Cristofori in New York City. It is the oldest surviving piano. The piano was invented by the
harpsichord maker
Bartolomeo Cristofori in
Florence. The first reliable record of his invention appears in the inventory of the
Medici family (who were Cristofori's patrons), dated 1700. Cristofori continued to develop the instrument until the 1720s, the time from which the surviving three Cristofori instruments date. Cristofori is perhaps best admired today for his ingenious piano action, which in some ways was more subtle and effective than that of many later instruments. However, other innovations were also needed to make the piano possible; merely attaching the Cristofori action to a harpsichord would have produced a very weak tone. Cristofori's instruments instead used thicker, tenser strings, mounted on a frame considerably more robust than that of contemporary harpsichords. As with virtually all later pianos, in Cristofori's instruments the hammers struck more than one string at a time; Cristofori used pairs of strings throughout the range. Cristofori was also the first to incorporate a form of
soft pedal into a piano, the mechanism by which the hammers are made to strike fewer than the maximum number of strings, for which Cristofori used a hand stop. It is not clear whether the modern soft pedal descends directly from Cristofori's work or arose independently. Cristofori's invention attracted public attention as the result of a journal article written by
Scipione Maffei and published in 1711 in ''Giornale de'letterati d'Italia'' of Venice. The article included a diagram of the action, the core of Cristofori's invention. That article was republished in 1719 in a volume of Maffei's work, and then in a German translation (1725) in
Johann Mattheson's
Critica Musica. The latter publication was perhaps the triggering event in the spread of the fortepiano to German-speaking countries (see below). Cristofori's instrument spread quite slowly at first, probably because, being more elaborate and harder to build than a harpsichord, it was very expensive. For a time, the piano was the instrument of royalty, with Cristofori-built or -styled instruments played in the courts of Portugal and Spain. Several were owned by
Queen Maria Barbara of Spain, who was the pupil of the composer
Domenico Scarlatti. One of the first private individuals to own a piano was the
castrato Farinelli, who inherited one from Maria Barbara on her death. The first music specifically written for piano dates from this period: the
Sonate da cimbalo di piano (1732) by
Lodovico Giustini. That publication was an isolated phenomenon, and James Parakilas conjectures that the publication was meant as an honor for the composer on the part of his royal patrons. Certainly there could have been no commercial market for fortepiano music while the instrument continued to be an exotic specimen. It appears that the fortepiano did not achieve full popularity until the 1760s, from which time the first records of public performances on the instrument are dated, and when music described as being for the fortepiano was first widely published.
Silbermann fortepianos It was
Gottfried Silbermann who brought the construction of fortepianos to the German-speaking nations. Silbermann, who worked in
Freiberg in Germany, began to make pianos based on Cristofori's design around 1730. (His previous experience had been in building
organs,
harpsichords, and
clavichords.) Like Cristofori, Silbermann had royal support, in his case from
Frederick the Great of
Prussia, who bought many of his instruments. Silbermann's instruments were famously criticized by
Johann Sebastian Bach around 1736, but later instruments encountered by Bach in his Berlin visit of 1747 apparently met with the composer's approval. Silbermann is credited with the invention of the forerunner of the
sustain pedal, which removes the dampers from all the strings at once, permitting them to vibrate freely. Silbermann's device was only a hand stop, and so could only be changed during a pause in the music. Throughout the
Classical era, even when the more flexible knee levers or pedals had been installed, the lifting of all the dampers was used primarily as a coloristic device.
Viennese school of builders The fortepiano builders who followed Silbermann introduced actions that were simpler than the Cristofori action, even to the point of lacking an
escapement, the device that permits the hammer to fall to rest position even when the key has been depressed. Such instruments were the subject of criticism, particularly in a widely quoted 1777 letter from
Mozart to his
father, but were simple to make and were widely incorporated into
square pianos.
