MEET PIANO (keyboard) INVENTORS

   The invention of the piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua , Italy, who was employed by Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany , as the Keeper of the Instruments. Cristofori was an expert harpsichord maker, and was well acquainted with the body of knowledge on stringed keyboard instruments. He used his knowledge of harpsichord keyboard mechanisms and actions to help him to develop the first pianos. It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a piano. An inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700; another document of doubtful authenticity indicates a date of 1698. The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.
   
    Cristofori named the instrument un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte ("a keyboard of cypress with soft and loud"), abbreviated over time as pianoforte , fortepiano , and later, simply, piano.

     He was credited with inventing the piano.
Cristofori's designs were instrumental in that they were the first that allowed people to play softer or louder sounds. No one is sure how many pianos Cristofori built, but today only three survive that were made by him him personally. They were all built in the 1720s and are found in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Most of the next generation of piano builders started their work based on reading the article. One of these builders was Gottfried Silbermann, better known as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern sustain pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings simultaneously. This allows the pianist to sustain the notes that they have depressed even after their fingers are no longer pressing down the keys. This innovation enabled pianists to, for example, play a loud chord with both hands in the lower register of the instrument, sustain the chord with the sustain pedal, and then, with the chord continuing to sound, relocate their hands to a different register of the keyboard in preparation for a subsequent section.

Silbermann showed Johann Sebastian Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, but Bach did not like the instrument at that time, claiming that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Although this earned him some animosity from Silbermann, the criticism was apparently heeded. Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and even served as an agent in selling Silbermann's pianos. "Instrument: piano et forte genandt"–a reference to the instrument's ability to play soft and loud–was an expression that Bach used to help sell the instrument when he was acting as Silbermann's agent in 1749

SUMMARY:
   Cristofori was born in 1655 in in Padua in the Republic of Venice
1.
He shares a birthday with Audrey Hepburn and Cesc Fabregas
2.
At the age of 33 he was employed by Prince Ferdinando de Medici, son of the duke of Tuscany.
3.
He hired Cristofori to be a musical instrument technician
4.
Cristofori's second job was to be a musical instrument inventor.
5.
Before he invented the piano Cristofori invented two other keyboards, the spinettone, a kind of harpsichord, and the more original oval spinet, invented in 1690
6.
It is thought that he began work on the first piano in 1698, but the first documented record of it came in 1700
7.
What made it so incredible was his creation of a hammer mechanism that hit keyboard strings to create sound
8.
There are 9 surviving instruments attributed to Cristofori
9.
Just three of them are pianos

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