cimbal d'amour

In or by 1721 the organ builder Gottfried Silbermann had designed a double-sized clavichord, named cymbal d'amour (from cimbal, dulcimer) by a group of his admirers, his object in creating it being to produce an instrument with clavichord dynamics but the volume of a harpsichord. This invention of his falls in the period between the piano's creation in Italy and its becoming known in Germany. The piano met precisely those conditions Silbermann required of his cimbal d'amourcimbal d'amour...