# What are some piano works that use counterpiece?



## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

What are some piano works that use counterpiece?


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Perhaps you mean counterpoint?


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

LordBlackudder said:


> ... counterpiece?


As it happens, an old English term, broadly cognate with _counterpane_, a bed covering intended to go over blankets and provide a decorative focus to the bedroom ensemble. A counterpiece would usually have been a poorer relation to a counterpane - probably homemade, and fashioned from miscellaneous scraps of fabric, as opposed to being a potentially sophisticated shop-bought product.

In the nineteenth century, it became fashionable, at intimate soirees, to drape the fortepiano with a counterpane or counterpiece in order to muffle the sound, thereby avoiding the embarrassment of having the neighbours bang on the wall screaming "Stop that bleedin' Schubert!"


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