'); the form D–g'' indicates a fully
chromatic sequence between these notes.(Dutch klavecimbel; Fr. clavecin; Ger. Cembalo, Clavicimbal, Flügel, Kielflügel; It. cembalo, clavicembalo; Lat. clavicembalum; Port. cravo; Sp. clave, clavicordio).
A stringed keyboard instrument, classified by Hornbostel and Sachs as a box zither; it is distinguished from the clavichord and the piano by the fact that its strings are plucked rather than struck, and characterized by an elongated wing shape like that of a grand piano. As in the grand piano, this shape results from the fact that the strings, growing progressively longer from treble to bass, run directly away from the player, in contrast to the oblique stringing of a spinet and the transverse stringing of a virginal. ‘Harpsichord’ is also used as a generic term (equivalent to Ger. Kielklavier or Kielinstrument) to include not only the wing-shaped instrument but also other forms such as the Clavicytherium, Spinet and Virginal. The earliest known reference to a harpsichord dates from 1397, when a jurist in Padua wrote that a certain Hermann Poll claimed to have invented an instrument called the ‘clavicembalum’; and the earliest known representation of a harpsichord is a sculpture in an altarpiece of 1425 from Minden in north-west Germany. The instrument remained in active use up to and throughout the 18th century, not only for the performance of solo keyboard music but also as an essential participant in chamber music, orchestral music and opera; in fact it retained the last of these functions after most solo keyboard music and chamber music involving a keyboard was being composed with the piano in mind. The harpsichord had almost completely fallen into disuse by about 1810; its modern revival dates from the 1880s. For a discussion of the repertory see Keyboard music, §IV; see also Continuo.
In
describing keyboards in this dictionary the following conventions have been
followed: an oblique stroke (e.g. C/E) indicates a Short
octave;
sequential note-names indicate a missing accidental (e.g. G'A'
signifies the absence of G'); the form D–g'' indicates a fully
chromatic sequence between these notes.
EDWIN M. RIPIN/HOWARD SCHOTT/JOHN KOSTER (1), DENZIL WRAIGHT (2(i), 3(iii), 4(iii)), JOHN KOSTER (2(ii), 3(ii)(a–c)), BERYL KENYON DE PASCUAL (2(iii), 3(ii)(e), 4(iv)(c)), EDWIN M. RIPIN/HOWARD SCHOTT (with G. GRANT O’BRIEN)/JOHN KOSTER (3(i)), ALPHONS HUBER (3(ii)(d), 4(iv)(b)), WILLIAM DOWD/JOHN KOSTER (4(i)), EDWIN M. RIPIN, HOWARD SCHOTT/CHARLES MOULD (4(ii)), EDWIN M. RIPIN, HOWARD SCHOTT/LANCE WHITEHEAD (4(iv)(a, d–h)), HOWARD SCHOTT, MARTIN ELSTE (5)
The heart of the harpsichord’s mechanism is the jack, a slender slip of wood (replaced by plastic in many modern instruments) that stands resting on the back of the key (fig.1a). The top of the jack has a wide vertical slot fitted with a swinging tongue, which in turn carries a plectrum of Quill, leather, plastic, or, rarely, metal. When the front of a key is depressed, the jack rises, and the plectrum is forced past the string, thereby plucking it (fig.1b). When the key is released, the jack falls, the plectrum touches the string (fig.1c) and forces the tongue to pivot backward until the plectrum can pass the string, after which a light spring (formerly made of bristle or thin brass but now often of plastic) returns the tongue forward into its original position. Meanwhile, a piece of cloth held in a slot next to the tongue makes contact with the string, damping its vibrations and silencing it. A padded bar placed overhead – the jackrail – prevents the jack from flying out of the instrument when the key is struck. In many instruments the jackrail alone limits the vertical motion of the jacks and thereby defines the depth of touch, in other instruments the depth of touch is controlled by a padded rail above the back ends of the keys or below their fronts.
