Birthdays

 Today is Mrs N's birthday – and that of the inventor of the piano, Bartolomeo Cristofori (born 1655). One of his pianos, built in Florence in 1720, survives in playable condition, and this is what it sounds like (the pianist is Dongsok Shin, and the piece is a Scarlatti sonata, D9). Having a wooden rather than a metal frame, a Cristofori piano is a delicate instrument, compared to what came later, but the action (a fiendishly complex affair) is essentially that of a modern piano...