A device most commonly found on Flemish virginals of the (Muselar) type, but also mentioned in connection with German harpsichords, in which a sliding batten brings a series of metal hooks or wires close to the strings at one end. When the strings are plucked, they jar against the hooks or wires, producing a buzzing sound. On muselars, the arpichordum is normally provided only for the strings passing over the straight portion of the right-hand bridge, i.e. from C/E to f'. O'Brien suggests that only muselars, which pluck the strings in the middle rather than close to the left-hand bridge, provide sufficient amplitude of motion of the strings to make reliable contact with the hooks. Praetorius (Syntagma musicum, ii, 1618) describes the stop as giving a ‘harp-like resonance’, apparently likening it to the ‘bray pins’ commonly found on Renaissance harps (see Harp, §V, 1). The term arpichordum is not used to define a type of instrument, and should not be confused with Arpicordo.
For discussion of the use of such effects on plucked keyboard instruments, see Registration, §II.
G. Leonhardt: ‘In Praise of Flemish Virginals of the Seventeenth Century’, Keyboard Instruments, ed. E.M. Ripin (Edinburgh, 1971), 43–8
G.G. O'Brien: Ruckers: a Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition (Cambridge, 1990), 77–8
EDWIN M. RIPIN/DENZIL WRAIGHT