Coming soon | About Pianos | Willem van Suijdam

Pianos and church organs is all we ever did. Now retired I'm uniquely situated to independently advise on pianos and grand pianos like Yamaha, Kawai, Mason & Hamlin, Bösendorfer and Steinway & Sons.

Fact: a good used piano is usually better built than a new one and often much less expensive.

Fact: a good well maintained piano will keep good value or even increase in price.

Fact: most people that are buying seek advise from a piano teacher, but most of them don't know anything about the inside of a piano.

The invention of the piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy,. Cristofori was an expert harpsichord maker and was well acquainted with the body of knowledge on stringed keyboard instruments. It is not known when Cristofori first built a piano. An inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by 1700. The three Cristofori pianos that surviving today were named pianoforte, later fortepiano, and later reduced to only piano.