This elegant and simple mechanism, though capable of producing any degree of legato or detachment of notes with great sensitivity, cannot produce any appreciable change in loudness in response to a change in the force with which the key is struck, since, regardless of force, the string is displaced virtually the same amount by the plectrum – although a few late 18th-century instruments have an extra set of jacks bearing plectra of soft materials, such as peau de buffle (buff leather), permitting some dynamic nuance. Accordingly, unless there is more than one keyboard (or unless swell louvres are placed over the strings, as in some late 18th-century English instruments; see Swell, §II), the harpsichord can produce conspicuous changes in loudness only if it has devices that can change the degree to which the plectrum extends beyond the string (thereby changing the amount the string is displaced when it is plucked), or if each key has additional jacks and strings that the player may engage or disengage. The second of these options, much the more important, is facilitated by the harpsichord’s longitudinal stringing, which permits each set of jacks to be placed in a row perpendicular to the strings, with as many rows as desired set one behind another. A set of jacks is engaged (shifted towards the strings) by a lateral movement of the slotted jackslide that supports it; the plectra of the jacks are thus positioned below the strings and will pluck them when the keys are depressed. When the set is disengaged the plectra pass the strings without plucking them.
Although some harpsichords have only a single set of strings and jacks, most have at least two sets with the jacks facing in opposite directions (see fig.1a; the strings associated with each key are usually spaced to permit the jacks to pass between them, and the closely spaced pairs of strings on such a harpsichord are not tuned to the same pitch but, rather, to adjacent notes). This arrangement permits two strings associated with a single key to be placed on a single level; but if there are more than two sets of strings, some must pass the jacks at a different level. Ordinarily no more than two of the sets are tuned to the same pitch. A third set is likely to be tuned an octave above normal pitch; a rare, fourth set an octave below; and a still rarer fifth set two octaves above. (As on organs, normal pitch is termed 8' pitch; an octave higher is 4'; an octave lower 16'; and a pitch two octaves above 8' is termed 2' pitch.)
These higher and lower pitches are best sounded by strings proportionally shorter and longer than those sounding 8' pitch; such strings are best arranged on their own bridges with the shorter ones at a lower level and the longer ones at a higher level. On a typical 18th-century harpsichord with two sets of 8' strings and one set of 4' strings (known as 2 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition), the 4' strings would be at a low level, with the wrest plank (pin block) bridge (nut) near the jacks and close to the edge of the wrest plank, and the bridge on the soundboard at an appropriate distance away. The two 8' sets would both pass over a separate, higher nut placed further from the edge of the wrest plank and a separate, higher bridge further back on the soundboard. A string plucked near its midpoint will have a more fundamental, flute-like tone than a string plucked near its end, which has a brighter tone, rich in upper partials. Thus each row of jacks yields a distinctive tone quality according to its proximity to the nut. Sometimes there is a special Lute stop (‘nasal stop’) with jacks very close to the nut, the jackslide usually being placed in a separate gap which divides the wrestplank between the 8' and 4' nuts.
The ‘scale’ of an instrument is conventionally measured as the length of the string played by the c'' key, measuring the longest of the 8' c'' strings when multiple choirs are present. For comparative purposes, string lengths other than that of c'' may be measured and their measurements converted into their equivalents at c''; for example, a measurement of the c' string would be halved to determine its c'' equivalent. Instruments in which the strings double in length for each lower octave (i.e. with the c'' equivalent lengths remaining constant) are said to have ‘Pythagorean’ scaling. Usually, so that instruments are not impracticably long, only the upper strings have Pythagorean scaling, while the bass strings are ‘foreshortened’: the c'' equivalent lengths become progressively shorter toward the lowest note. A typical 18th-century French harpsichord, for example, with a c'' string about 36 cm long, has c'' equivalent lengths of about 30 cm at c and 15 cm at F'. The comparative shortness of the lower strings is compensated for with thicker strings and different stringing materials.
Comparisons of the c'' scalings of different instruments must take into consideration the possibility of different pitch levels. Thus, if one instrument has a c'' scale of 36 cm and another a scale of 24 cm, the ratio of 24:36 (2:3) might suggest that the latter instrument was tuned a 5th higher. Alternatively, different scalings may imply that different stringing materials were used. Iron and brass were both widely used throughout the history of the harpsichord. Iron wire was a hard-drawn, comparatively pure material (without strengthening carbon, i.e. not ‘steel’ in the modern sense) and brass was of two types depending on the proportions of zinc and copper: ‘yellow brass’ (about 25–30% zinc) and ‘red-brass’ (about 10–15% zinc). An ideal string would vibrate such that all its upper partials are precise integral multiples of its fundamental frequency. Since an actual string has a certain stiffness resulting from its thickness and the elasticity of its material, its upper partials are sharp in pitch; in extreme cases the string may sound false. The higher a string is stressed, the purer the upper partials will be. It is generally assumed, therefore, that historical harpsichord makers made their scalings as long as the tensile strength of their wire would permit.
