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Much has been written about the baroque violin, yet many misconceptions remain most notably that up to around 1750 their necks were universally shorter and not angled back as they are today, that the string angle over the bridge was considerably flatter, and that strings were of narrower gauge and under lower tension. 1 other fittings preserved in the Museo Stradivariano in Cremona provide a wealth of data that refine our understanding of how violins, violas, and cellos were constructed between 1666of activity). String tension measurements made in 1734 by Giuseppe Tartini provide additional insight into the string diameters used at this time. The Neck-shaped fingerboard became increasingly thick as one shifted from the nut to the heel of the neck, which required the player to change the shape of his or her hand while moving up and down the neck. The modern angled-back neck along with a thinner, solid ebony fingerboard, provide a nearly parallel glide path for the left hand. This type of neck and fingerboard was developed around the third quarter of the eighteenth century, and violins made in earlier times (including those of Stradivari and his contemporaries) were modernized to accommodate evolving performance technique and new repertoire, which require quicker shifts and playing in higher positions. Stadivariano, none of his violin neck patterns survive, and the few original violin necks that are still mounted on his instruments have all been reshaped and extended at the heel so that they could be mortised into the top block. In their 1902 biography of Antonio Stradivari, the Hills state that they knew of seven Stradivari instruments that retained their original necks, though they name only five: the 1715 2 The 1690 1

This is the first comprehensive study of the life and work of Bartolomeo Cristofori, the Paduan-born harpsichord maker and contemporary of Antonio Stradivari, who is credited with having invented the pianoforte around the year 1700 while working in the Medici court in Florence. Through thorough analysis of documents preserved in the State Archive of Florence, Pollens has reconstructed, in unprecedented technical detail, Cristofori's working life between his arrival in Florence in 1688 and his death in 1732. This book will be of interest to pianists, historians of the piano, musicologists, museum curators and conservators, as well as keyboard instrument makers, restorers, and tuners.

This book explores the history of keyboard instruments from their fourteenth-century origins to the development of the modern piano. It reveals the principles of their design and describes structural and mechanical developments through the medieval and renaissance periods and eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries, as well as the early music revival. Stewart Pollens identifies and describes the types of keyboard instruments played by major composers and virtuosi through the ages and provides the reader with detailed instructions on their regulating, stringing, tuning and voicing drawn from historical sources.