Multibody dynamics as a tool for historical research Study of an 18th century piano action of Johann Andreas Stein

摘要

Ancient musical instruments can tell us much about the way composers of the past centuries wrote their music. Indeed, the sound and playing characteristics of historical instruments are often very different from those of the instruments we are used to. For example, in the case of the Viennese piano actions used by Mozart and his contemporaries, the so-called "escapement height" largely conditions the response of the instrument to the pianist's touch. In this contribution, we aim to define how the Viennese action behaves when the escapement height, usually tuned by piano technicians, is changed.