The pitch at which a string of a given length breaks is practically a constant for each material and substantially independent of diameter. The strength contributed by additional thickness is exactly offset by the additional tension necessary to bring a heavier string to the same pitch as a thinner string: the stress remains the same. In fact, because wire gains slightly in hardness and tensile strength as it is drawn thinner, a thinner string can be tuned to a slightly higher pitch than a thicker string of the same material and length.
Since the tensile strength of iron is greater than that of yellow brass, their scalings differ. Instruments at ‘normal’ 8' pitch (a' = c415) may be strung in iron with c'' about 35·5 cm long, or in yellow brass with c'' about 28·5 cm. Because the modulus of elasticity of yellow brass is about half that of iron, its tone quality is acceptable despite short scaling. Instruments scaled for iron in the treble are usually markedly foreshortened, with yellow brass in the lower part of the compass and, often, red brass – which has an even lower tensile strength and modulus of elasticity – for the lowest notes. With extreme foreshortening or for the very short scalings found in some 16' choirs, overspun strings may be used. Modern harpsichords occasionally have c'' scalings greater than 40 cm, intended for steel strings.
While the historical use of two basic scalings, one for iron, the other for brass, has been firmly established, some latitude must be admitted. Wire from different sources may have varied in tensile strength; makers may have adopted different margins of safety; instruments intended for thinner strings may have been made with longer scales; and makers may have planned scalings in integral numbers of local units of measurement, which varied from place to place. Further, some evidence suggests that in certain traditions another scaling system, with iron c'' strings about 32 cm long, was occasionally employed.
The relatively rare harpsichords with three sets of 8' strings carry them at two different levels where they pass the jacks. This is sometimes accomplished by using two bridges, with two shorter sets of brass strings on one bridge and one longer set of iron strings on another, all tuned to the same pitch. Otherwise either a stepped nut or two separate nuts are used; however, since the separation of levels is required only where the strings pass the jacks, a single bridge without a step may be used on the soundboard. On instruments with a 1 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition, each set passes over its own bridge and nut, with the 4' strings on a lower level.
The position of the tuning pins and the hitch-pins for the 4' strings raises difficulties, since if placed with those of the 8' strings (in the front part of the wrest plank and in the case liners respectively) the 4' strings would have to pass through the 8' nut and bridge and there would be an inordinate length of unused 4' string beyond the 4' bridge which would tend to make the 4' strings go out of tune easily. Accordingly, the tuning pins for the 4' strings are usually placed between the 8' and 4' nuts. 16th-century Italian harpsichords, however, had the 8' and 4' tuning pins together. 4' hitch-pins are driven into the soundboard between the 4' and 8' bridges. A strengthening bar or 4' hitch-pin rail is usually glued to the underside of the soundboard to withstand the string tension on the 4' hitch-pins. This bar also divides the soundboard into two areas; one, lying between the 4' hitch-pin rail and the curved side of the case, serves the 8' strings, while the other, between the 4' hitch-pin rail and (usually) an oblique cut-off bar, serves the 4' strings. The triangular area of the soundboard to the left of the cut-off bar is generally stiffened by transverse ribs. In some traditions there are no cut-off bars, and ribs may cross under the bridges.
A harpsichord case consists of five basic parts. Clockwise from the player’s left, these are: the spine, the long straight side at the left; the tail, a short straight piece at an acute angle to the spine; the bentside, a curving section running more or less parallel to the bridge (occasionally the bentside and tail are combined in a single S-shaped piece, yielding a curved tail rather like that of a modern grand piano); the cheekpiece, a short straight piece at the player’s right; and the bottom (‘bottom board’ or baseboard), which on all harpsichords from the 16th century to the 18th is a piece of wood that closes the instrument and thereby performs both a structural and an acoustical function. In some instruments (including all historical Italian harpsichords) the walls are attached to the edges of the bottom, while in others (as made by most north European makers) the walls are assembled first and the bottom is applied to the lower edges. The ends of the case that protrude on either side of the keyboard, from the spine on the left and the cheekpiece on the right, are known as the ‘cheeks’. The wrest plank is set between the cheekpiece and the spine, with space below it for the keyboard. Occasionally, the wrest plank is quite narrow, such that the thin layer of wood with which it is covered functions as a supplementary soundboard under the nuts. There is a space for the jackslides between the wrest plank and the belly rail (or header), a transverse member which is sometimes divided into separate upper and lower parts, with the lower part set behind the upper one to leave room for the keys to extend beyond the jacks and reach the slotted rack by which they are usually guided at the back. The upper surface of the belly rail supports the front edge of the soundboard, the other edges of which rest on liners glued to the inside of the spine, tail, bentside and cheekpiece; the 8' hitch-pins are driven into the liners along the tail and bentside. In some traditions the case walls are very thin, and the delicate instrument is kept within a thick-walled outer case. This separate ‘inner-outer’ style was sometimes simulated by ‘false-inner-outer’ construction, in which veneer and mouldings applied to the inside of thick walls mimic the appearance of a separate inner instrument.
