This lecture addresses the history of the modern piano and its music. Undertaking a detailed discussion of the different forms of the piano from the early eighteenth through twentieth centuries, Professor Wright also shows how the instrument evolved through a variety of photographs and paintings. He further supplements the lecture by playing recordings that were made on the pianos actually owned by such composers as Mozart and Beethoven. The lecture ends with a guest piano performance by Yale undergraduate Daniel Schlossberg, Jr.

Reading assignment:

Wright, Craig. Listening to Music, chapter 25, pp. 174-175 and 232-234