Hi all--
Just want to throw in my .02 on the terms fortepiano, pianoforte, and
piano.  Cristofori's original designation for his invention was
"Gravicembalo col piano e forte," or roughly "harpsichord with soft and
loud."  The "piano" and "forte" are, as everyone knows, simply words for
the extremes of dynamic.  The shortened forms "fortepiano" and
"pianoforte" retain the sense of dynamic contrast.  However, the most
modern identifier, "piano," loses that, and is thus inaccurate and
misleading.  Strictly speaking, all of these terms are essentially
interchangable in describing the keyboard instrument which uses hammers
to strike the strings with variable degrees of energy.
 
That said, there is an unwritten code which many in the early music
community adhere to in using these terms:  "Fortepiano" is used to
describe the earliest instruments, from Cristofori through the Vienese
instruments of Stein and Walter--in other words through the time of
Mozart, Haydn, and early Beethoven.  There were dramatic changes in piano
design over a period of a couple of decades--the range was expanded in
both direcdtions, instruments became structurally much larger and
heavier, etc.  These instruments (Graf, Broadwood, etc.) are referred to
as "pianofortes", through the latter part of the 19th century, and
include pianos which would have been familiar to Chopin, Brahms, and
Liszt (Erard, Pleyel, etc.).  The modern instrument, essentially
perfected in the early years of our own century, is generally referred to
as the "piano", although this term is frequently used in the generic
sense to describe any of these instruments, particualrly in informal use.
 
Dave Kelzenberg