Although the total string tension in a harpsichord is substantially less than that of a piano, it is nevertheless a considerable load for a wooden structure, especially where two or three strings are provided for each note. The cases of historical instruments are braced by numerous methods, all with the same function: to prevent the bentside, tail and wrest plank from collapsing inwards under the pull of the strings. There are four basic components, used alone or in combination. Bottom braces are occasionally very light pieces, similar to soundboard ribs, intended to stiffen the bottom board; more typically they are about 8 to 10 cm high, with their ends butted against the bentside and spine. Knees are triangular blocks glued to the bottom and to the case walls or belly rail. Diagonal struts have their upper ends set against the soundboard liners or the upper portion of the belly rail, and their lower ends toed into the bottom or occasionally into a bottom brace. Upper struts have one end bearing against the bentside or tail liner, while the other bears against the spine liner or the upper portion of the belly rail. In some instruments, the inward force of the wrest plank is transmitted to the belly rail by several narrow ‘gap spacers’ set between the jacks. A few exceptional surviving historical harpsichords have no internal framing. Many early instruments were restrung in the 19th century more heavily than was desirable, which resulted in warped cases, wrenched-out wrest planks and collapsed soundboards. Some modern harpsichords have metal frames similar to those in pianos.
15th-century representations of harpsichords from various parts of western Europe generally show short instruments with thick cases. Some do not appear to have a jackrail and may not have worked by means of the standard jacks described in §1 above. Instead they may have had one of the actions described and illustrated in the manuscript treatise of Henri Arnaut de Zwolle (fig.2). Arnaut called his harpsichord the ‘clavisimbalum’. His design probably partly describes actual constructional practice of the time; he may also have wished to give the clavisimbalum a theoretical foundation based in geometry. This mixture of approaches resulted in some inconsistencies. The design shows four types of action. The first and third are plucking mechanisms that incorporate a swinging tongue that carries the plectrum, as in 16th-century jacks; however, the part carrying the tongue is hung on an axle in a slot in the wrestplank (first type) or is a large pivoting lever (third type). The small harpsichord played by an angel in Manchester Cathedral, England (1465–8), is a convincing example of this type of jack action without a covering jackrail. The second mechanism probably plucks, but without a swinging tongue. The fourth (used in the Dulce melos) strikes an undamped string and was a forerunner of the piano mechanism. Three of Arnaut's mechanisms are without dampers; this may have been typical of 15th-century actions. Bird quill was probably used as a plectrum material, and possibly also metal. Arnaut's design has a compass of B–a'' and can be made with either one or two registers of strings; unusually, the second is aligned above the first, the strings being plucked successively by the same jack. Arnaut's and other 15th-century harpsichords would have sounded at a high pitch, from about a 4th to an octave above the 8' pitch of the 16th century.
Harpsichord, §2: The Renaissance
Although no 15th-century Italian harpsichords or representations of them are known to have survived, it has been shown that Italian instrument makers were building harpsichords by 1452 at the latest (Esch, H1979). Documents, manuscripts of Italian keyboard music (including organ music) and intarsias suggest that a compass of FGA–g''a'' (or –c''' or –f''') was in use in the second half of the 15th century. An intarsia of around 1520 in the choir-stalls of Genoa Cathedral shows a single-register harpsichord with a compass of FGA–g''. Given the early date of the intarsia and the compass, it is plausible that it also represents the type of harpsichord made in the late 15th century. It has a bentside with two curves, a feature otherwise known only in virginals.
