Why Did the Harpsichord Become Unpopular?

>>2967519
I listen to harpsichord music more than piano music. Gustav Leonhardt was very good. It's the only proper way to listen to Bach music.

It had been in use for many centuries already. The harpsichord player can not vary in dynamics (hard or soft): everything is equally loud.
There was the clavichord which did have variable dynamics but the instrument was incredibly soft overall, softer than a lute.
The first pianos were called 'pianaforte' or 'fortepiano', i.e. 'soft and loud' because it had a paddle which shifted the keyboard slightly so less strings would be played.
Loud/soft was very important for the prevailing stile at that time: galant and empfindsamer stil. It became rather popular among Bach's children and spread also to places like Vienna so Mozart could learn it. He actually also still played spinet/clavichord if I remember correctly.

JS Bach was probably a freemason in the last few years of his life, or at least was in contact with many of them. Definitely CPE was and he introduced him to some fellows. Mozart was a freemason too.
Perhaps the instrument spread within these circles first since Bach endorsed and supervised the development of the instrument. The first time that builder, I forgot his name but it's something like Christofori, came to him with a 'pianeforte', Bach wasn't pleased yet. Only some years later when working at the court did he approve of its developed new state.

Bach also owned two 'lautenwercken' which are believed to have been harpsichords with the body of a lute and gut strings, so it would sound similar to a lute.

Thirdly, the harpsichord family instruments were only owned by the very richest of society. Most people only had lutes. It's just that we have a lot of music for it since these bourgeois girls could not properly improvise so they had to learn little songs composed by lowly musicians.
I think it's really also the novelty of the instrument that made it so popular. Especially since mass production was less than a hundred years away and more and more people joined the middle class.

>>2967519
IIRC the harpsichord was invented before the piano, and the piano made the harpsichord obsolete because the piano is a lot more varied instrument than the harpsichord in terms of the sounds you can make

>>2967612
wow that's why it's called a piano, you just blew my mind