I wouldn't be able to go to bed in good conscience if I did not publish this piece on the origin of where we got the piano.   It happens to be my favorite instrument, and used as a solo, it's absolutely soul searching.  Before TV and radio, most middle class homes owned a piano because that was their entertainment, and if someone could sing with accent sweet, it made for an evening of sheer enjoyment......so here we go...

Who invented the piano? And why was he forgotten?

    

One of Cristofori's early pianos. Dea/L.De Masi/Getty Images

   

The piano is one of those inventions that's hard to think of as an invention because it's just always been ... there. When you do think about someone actually inventing it, it's hard not to wonder: why haven't I heard of this person before? And why isn't his name plastered on every piano in existence?
Bartolomeo Cristofori, who celebrates his 360th birthday today, is generally credited with being the sole inventor of the piano. The fact that his name is largely forgotten is a reflection of his times, when a genius could be just another employee.

The piano eventually beat the harpsichord by solving its biggest problem

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

A 1750 drawing shows a man playing a harpsichord.

The first official record of the piano appears in 1700, though Cristofori may have been working on it for a couple of years before then. Cristofori's most recognizable piano dates later, to 1720. But more important than the date was the step forward the piano represented.
At the time, the harpsichord was the dominant keyboard instrument. The biggest problem was that it couldn't play notes with differing degrees of softness. To play a note, a tiny device called a plectrum plucked a string, and the note played. There wasn't an easy way to modify the sound and give it additional nuance. Though there were some hacks (and other instruments) that tried to fix the problem, they never worked well enough.
The piano was clearly indebted to the harpsichord — in early records, Cristofori called the piano an Arpicembalo, which means "harp-harpsichord," and he frequently worked on and invented other harpsichord-like devices. But the piano took one big step beyond that instrument by using a hammer instead of plucking a string. That allowed for a better modulation of volume thanks to its hammers and dampers, which could more artfully manipulate sound than the plucking motion of the harpsichord.
The earliest surviving piano is from 1721, and it's clear it was a transitional instrument: there are hints of the harpsichord in its sound. As the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes, it had a narrower range, thinner strings, and harder hammers than modern pianos, which are part of the reason it sounds a bit like a harpsichord.
But even then, it's obvious why the piano changed music forever:

Soon, the piano got its name. Cristofori also referred to his invention as "un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte" (a keyboard of cypress with soft and loud), and over time it was shortened to piano forte, and eventually just piano.
It's rare that such an old instrument has so clear an inventor and is so obviously a revelation. So why do we have to be reminded of Bartolomeo Cristofori's name? After all, there must be a reason pianos aren't called Cristoforis.