Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy Generator Update cookies preferences

Contact Us

Featured Listings

  • Horsham Piano Centre

    1 Queen Street
    Horsham, West Sussex RH13 5AA
    England

    The Horsham Piano Centre was established in 1980

  • J.G.Windows

    Central Arcade
    Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear NE1 5BP
    England

    JG Windows Ltd is one the UK's longest established

  • Sulis Pianos

    Canton Place
    London Road
    Bath, Bristol BA1 6AA
    England

    A large selection of carefully selected new and

  • Sheargold Pianos Ltd

    53 King Street
    Cobham, Berkshire KT11 2LH
    England

  • Countrywide Pianos Centre Ltd

    194 Penn Road
    High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP15 7 NU
    England

    Sell both new & used pianos, superb choice of 75

Featured Classifieds

No featured classifieds

Blog Categories

Recent Blog Posts

No new blog posts

Recent Classifieds

No featured classifieds

New Events




Did You Know Piano Facts

1709
The year 1709 is the one most sources give for the appearance of aninstrument which can truly be called a "Pianoforte." The writer Scipione Maffei wrote an article that year about the pianoforte created by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1732), who had probably produced four "gravicembali col piano e forte" or harpsichords with soft and loud. This instrument featured the first real escapement mechanism and is often called a "hammer harpsichord." The small hammers were leather covered. It had bichords throughout, and all the dampers were wedge-shaped. By 1726 he seems to have fitteda stop for the action to make the hammers strike only one of twostrings. He had produced about twenty pianos by this time and thenhe is presumed to have gone back to making harpsichords,probably from the lack of interest in his pianos. Three of hispianos remain extant today: one with four octaves, dated 1720, is in NewYork; one with four and a half octaves, from 1726, is in Leipzig,Germany; and there is one in Rome from 1722. There are approximately ten plucked instruments surviving today with the name Cristofori on them.