While the grand piano we all know today can be said to have reached this form at the end of the 19th century (even if it continues to evolve to a much smaller extent), the instrument represents a synthesis based on a multitude of predecessors. But it is precisely these antecedents that have come to interest today’s performers and audiences more and more: long gone is the time when fortepianos dating from the Age of Enlightenment were considered dreadful “clunkers.” Today, immensely gifted musicians and brilliant builder-restorers allow us to hear the keyboard music of Mozart (Kristian Bezuidenhout), Beethoven, Schumann (Andreas Staier), Chopin (Alain Planès), and Liszt (Alexander Melnikov) on period instruments capable of a rare expressiveness. Another arena in which harmonia mundi is a leader!