very own Hilton Piano Center in Colonie Center, Albany, we happen to have I guess you could say - a working “classic” - a beautiful STEINWAY C SEMI CONCERT GRAND built in 1893!
