Clavicytherium

(Fr. clavecin vertical; Ger. Klaviziterium; It. cembalo verticale).

An upright harpsichord with a vertical soundboard. The main advantages of such an instrument are that it takes up less floor space than a normal harpsichord and the sound is projected more directly at the player. Since the jacks must move horizontally rather than vertically, it requires a complex action often involving the use of springs rather than gravity to return the jacks to their position of rest. As a result clavicytheria usually have a fairly heavy touch and unresponsive action.

The earliest known reference to a clavicytherium is in the manuscript treatise of Paulus Paulirinus of Prague (1459–63), which describes a combination of an upright harpsichord and an organ played from the same keyboard. The oldest depiction of a clavicytherium dates from about 1463 and the oldest surviving string keyboard of any kind is a clavicytherium. This instrument, probably made in Ulm in the late 15th century and now in the Donaldson Collection of the Royal College of Music, London, is 142·5 cm high and has a keyboard range of 40 notes (see illustration; see also Harpsichord, §2 (ii)). The compass is now C/E–g'', but originally (as established by Debenham) was EEFG–g''. However, the apparent E cannot have been tuned as such; instead a full diatonic bass octave C, D, E, F, G, A, B, B may have been used. The instrument has a unique and astonishingly simple action in which the key, a vertical lever and the forward-projecting jack are all assembled into a single rigid piece. When the key is depressed the entire assembly rocks forward, so that the jack (moving along the path of an arc) is forced past its string. When the key is released the assembly falls back under its own weight, returning the jack to its original position. Another early example, perhaps from around 1600, is in the Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo.

The earliest writer to use the term clavicytherium for the upright harpsichord was Sebastian Virdung (Musica getutscht, 1511), but he gave no description to accompany his crude woodcut illustration, which is a reversed rendering of an instrument with a 38-note range of FG–g''(lacking F). Stradner has argued that the instrument had metal strings. Praetorius showed a substantial example in Theatrum instrumentorum (1620; see Clavichord, fig.6) and stated that its sound was almost the same as that of a cittern or harp. A German example of the same period (in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg) has two sets of unison strings at normal pitch, and a third tuned an octave higher. There are four rows of jacks, one of which plucks one of the unison strings very close to the nut to produce a nasal tone (like a Lute stop on a harpsichord). In addition, a sliding batten fitted with leather pads can be moved to mute the sound of one of the unison strings (like a Buff stop). In this instrument a vertical arm set in the back of each key has four finger-like projections, each of which fits into a slot in one of the four jacks provided for each note. Since the connection between the jacks and this arm is not a rigid one, as in the Donaldson instrument, it is possible for the jacks to move forward and back horizontally instead of in a curved path, and it is also possible to change registers by shifting the jackslides, as one would on a harpsichord.

In the late 17th century and the 18th, clavicytheria were built throughout Europe, including Scandinavia and Great Britain. Of the 18 Italian examples known, only three are genuine clavicytheria, the remainder having been constructed from harpsichords. One of the genuine clavicytheria, in the Museo degli Antichi Strumenti Musicali in Rome, was possibly made by Cristofori (perhaps the one of 1697 that is recorded in a Medici inventory of 1700; illustrated in van der Meer, 1983, p.168). Another instrument made by Martin Kaiser in about 1675 to a similar design, probably for the Emperor Leopold I, is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (illustrated in Russell, pl.84). This has two sets of strings tuned in unison and clearly shows the influence of organ builders: the strings are arranged symmetrically with the bass strings in the centre and the treble strings at the sides, like a rank of organ pipes in mitre shape, and a Rollerboard is used to connect the keys with their corresponding jacks. Although this instrument pre-dates Cristofori’s, Kaiser worked in Venice at some time (see Luithlen), and may have met and been influenced by Cristofori there. An enormous example about 365 cm high, constructed by Nicolas Brelin in Sweden in 1741, was equipped with eight register-changing pedals. A number of handsome clavicytheria were made in Dublin in the second half of the 18th century: two by Ferdinand Weber (one undated and the other of 1764; illustrated in Russell, pls.77 and 78) use oblique stringing to achieve a symmetrical ‘pyramid’ form similar to Kaiser’s instrument but without the mechanical complexity. This design could have derived from the earliest known upright pianos, which were also pyramid-shaped (see Upright pianoforte).

Three important examples by Albert Delin (who worked in Tournai between 1750 and 1770; an instrument is illustrated in Russell, pl.41) are notable for their smoothness of action and fine tone. Delin's action uses a pivoted bell crank, the horizontal arm of which is pushed upwards by a vertical sticker resting on the back of the key; the jacks are hooked into the vertical arm of the bell crank, which is so balanced that when the key is released it brings the jacks back to the rest position without additional weights or springs. The clavicytherium has received little attention from 20th-century makers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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R. Russell: The Harpsichord and Clavichord (London, 1959, 2/1973)

V. Luithlen: Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente, i: Saitenklaviere (Vienna, 1966) [museum catalogue]

J.H. van der Meer: ‘Beiträge zum Cembalobau in deutschen Sprachgebiet bis 1700’, Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (1966), 103–34

J. Tournay: ‘A propos d’Albertus Delin, 1712-1771: petite contribution à l'histoire du clavecin’, La facture de clavecin du XVe au XVIIIe siècle: Louvain-la-Neuve 1976, 140–231

W. Debenham: ‘The Compass of the Royal College of Music Clavicytherium’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.11 (1978), 19–21

J.H. van der Meer: ‘A Contribution to the History of the Clavicytherium’, EMc, vi (1978), 247–59

E.P. Wells: ‘The London Clavicytherium’, EMc, vi (1978), 568–71

S. Howell: ‘Paulus Paulirinus of Prague on Musical Instruments’, JAMIS, v–vi (1979–80), 9–36

J.H. van der Meer: Musikinstrumente: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1983)

G. Stradner: Spielpraxis und Instrumentarium um 1500: dargestellt an Sebastian Virdungs ‘Musica Getutscht’ (Basel, 1511) (Vienna, 1983)

P. Bavington: ‘Provisional Check-List of Surviving Clavicytheria’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.39 (1985), 50–54

U. Henning: ‘Zur frühen Ikonographie des Clavicytheriums’, ‘Musik muss man machen’: eine Festgabe für Josef Mertin, ed. M. Nagy (Vienna, 1994), 325–32

D. Wraight: The Stringing of Italian Keyboard Instruments c.1500–c.1650 (diss., Queen's U. of Belfast, 1997)

EDWIN M. RIPIN/DENZIL WRAIGHT