A wide-ranging history of the piano, clavichord, and harpsichord, from their origins in the fourteenth century to the present. It will interest scholars, keyboard instrument players, makers and technicians, as well as those who simply enjoy listening to over five centuries of keyboard music.

This book explores the history of keyboard instruments from their fourteenth-century origins to the development of the modern piano. It reveals the principles of their design and describes structural and mechanical developments through the medieval and renaissance periods and eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries, as well as the early music revival. Stewart Pollens identifies and describes the types of keyboard instruments played by major composers and virtuosi through the ages and provides the reader with detailed instructions on their regulating, stringing, tuning and voicing drawn from historical sources.