Harpsichord

"Hannibal Lecter: I prefer the sound and feel of the harpsichord. More alive, the music arrives like experience, sudden and entire. The piano has the quality of a memory."

"The thing about the harpsichord is, the harpsichord is known as the instrument of death because the notes die, right? You pluck them once, there's no sustainment at all. It also was adorned often so that it looked like a coffin. Whereas the instrument of life is the organ, because the organ has got this nonstop flow of air. The very first meeting I had for Hannibal, and I only had two, up in Toronto, they asked me, ‘Brian, what instrument would you put with Hannibal Lecter?’ and I said, "The harpsichord"."

"The piano had been developed in the first half of the eighteenth century as a modification of the harpsichord. The problem with the harpsichord was that pieces could only be played at a rather uniform loudness—there was no way to strike one note more loudly than its neighbors."