After all these years of playing, tuning, and studying the history of keyboard instruments, i have only just discovered the existence of yet another variation along the road of development to the piano as we know it today: the so-called “Tangent Piano”.
Of course i know of the clavichord, which also strikes the strings with “tangents”, but they are tiny, very quiet instruments, with the strings running crosswise the small rectangular case; whereas the Tangent Piano is wing-shaped like a harpsichord or modern grand piano.
Links
Mario Martinoli playing a Tangent piano made in 1800
Tangentenflügel von Johann Wilhelm Berner in Hamburg ca.1797
Contemporary copy of TANGENTENFLUGEL SPATH & SCHMAHL, REGENSBURG, 1794