Wensleydale Press, Ashfield, 2006. The piece was Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no.1,
which is rarely performed in public, and the roll itself is extremely rare.
TIMELINES
Keyboard range
1709 Cristofori piano has 49 notes from C to C
1729 Some harpsichords reach 5 octaves
1780 Broadwood square pianos have 5 octaves
1790 Broadwood makes first 5 1/2 octave piano
1794 Broadwood reaches 7 octaves on a grand piano
1803 Beethoven’s Erard extends from F6 to C7
1816 Broadwood pianos mostly 6 octaves but some descend to F below C
1818 Beethoven’s Broadwood has 6 octaves but descends to F below C
1824 Liszt plays a 6-octave Erard piano in Paris
1840 Broadwood grand reaches A above usual F7
1850 Pianos start to have a full 7 octaves descending to bottom A
1870 Chickering introduces piano with 7 1/4 octaves 88 notes A to C
1908 Bösendorfer extends to F below bottom A on their large grands
1969 Bösendorfer Imperial Grand reaches 97 notes with a C below A
standard range
Piano makers
1728 Broadwood (London)
1776 Erard (Paris)
1807 Pleyel (Paris)
1823 Chickering (Boston)
1828 Bösendorfer (Vienna)
1836 Steinway (New York)
1853 Bechstein (Berlin)
1853 Blüthner (Leipzig)
1862 Baldwin (Cincinnatti, Ohio)
1878 Yamaha (Hamamatsu, Japan)
Technical innovations
1709 Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano
1725 Silbermann invents the draw-stop device to raise all the dampers
1774 Merlin introduces the ‘una corda’ device
1783 Broadwood introduces the sustaining pedal
1790 Broadwood extends piano range from 5 octaves to 5 1/5
1810 Broadwood extends piano range to 6 octaves
1820 Broadwood extends piano range to7 octaves
1821 Erard invents double escapement action