it stood in centre stage, basking in the spotlight of a million bulbs, getting ready to be the voice of the concerto it would soon be part of that night. born to an italian musician, bartolomeo cristofori of florence called it a gravicèmbalo con piano e forte. why he built it, no one will ever know for sure, but the beauty of the felt in contact with steel strings...who would have known?

well, there was ever a true appreciator of the pianoforte, it would have to be matthijs eterman. beginning his career as an apprentice in a piano shop in his native netherlands, matthijs was the hey you sent on errands that involved anything but the tuning of pianos. he was graduated to doing errands in the shop in a matter of two months. two months became a lifetime of learning with the piano.

to know a piano truly, inside and out, takes more than the mere ability to dismantle it. the true appreciation of what a pianoforte is capable of means that you not only have to know of its parts in intimate detail, you also had to know what happens when those parts were struck in the manners that produced the piano's voice. the ability to play and the ability to cure go together hand in hand as naturally as the ivory lies next to the ebony. without one there is no other...

ebony and ivory
go together in perfect harmony
side by side together on my piano keyboard
why don't we?...