45 Italian harpsichords are known to survive from the period before 1590 – a greater number than from any other region. Although there were some stylistic differences between harpsichords from different towns on the Italian peninsula, broad similarities justify the term ‘Italian’, even though there was no political unity on the peninsula until the 19th century. Slightly more than half of the surviving 16th-century harpsichords were made in Venice. Guild regulations were less restrictive there than in some places (e.g. Germany). To judge by the number of Venetian instruments that made their way to other parts of Italy, the reputation of Venetian makers was considerable. Alfonso II d'Este of Ferrara had at least six Venetian harpsichords, and Raimund Fugger (1528–69) in Augsburg had five. More 16th-century string keyboard instruments survive by Domenico da Pesaro, who was active in Venice, than by any other maker, and seven of his 15 extant original instruments are harpsichords. Also in Venice, Alessandro and Vito Trasuntino enjoyed good reputations, and Baffo, Celestini and Francesco Padovano made instruments that show high quality work. Most evidence of 16th-century harpsichord making comes from Venetian instruments. Although several 16th-century virginals from Milan survive, no Milanese harpsichord from this period is known. A group of harpsichords has been recognized as coming from Naples, an important 16th-century musical centre. Harpsichords from Florence and Rome also survive.
The characteristically slender case shape of Italian instruments results partly from the practice of doubling the string length at each octave down to f (sometimes to c), but also from the use of longer bass strings than in other traditions. The case sides were usually not so deep as in instruments from other countries. Little is known about the design and layout procedures used by Italian makers. The string lines, plucking points and nuts (8' and 4') were sometimes marked on the baseboard, but the fact that such marks are usually lacking suggests the use of standardized designs and templates. Some 15th-century design traditions survived well into the 16th-century. An early 16th-century Neapolitan harpsichord (no.175, Donaldson Collection, Royal College of Music, London) has string lengths that double at each octave when measured between the plucking points and bridge; this system corresponds to the design described by Arnaut de Zwolle around 1440. The case proportions (excluding the visible part of the keyboard) of two octave harpsichords by Domenico da Pesaro (1543, Musée de la Musique, Paris; 1546, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna) are the same as that of the clavisimbalum that Arnaut described.
Harpsichord case-slides were usually thin (4–6 mm) and made of cypress, although maple was occasionally used, particularly in Naples. Elegant mouldings at the top and bottom of the case, typical of Italian harpsichords, have proved an important means of attributing unsigned work. These thin-cased instruments were rarely painted but were provided with a separate, decorated outer case, and are therefore often referred to as ‘inner-outer’ harpsichords. Supports for outer cases survive in a variety of forms, some with simple, turned baluster legs, others carved, painted and gilded. The thin cheeks at either side of the keyboard were reinforced by gluing on a second piece of wood as thick as the case; these were then cut to scroll or other shapes, never being being left square or slanted. Inlaid stripes of contrasting colours, forming geometrical patterns of Arab origin, were used on the nameboard and the inside case above the soundboard in the best Venetian instruments. Fine examples are the 1574 Baffo (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) and an unsigned harpsichord (no.1883.718, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Schloss Köpenick, Berlin). The nameboard, made of wood as thin as the case and removable, was sometimes panelled with mouldings. The maker's name, if it appeared, was usually in small Roman capital letters. Internal bracing usually comprised two to three stiffening rails nailed and glued to the bottom boards; triangular blocks (called knees) maintained the sides perpendicular to the bottom boards. One to three knees on the spine side and five to seven on the bentside was a common arrangement. Since the case sides were thin they were glued to the sides of the baseboard for rigidity, rather than to the top surface of the baseboard as in other countries. In a few south Italian (probably Neapolitan) instruments the baseboard is about 5 mm above the bottom edge of the case sides, presumably so that it is freer to vibrate. Diagonal struts from the bentside liner to the bottom boards were also used, either with knees or, in some Venetian harpsichords, as the only support for the sides. A decorative rose was often set into the soundboard, made usually of three or four layers of thin wood veneer or sometimes of parchment, in gothic or geometrical designs. A few instruments had three or four roses, echoing illustrations of 15th-century harpsichords from elsewhere in Europe and Arnaut de Zwolle's manuscript.
Keyboards were usually made of quartered beech; maple was used in some south Italian harpsichords. The end of the key-lever was guided by a wooden tongue in a vertical slot on the rack. The travel of the keys was arrested by cloth padding on the front key-frame rail or by the jacks reaching the padding on the jackrail, or probably sometimes by a combination of the two. Although no unaltered action survives, the amount of sharp projecting above the natural-key covers indicates a fairly shallow depth of touch (5–6 mm) in many instruments. The natural keys were usually covered with boxwood, or with ivory in especially fine instruments; only rarely were dark woods such as ebony used. Sharp keys were normally made of black-stained pear wood topped with a thin slip of ebony.
