Where does Piano come from?
The piano comes from Florence, Italy. Bartolomeo Cristofori, keeper of the Medici court's instruments, had built the first one by 1700: a harpsichord-like keyboard whose hammers let the player play soft or loud just by changing the touch.
An instrument maker for the Medici
Cristofori was born in Padua in 1655. In 1688 Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, a lover and patron of music and son and heir of Grand Duke Cosimo III, hired him to look after his harpsichords, and in time the whole court collection. Cristofori moved to Florence that May, received a house and workshop equipment, and tuned, repaired and transported instruments. Before the piano he invented other keyboards, among them the spinettone, a big spinet perhaps meant for crowded theatre orchestra pits.
An instrument that plays soft and loud
A Medici inventory of 1700 lists a new 'arpicembalo' by Cristofori 'che fa' il piano, e il forte', that plays soft and loud, and a court musician noted that it was first made that year. A harpsichord's quills cannot respond to how hard a key is pressed. Cristofori's hammers struck the strings and, thanks to his escapement, fell away at once so the string could ring. In 1711 the writer Scipione Maffei praised the 'gravicembalo col piano, e forte'. Three Cristofori pianos survive, all from the 1720s.
Why people think of Austria or Germany
Maffei's article, with a diagram of the mechanism, was published in German in 1725 and probably read by the organ builder Gottfried Silbermann, who began making pianos on Cristofori's design in the 1730s. Johann Sebastian Bach first criticised them, then sold them as Silbermann's agent. Later makers in Austria and southern Germany built the pianos for which Mozart wrote his concertos and sonatas, and in late 18th-century France people believed Silbermann had invented it.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Bartolomeo Cristofori ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Piano ↗ · metmuseum.org › hd cris.htm ↗ · metmuseum.org › 501788 ↗
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