Fortepiano
A piano built in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with a lighter sound and a simpler, more responsive action than the modern piano.
Viennese action: A piano action developed in Vienna, known for light touch, rapid repetition, and direct response. Many fortepianos used this action, which shaped their quick, light playing feel.
Bartolomeo Cristofori: An Italian harpsichord maker who built the earliest known pianos around 1700. His hammer-action instruments established the design lineage that led to the fortepiano.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: An Austrian composer and pianist whose works helped define the Classical style. His keyboard music exploits the fortepiano’s clarity, quick response, and contrasting registers.
Modern piano: A steel-framed piano with a powerful sound, broad range, and robust action developed mainly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its greater volume and sustain distinguish it from the fortepiano’s lighter sound.
Anton Walter: An influential Viennese piano maker whose instruments were used by Mozart and other musicians. Walter’s fortepianos exemplify the Viennese action associated with Mozart’s era.
English action: A piano action associated with English makers, generally offering greater power and a deeper key dip than Viennese designs. Its heavier response formed a major alternative to the Viennese action.
Piano: A keyboard instrument whose strings are struck by hammers controlled by keys. The fortepiano is an early historical form of the piano.
Joseph Haydn: An Austrian composer whose keyboard sonatas span the development of the fortepiano. His sonatas reflect changing instruments and expanding expressive possibilities.
Hammerklavier: A German term for a piano, used especially for historical instruments and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 29. The name highlights the hammer-action instrument Beethoven pushed toward its limits.
Érard piano: A piano made by the Paris firm founded by Sébastien Érard, known for influential nineteenth-century mechanisms. Érard instruments illustrate developments beyond the earlier fortepiano tradition.