With such an incredible history centered around Europe (and Germany specifically), it’s no wonder that modern German piano builders still have a reputation for producing great-playing, great-sounding instruments. With every new industrial development, the piano became more unique, more powerful and more beloved around the world. Many piano builders in Vienna were famous for building pianos with black “naturals” and white “sharps” (the opposite coloring we use today) and Mozart himself wrote countless pieces on these early pianos. A German organ builder named Gottfried Silbermann added a mechanism to Cristofori’s design and began marketing his pianos with a revolutionary new feature – what we know today as the modern “sustain pedal.” He even introduced Bach to the piano and – though Bach was slow to adopt the new instrument – by the mid-1700s, he was selling pianos for Silbermann in Europe. It wasn’t until instrument makers in England, Austria and Germany began building their versions of Cristofori’s “newfangled harpsichord” that composers – and music lovers around Europe – began thinking of “The Soft” (“The Piano”) as a new and unique instrument. We know this by the name Cristofori gave his invention: “Clavicembalo col Piano e Forte” (“Harpsichord with Soft and Loud” in English). In fact, Cristofori himself didn’t even consider it a new instrument. Though the piano originated in Italy around 1704, it didn’t arrive with any kind of fanfare. Early Viennese pianos had black naturals and white sharps (pictured here). Early pianos each had their own distinctive features.
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