Editing Piano (section)

===Early fortepiano===
{{Main|Fortepiano}}
[[File:Grand Piano 1781 France - Louis Bas.jpg|thumb|Grand piano by Louis Bas of [[Villeneuve-lès-Avignon]], 1781. Earliest French grand piano known to survive; includes an inverted wrestplank and action derived from the work of Bartolomeo Cristofori (ca. 1700) with ornately decorated soundboard.]]
Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an Italian writer, [[Scipione Maffei]], wrote an enthusiastic article about it in 1711, including a diagram of the mechanism, that was translated into German and widely distributed.<ref name="metmuseum" /> Most of the next generation of piano builders started their work based on reading this article. One of these builders was [[Gottfried Silbermann]], better known as an [[organ (music)|organ]] builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtual 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.<ref name="Badura-Skoda 2000 1–16">{{Cite journal|last=Badura-Skoda |first=Eva|date=2000|title=Did J. S. Bach Compose "Pianoforte Concertos"? |journal=Bach |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=1–16 |issn=0005-3600 |jstor=41640462}}</ref> This innovation allows the pianist to sustain the notes that they have depressed even after their fingers are no longer pressing down the keys. As such, by holding a chord with the sustain pedal, pianists can 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, saying 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.<ref name="Badura-Skoda 2000 1–16"/> 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.<ref name="palmieri">{{cite book |last=Palmieri|first=Bob & Meg|title=The Piano: An Encyclopedia |publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2003 |isbn=978-0-415-93796-2}}. "Instrument: piano et forte genandt" [was] an expression Bach also used when acting as Silbermann's agent in 1749."</ref>

Piano making flourished during the late 18th century in the [[First Viennese School|Viennese school]], which included [[Johann Andreas Stein]] (who worked in [[Augsburg]], Germany) and the Viennese makers [[Nannette Streicher]] (daughter of Stein) and [[Anton Walter]]. Viennese-style pianos were built with wood frames, two strings per note, and leather-covered hammers.{{sfn|Rowland|1998b|p=23}} Some of these Viennese pianos had the opposite coloring of modern-day pianos; the natural keys were black and the accidental keys white.<ref name="vienna">{{cite web|url=http://www.ptg.org/resources-historyOfPianos-viennese.php|title=The Viennese Piano|access-date=2007-10-09|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011233347/http://www.ptg.org/resources-historyOfPianos-viennese.php|archive-date=2008-10-11}}</ref> It was for such instruments that [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]] composed his [[piano concerto|concertos]] and [[piano sonata|sonatas]], and replicas of them are built in the 21st century for use in [[Historically informed performance|authentic-instrument performance]] of his music. The pianos of Mozart's day had a softer tone than 21st century pianos or English pianos, with less sustaining power. The term ''fortepiano'' now distinguishes these early instruments (and modern re-creations) from later pianos.{{sfn|Kennedy et al.|2012|loc="Fortepiano"}}