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What is the oldest keyboard instrument in the world? The answer is usually given as the remarkable clavicytherium at the Royal College of Music Museum in London – an upright stringed keyboard instrument traditionally dated to around 1480. But new research may mean that it is even older. A keyboard from the fifteenth century The instrument, catalogue number RCM0001, is a clavicytherium – essentially an early upright harpsichord. Unlike a conventional harpsichord, whose strings

Every note you hear from a piano is the end result of a short chain reaction: a key press turns into a hammer strike, the hammer strike sets a string vibrating, and that vibration gets amplified into the sound that fills the room. Here's how each step actually works. 1. The key press triggers a hammer Pressing a piano key sets off a small mechanical lever system called the action. The key lifts an assembly that launches a felt-covered hammer toward the string above it — the h

Long before the piano, and even before the harpsichord as we'd recognise it, medieval musicians were already experimenting with keys. "Medieval" here means roughly before 1400–1450 — the centuries before the Renaissance — and the instruments from this era look nothing like the elegant spinets and harpsichords later in our catalogue. They're stranger, rarer, and in some cases barely understood at all. The organistrum The earliest true keyboard instrument on record is the organ

If you've ever wondered exactly what instrument was under Beethoven's fingers when he composed his sonatas and symphonies, the answer isn't a single piano — it's a whole procession of them. Over his lifetime, Beethoven played and owned several different keyboard instruments, and each one left its mark on the music he wrote. His early years: clavichord, harpsichord, and organ Before the piano even entered the picture, the young Beethoven trained on the clavichord, harpsichord,

What if a virginal could play without a musician? That is exactly what makes the 1619 virginal by Ioannes Wegner, now in the Musée de la Musique in Paris, so extraordinary. Made in Leipzig, it is described by the museum as a virginale à cylindre—a virginal with a cylinder. At first glance, it looks like a conventional early keyboard instrument. But hidden within it is a mechanical music-playing system. How did it work? Instead of someone pressing the keys, a cylinder carried

Among the treasures of the Musée de la Musique in Paris is a remarkable little instrument that connects the worlds of Renaissance music, the French royal court and the beginnings of ballet. Made in Rome in 1564 by Antonio Irena, this small virginal—or épinette, as it is described in the museum's catalogue—is one of the earliest surviving Italian keyboard instruments. But its historical interest goes far beyond its age. According to a parchment discovered inside the instrument

Joseph Klein's Nähtischklavier Not every historic keyboard instrument looks like a keyboard instrument. Case in point: a small, elaborately worked piece of furniture in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg that, at first glance, is simply a lady's sewing table — until you pull out a hidden drawer-like panel and find a complete piano keyboard underneath. The museum catalogues it as a Nähtischklavier ("sewing-table piano"), inventory number MIR1174, made in Vienna aroun

In the nineteenth century, instrument makers were fascinated by the possibility of combining the expressive qualities of different instruments. The piano was already capable of remarkable dynamic variety, but its sound had one fundamental limitation: once a hammer struck a string, the note could only gradually fade away. What if, instead, a keyboard instrument could produce a sustained, singing tone like a violin or cello? One ingenious answer was the Piano-Quatuor, patented

There are some historical keyboard instruments that immediately attract attention because of their decoration. The 1741 harpsichord by Christian Zell, now preserved at the Organeum, is one of them. It is blue. That may sound like an unimportant observation, but the colour is actually part of the instrument's history. The blue exterior is not a modern museum makeover or an eccentric twentieth-century choice. The surviving documentary evidence shows that the harpsichord was alr

At first glance, the eighteenth-century square piano can seem like a relatively straightforward instrument: a small wooden case, a keyboard, strings and hammers. But some early pianos conceal an extraordinary amount of ingenuity. A particularly fascinating example is the square piano attributed to Johann Matthäus Schmahl of Ulm, represented in the collection of the Museum of Musical Instruments of Leipzig University. Schmahl (1734–1793) belonged to an important family of sout

At first glance, Johannes Broman's harpsichord looks almost impossible. Stretching an astonishing 3.6 metres (nearly 12 feet) from keyboard to tail, it dwarfs even the largest French and Flemish harpsichords. Standing beside it, one immediately wonders why anyone would build such an enormous instrument. The answer lies not in extravagance, but in science. Constructed in Stockholm in 1756, Broman's remarkable harpsichord represents one of the most ambitious experiments ever un

Throughout the history of the piano, inventors have searched for ways to expand the instrument’s expressive possibilities. Some increased its size, others experimented with new mechanisms or alternative keyboards. Few, however, approached the problem as boldly as the Hungarian pianist and composer Emmanuel Moor (1863–1931). In the 1920s and 1930s, Moor created an extraordinary instrument that challenged the traditional idea of the piano: the Duplex-Coupler Grand Piano. With t

Can a piano be a work of sculpture? The answer is a resounding yes in this extraordinary grand piano by the Danish maker Soren Jensen, built in Copenhagen around 1930. While every grand piano is designed to be heard, this remarkable instrument was also designed to be admired. Its elegant case, shimmering mother-of-pearl inlay and ingenious lid transform it into one of the most visually striking pianos of the twentieth century. When opened, the lid spreads into the graceful ou

Most pianists have spent their lives playing the familiar keyboard of alternating white and black keys—a design that has remained largely unchanged for more than three centuries. Yet throughout history, inventors have questioned whether this traditional arrangement was really the most efficient. One of the most intriguing alternatives was developed not in Germany or France, but in Belgium. In 1917, the engineer and musician Pierre Hans of Liège introduced what became known as

Most pianos are designed to be played while seated. Conductors, however, spend much of their working lives on their feet, directing choirs and orchestras while keeping a constant eye on the musicians before them. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the renowned German piano manufacturer C. Bechstein devised an elegant solution to this problem: the conductor's piano. Built in only limited numbers, these remarkable instruments combined the functions of a conductor's desk

When the name Broadwood is mentioned, most people immediately think of elegant grand pianos played by the great composers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet the renowned London firm also produced a small number of upright pianos, reflecting changing musical tastes and the growing demand for more practical instruments in the home. By the early nineteenth century, upright pianos were becoming increasingly popular. They occupied far less floor space than

Imagine entering a fashionable drawing room in Regency London. Standing before you is an elegant rosewood upright grand piano, rising over two metres high and decorated with delicate brass inlay. At first glance it appears to be an impressive domestic instrument, waiting for a skilled musician to sit at its keyboard. Then someone winds a clockwork mechanism. Without a performer touching the keys, the piano springs to life, filling the room with music entirely under its own po

At first glance, George Wilkinson's square piano of around 1817 appears to be a typical English Regency square piano. Built in rich mahogany, with a compass of five and a half octaves and elegant classical proportions, it belongs to a form that dominated fashionable drawing rooms throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A closer look, however, reveals a remarkable departure from convention. Instead of standing on the six slender detachable legs found on

When we think of a nineteenth-century piano, we usually imagine elegant drawing rooms, family singalongs, and aspiring young musicians practising their scales. Yet one extraordinary invention blurred the line between music and furniture in a way few people would expect: the convertible piano-bed. Housed today in the Brooklyn Museum, this remarkable piece reminds us that the piano was much more than a musical instrument. It was a symbol of respectability, culture, and ambition

When people first encounter a seventeenth-century virginal, they are often drawn to its painted decoration, elegant casework or finely crafted keyboard. Yet one of the instrument's most captivating features is often hidden in plain sight: the rose. Delicately carved or cut into the soundboard, the rose is one of the defining characteristics of many historic keyboard instruments, combining artistic beauty with practical craftsmanship. The magnificent 1694 virginal by Onofrio G