Stein One of the most distinguished fortepiano builders in the era following Silbermann was one of his pupils,
Johann Andreas Stein, who worked in
Augsburg, Germany. Stein's fortepianos had (what we, or Cristofori, would call) "backwards" hammers, with the striking end closer to the player than the hinged end. This action came to be called the "Viennese" action, and was widely used in Vienna, even on pianos up to the mid 19th century. The Viennese action was simpler than the Cristofori action, and very sensitive to the player's touch. According to Edwin M. Ripin (see references below), the force needed to depress a key on a Viennese fortepiano was only about a fourth of what it is on a modern piano, and the descent of the key only about half as much. Thus playing the Viennese fortepiano involved nothing like the athleticism exercised by modern piano virtuosos, but did require exquisite sensitivity of touch. Stein put the wood used in his instruments through a very severe weathering process, generating cracks in the wood, into which he would insert wedges. That gave his instruments a considerable longevity, on which Mozart commented, and several instruments survive today.
Other builders Stein's fortepiano business was carried on in Vienna with distinction by his daughter
Nannette Streicher, along with her husband
Johann Andreas Streicher. The two were friends of Beethoven, and one of the composer's pianos was a Streicher. Later on, in the early 19th century, more robust instruments, with greater range, were built in Vienna, by (for example) the Streicher firm, which continued through two more generations of Streichers. Composer
Johannes Brahms also preferred pianos by Streicher. Another important Viennese builder was
Anton Walter, a friend of Mozart, who built instruments with a somewhat more powerful sound than Stein's. Although Mozart very much admired the Stein fortepianos, as the 1777 letter mentioned above makes clear, his own piano was a Walter. Haydn also owned a Walter piano, and even Beethoven expressed a wish to buy one. The fortepianos of Stein and Walter are widely used today as models for the construction of new instruments, discussed below. Still another important builder in that period was
Conrad Graf (1782–1851), who made Beethoven's last piano. Graf was one of the first Viennese makers to build pianos in quantity, as a large business enterprise. His instruments were played by
Chopin,
Mendelssohn and
Schumann. Prominent piano makers among the
French during the era of the fortepiano included
Erard,
Pleyel (
Chopin’s favorite maker) and
Boisselot (
Liszt’s favorite).
English builders Zumpe/Shudi rear guide, projects from the end of the key, works in a groove to keep the key steady, 4) hammer, 5) whalebone jack, called the 'mopstick', 6) damper, 7) whalebone damper spring The English fortepiano had a humble origin in the work of
Johannes Zumpe, a maker who had immigrated from Germany and worked for a while in the workshop of the great harpsichord maker
Burkat Shudi. Starting in the middle to late 1760s, Zumpe made inexpensive square pianos that had a very simple action, lacking an escapement, (sometimes known as the "old man's head"). Although hardly a technological advancement in the fortepiano, Zumpe's instruments proved very popular, being imitated outside England, and playing a major role in the displacement of the harpsichord by the fortepiano. The square pianos were also the medium of the first public performances on the instrument in the 1760s, notably by
Johann Christian Bach.
Backers/Broadwood/Stodart Americus Backers, with
John Broadwood and
Robert Stodart, two of Shudi's workmen, produced a more advanced action than Zumpe's. That
English grand action, with an escapement and check, enabled a louder, more robust sound than the Viennese one, though it required deeper touch and was less sensitive. The early English grand pianos by those builders physically resembled Shudi harpsichords, being very imposing, with elegant, restrained veneer work on the exterior. Unlike contemporary Viennese instruments, English grand fortepianos had three strings per note, rather than two.
Broadwood John Broadwood married the master's daughter (Barbara Shudi, 1769) and ultimately took over and renamed the Shudi firm.
The Broadwood company (which survives to this day) was an important innovator in the evolution of the fortepiano into the
piano. Broadwood, in collaboration with
Jan Ladislav Dussek, a noted piano virtuoso active in London in the 1790s, developed pianos that gradually increased the range to six octaves. Dussek was one of the first pianists to receive a piano and, in 1793, he wrote the first work for piano "with extra keys", a piano concert (C 97). The firm shipped a piano to
Beethoven in Vienna, which the composer evidently treasured. ==Obsolescence and revival==