Piano, forte.

Byline: Paul Denison The Register-Guard

In the Smithsonian Institution's ``Piano 300'' exhibition celebrating three centuries of piano history, the centerpiece was a 1722 instrument designed and made by Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor of the piano.

In more ways than one, that piano also is central to the life of Edwin Good, who was one of the curators for the 2000-01 Smithsonian show.

The original is safely back home at the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali in Rome. But the first, and so far only, copy of that historic instrument now sits in the music room of Good's Eugene home.

It looks like a toy compared with the stout Bluthner concert piano a few feet away. But the Bluthner, however grand, isn't half as thrilling as the elegantly designed Cristofori copy, which looks like a harpsichord but is more expressive.

The copy was made by Tom and Barbara Wolf of The Plains, Va., on commission from Good.

Constructed from European poplar and Italian cypress, the Cristofori copy has a four-octave range. It has 49 wooden keys and paired strings that can be sounded together or singly by shifting the keyboard.

Cristofori began work in 1698 on an ``arcicembal che fa il piano et il forte'' (harpsichord that plays softly and loudly). But to Good's ear, playing paired or single strings alters the character of the sound as well as the volume.

He is clearly delighted with his new instrument, which he will introduce to the public in a free recital at 8 p.m. Wednesday in Collier House, 1170 E. 13th Ave.

Good will play compositions by Giovanni Benedetto Platti, Ludovico Giustini, Carlos Seixas and J.S. Bach (in an alternative tuning that a scholar recently deciphered from scribbles on the front page of a Bach manuscript).

Good left that tricky business to his in-house piano tuner, Anita Sullivan, who cheerfully describes herself as his "slave labor" and "designated listener."

The two are husband and wife, and for that they have the piano to thank.

Sullivan, a professional tuner from Corvallis, went to Washington, D.C., to research an article about ``Piano 300'' for the Piano Technicians Guild. When she asked for some expert assistance, the Smithsonian put her in touch with Good, who was one of three curators for the exhibition.

They met at the museum. Later, Sullivan sent some follow-up questions by e-mail.

"The questions got answered," Good says. "The e-mails continued."

They had a lot to talk about. Sullivan has written technical books and articles on piano tuning, including early keyboard temperaments. She has a master's degree in English from Clemson University and has written two books related to her trade.

"The Family Piano" is a collection of 40 brief essays first broadcast on National Public Radio's `Performance Today' program between 1989 and 1999.

"The Seventh Dragon: The Riddle of Equal Temperament," is a book on the philosophy of piano tuning that won the Western States Book Award for creative nonfiction in 1986.

She also wrote "I Hear the Crickets Laughing," a chapbook of poems published in 1996.

So she's either a piano tuner who writes poetry or a poet who tunes pianos for a living. And her husband is either a religious studies professor who plays piano or a pianist who teaches religion for a living.

As an undergraduate, Good majored in music at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa.

"Then I sloped off into religious studies," he says, probably because of parental expectations. His parents were Presbyterian missionaries in Africa, and Good was born in Cameroon.

Good studied at Princeton Theological Seminary and at Union Theological Seminary before earning his doctorate from Columbia University in New York City. He moved west to teach at Stanford University, where he stayed until his retirement in 1991.

Good had a lifelong special interest in the biblical book of Job. He published his own translation and commentary, "In Turns of Tempest."

But he also kept playing piano, and he took a one-year sabbatical to earn a Stanford master's degree in music. A project on Johannes Brahms made him curious about what piano the composer might have used.

That led to deeper interest in the history of the instrument and eventually to a book, "Giraffes, Black Dragons and Other Pianos," which won an award from the American Musicological Society.

At present, Good is working closely with Smithsonian cultural history curator Cynthia Adams Hoover and a host of other volunteer researchers on a huge, piano-related project that he expects to keep him busy ``well past my dotage'': transcribing and annotating the handwritten diaries of William Steinway, which Steinway kept for 35 years, from 1861 until three weeks before his death in 1896.

Good was fascinated by the 1722 Cristofori piano that the Italian museum loaned to the Smithsonian for the ``Piano 300'' exhibition. There are only two other Cristofori pianos in existence, a 1720 model in New York and a 1726 model in Leipzig, Germany.

Two copies of the instrument have been built in Germany, and Good has played them both.

But being up close and personal with the 1722 model - which he is "all but certain" that Alessandro Scarlatti must have played in Italy or in Portugal - made Good want to have and play his own copy.

Without telling Sullivan, he commissioned Tom and Barbara Wolf to tackle the project.

Because they often did work for the Smithsonian, the Wolfs had access to the Cristofori piano. They studied it closely and intensively, Good said, scrutinizing tool marks and scribe lines, even x-raying the instrument.

"Tom even figured out the order in which Cristofori had done things," Good says.

The Wolfs' painstaking work on the copy, which even involved making a special tuning hammer that works only on this instrument, was interrupted by a table saw injury to Wolf's hand. The finished instrument was delivered to Eugene in January.

After the Collier House recital on Wednesday, Good will take the piano to a Las Vegas conference of the American Musical Instrument Society. Then it will go back to Virginia for a while.

The Wolfs would like to show it at the Boston Early Music Festival.

Both Good and Sullivan are already quite fond of their new old piano.

"It's not formidable; it's approachable," Sullivan says, adding that friends who have seen and heard the instrument seem charmed by it.

Although he's historically inclined, Good likes this very early design for what it is, not what it led to.

"It's not just a way station. It's different. My life has just entered a whole new era."

You can reach Paul Denison at 338-2323 or pdenison@ guardnet.com.

CONCERT PREVIEW

Free piano recital by Edwin Good

What: Music by Platti, Giustini, Seixas and Bach on the first and only copy of a 1722 Cristofori piano

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Collier House, 1170 E. 13th Ave.

CAPTION(S):

Edwin Good and his wife, Anita Sullivan, own the only copy of a 1722 Cristofori fortepiano, which Good will play in a free recital May 11 at Collier House. The piano's body is made of European poplar and the soundboard of Italian cypress. The keys are ebony, walnut and boxwood.