The Pianoforte

A Narration by Mariel

If you compare your home to a home back when there were no electric lights and ladies in Italy still wore long, fancy dresses, you would find that back then, inventors made things possible-- things like instruments for the home, and the inventor that made the piano was called Bartolomeo Cristofori. He is the inventor that today I am going to tell you about. When he was a young man, Italy was split up into many small states that were ruled by princes. The prince of Florence (that was where he was) needed someone to care for his instruments, and so Cristofori took the job. He made the harpsichord and after awhile, besides harpsichords, there were dulcimers at the prince’s palace. A dulcimer is like a guitar that you play on your lap. There are strings on it, and you hit the strings with little tiny hammers, and it makes sounds. The harpsichord cannot be played fast and loud, but the dulcimer may be played loud and fast. Cristofori thought that those instruments should be combined together but he didn’t know how. But in the end it all came out perfectly and he made the piano. But the people of Italy didn’t like it! And so his lovely inventions were hidden away so no one could find them. He was probably very sad, because he had worked very hard on those pianos. But he was not discouraged. And so later people started to bring out the pianos and play on them, but Cristofori was dead already, so he didn’t get to live to see the wonderful way his instrument had turned out.