Italian jacks were usually of a pear-like wood and about 5 mm thick, thicker than those used in other countries, adding weight to compensate for their short length. Small springs of flat brass strip were used rather than boar-bristle. The centrally-placed tongue enabled a damper slot to be cut on both sides. Most instruments had quill plectra and a one-piece boxslide about 2·5 to 5 cm deep. These were often made by gluing small blocks of wood to a thin strip, with the correct spacing for the thickness of the jacks, and then gluing another strip on the open side. The jackrail was usually decorated with the same mouldings as employed on the case. To hold it in place, slotted blocks were glued to the inside of the case. Many harpsichords (mostly from Venice) had the line of the jacks running not at 90° to the long side, but at such an angle that the jackslides were nearer the front of the instrument at the treble end. Makers may have chosen this arrangement because it reduces the amount of curve in the bentside (if other factors of scaling and plucking points are unchanged).
Many 16th-century harpsichords have cypress soundboards, usually made of quartered timber, but spruce and what appears to be fir were also used. Maple, whose mechanical characteristics are similar to those of cypress, appears in some Neapolitan harpsichords. Cypress was frequently used for the bridge when the soundboard was of cypress; walnut and beech were also employed. The bridges were always parallel-sided with a moulding on the top edge; the cross-section was normally smaller than in instruments from other countries. The height of the bridge was usually reduced towards the treble. Double-pinning with a high hitch-pin rail was not used in 16th-century Italian harpsichords. Instead of the sawn or bent curve of the bridge in the bass found in other countries, Italian harpsichords usually had a small piece mitred at an angle to the main bridge for the last few notes. Nuts were usually of the same material and finished to the same dimensions as the bridge, which has enabled the detection of many later alterations. They were either fixed on a straight line, or in a curve with its inside facing the jacks. A curve in the opposite direction results from later shortening of the strings. With the scales and plucking points chosen by Italian makers, the two nuts in a 1 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition lay quite close to each other, making it impractical to locate the 4' tuning pins between the 4' and 8' nuts (the commonest practice outside Italy). Instead, holes were drilled through the 8' nut so that the 4' strings could reach their tuning pins at the edge of the wrestplank. One of the few harpsichords of this type to have retained its original 8' nut is by Francesco Padovano (1561; Deutsches Museum, Munich). The 4' hitch-pins were sometimes simply driven into the soundboard and secured with a drop of glue. This practice is only possible with a relatively dense wood such as cypress (not with spruce or fir), but thin 4' hitch-pin rails glued to the soundboard were also used. The 8' strings were hitched to the soundboard liner in the conventional way.
The nut was placed on (or near) solid timber in all known 16th-century Italian harpsichords and does not contribute to the audible vibrations. Some earlier sources incorrectly interpreted the cypress veneer (c6 mm thick) that is often found on wrestplanks as being an additional soundboard.
Ribbing systems have been found with three or four crossbars running at an angle from the spine towards the front of the instrument and crossing under the bridge, where they are usually undercut to leave the soundboard free. Others have a cut-off bar, with or without additional crossbars. Some harpsichords seem to have been made without any bars at all. The impossibility of access to the inside of many instruments makes it difficult to establish how rigidly makers followed these systems; exceptions can be found. These barring systems are found in Italian harpsichords from the 16th century to the 18th; no feature can be categorically assigned to one period, and no specific conclusions can be drawn about the sound of a harpsichord simply from the type of barring used.
The point at which a string is plucked is important in determining the character of the instrument's sound. When the plucking point is near the nut (close plucking) the sound is nasal; nearer the middle of the string (centre plucking) it is rounder. In Italian harpsichords of all periods the plucking point of the back 8' register (furthest from the player) lay at close to a third of the string length at c''. At the extreme treble the plucking point was nearer the middle of the string. In the bass the plucking point was, in order to avoid over-long key lengths, relatively close to the nut. Italian harpsichords with a 1 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition had the 8' in the back register with the jacks plucking to the left. 21 examples of this disposition are known from before 1600. A comparison between this arrangement and that of Ruckers's harpsichords (see §3(i) below) reveals a basic difference of design, and hence of sound: Ruckers harpsichords have the 8' plucking to the right and in the front register, giving a more nasal sound. The Italian harpsichord is a little sweeter, and in 1 × 8' instruments the 8' register was generally in the same position and had the same plucking point as in the disposition with 8' and 4'.
