The early pianoforte

Stewart Pollens

This is the first comprehensive historical and technological study of the pianoforte based on important primary source material. Most histories of the piano commence with its invention by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence in about 1700: this new study begins with fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscript sources and extends through Cristofori's rediscovery of the principle of the hammer action, the early exportation of Florentine pianofortes to prominent European courts, and the building of copies of these instruments in Portugal, Spain, and Germany. Technical information is presented in a comparative format and the text is illustrated with many photographs, measurements, line drawings, and tables. Collateral developments of piano mechanisms by early eighteenth-century German and French inventors are presented through translations and transcriptions of original source...

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