the forerunner of the piano. Before the pianoforte came along, there was the harpsichord, which excelled in showing off precision, technical brilliance, texture, and virtuosity, but was limited in emotional expressivity because the player had no control over volume. By using new technological advances, the pianoforte allowed greater emotional expression because it could play softly ("piano") or more loudly ("forte"), depending on the mood the musician wished to create. This innovation fed into the Regency and early Romantic era's preference for increasingly emotional music, as in the works of Beethoven.