ABSTRACT
We have seen that the ideal of the piano was to 'sensitise' the bright harpsichord or, to put it in terms which would be better recognised in the German-speaking lands, to combine the intimate expressive qualities of the clavichord with the power and brilliance of the harpsichord. The raison d'être of the piano and central to all its various designs was the gradability of tone and volume by touch. Few instruments, especially in comparatively recent times, had such a long gestation period, particularly in view of the high state of development of the earliest surviving instruments.
