A History of Stringed Keyboard Instruments

Trained as a harpsichord, organ, and violin maker, Stewart Pollens served as the conservator of musical instruments at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1976 to 2006. He has published widely on the history of musical instruments and is the recipient of the American Musical Instrument Society's 1997 Bessaraboff Prize for The Early Pianoforte (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

• 1. Origins of keyboard instruments; 2. Principles of design and construction; 3. The Henri Arnaut manuscript; 4. The renaissance; 5. The Baroque period; 6. Invention of the piano; 7. The classical period; 8. The romantic era; 9. Stagnation and revival; Bibliography; Index.