Grand Piano Covers
Some of these Viennese pianos had the opposite coloring of modern-day pianos; the natural keys were black and the accidental keys white. It was for such instruments that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his concertos and sonatas, and replicas of them are built today for cause in authentic-instrument performance of his music. The pianos of Mozart's day had a softer, clearer tone than today's pianos or English pianos, Grand Piano Covers with less sustaining power. The denomination fortepiano is nowadays often attached to distinguish the 18th-century contraption from later pianos.
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Early technological progress owed much to the English firm of Broadwood, who already had a reputation for the splendour and powerful tone of its harpsichords |
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| Broadwood constructed instruments that were progressively larger, louder, and enhanced robustly constructed |
| They sent pianos to both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, and were the first firm to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six octaves by 1810 (Beethoven attached the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves by 1820 |
| The Viennese makers similarly followed these trends, however the two schools given to distant piano actions: Broadwoods were another robust, Viennese instruments were more sensitive. |