The Well-Tempered Tune

The development of the piano from the harpsichord and clavichord over the last 500 years is fascinating. These are some photographs that I have taken of beautiful keyboard instruments (and actions) housed at Steinway Hall in New York, the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments in New Haven CT, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) in New York, Piano Technicians Guild (PTG) headquarters in Kansas City, the Period Piano Center (PPC) in Redlands CA, and Ellis Pianos in Birmingham AL. The piano was invented by Christofori around 1700. There are only three of his "fortepiano" instruments still in existence. They are remarkably similar in construction to the harpsichord, and quite different from the modern piano as exemplified by the Steinway D or the Bosendorfer Imperial Grand. Note the Bosendorfer Imperial grand range extends 8 full octaves from C0 to C8 with 97 keys, nine more in the bass (all black) compared to the typical 88 keys of a modern piano such as the Steinway D, the piano used on nearly every concert stage today. (Click on a photograph to enlarge, use the arrows on the enlargement to move through the series.)