Italian harpsichords are typically described as having a bold sound with a more pronounced attack than in other harpsichords, but this judgement has chiefly arisen from listening to brass-strung 17th- or 18th-century harpsichords. Since practically every 16th-century Italian harpsichord has been modified in some way that affects tone, even the few playable examples are not a reliable guide to how these instruments would originally have sounded. Moreover, most 16th-century harpsichords were intended for iron stringing (see below); iron-strung instruments tend to have a more brilliant sound with a longer decay time than brass-strung ones. Because the majority of the harpsichords that survive from before 1600 were made in Venice, with only a few from elsewhere in Italy, it is not possible to generalize about regional differences in harpsichord tone.
Although a number of 16th-century harpsichords now have two 8' registers, many of these have had a register added to what was originally a 1 × 8' disposition. An example is the harpsichord of 1521 by Jerome of Bologna (Victoria and Albert Museum, London; see Hieronymus Bononiensis), previously thought to be the oldest surviving harpsichord. This status is now held by an instrument (fig.3) inscribed as being started on 18 September 1515 by Vincentius. It too probably had a single 8' register, with a compass of FGA–g'''a''' or perhaps C/E–f'''. Since the majority of 1 × 8', 1 × 4'; harpsichords were built in Venice the 4' stop might appear to be a Venetian invention, but the paucity of evidence from other towns imposes caution. In any case, given the prevalence of 15th-century instruments at 4' pitch it may be more accurate to say that an 8' stop was added. Many 16th-century Venetian harpsichords had their 1 × 8', 1 × 4' dispositions altered to 2 × 8' after about 1630 (see §3(iv) below). The 1574 Baffo is one such instrument. Later scholarship recognized that of 50 harpsichords known from before 1600 only eight were made with two 8' registers and nine with a single 8' register. The earliest dated 2 × 8' specification was built by Domenico da Pesaro in 1570. It is likely that the four ‘gravicembali doppi’ used in Florence in 1565 at the wedding celebrations for Francesco I de' Medici were 2 × 8' harpsichords. The earliest known 2 × 8' harpsichord (signed ‘Bortolus’) was made probably in the 1540s for the court of Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. An unusual type of 2 × 8' harpsichord had the jacks facing each other on either side of a narrow-spaced (3 mm) pair of strings (e.g. Celestini, 1569; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto). This required an unsual S-shaped end to the key levers. Both registers had strings of almost identical length; the system may have been intended to improve tuning stability (Wraight, H1993; Lee, A1996 and A1997). Although many instruments were built in the 15th century at 4' pitch, only two 16th-century octave harpsichords are known, both made by Domenico da Pesaro (mentioned above).
A
discussion of compasses must take into account the alterations that obscure the
original condition of many instruments, first noted by Barnes (in Ripin,
A1971). Only one of the known 16th-century Italian harpsichords has not had its
compass, disposition or scale altered (Wraight, H1997). The compasses described
here as the original ones are mostly not the present ones. Around 1500,
harpsichord compasses probably still began with FGA, that is, lacking F and G. These compasses may have
reached as high as f''', as in the Urbino intarsia clavichord of around
1476 (see Clavichord, fig.3), or
only to a'' (probably without g'') or c'''. An intarsia of a virginal (probably
made in 1496 by Lorenzo da Pavia) in the grotta of Isabella d'Este's
study in Mantua shows a compass of C/E–c''', which could
also have been used for harpsichords at this time. In the 16th century the most
common compass for harpsichords or virginals was C/E–f'''.
The C/E–c''' compass was used in only a third of surviving
harpsichords. An early harpsichord with an exceptionally wide range and low
pitch is the 1579 Baffo (Musée de la Musique, Paris), which originally had a
compass of C/E–c'''', although the sounding range was G'–g'''.
Chromatic bass octaves were apparently not used before 1600 and were rare
thereafter. It is unlikely that harpsichords were made with a compass of G'/B'–c'''
before 1600, although several instruments, previously C/E–f''',
were later modified to this range (e.g. the 1574 Baffo in fig.4 below). A
compass of G'/A'–c''' was known from the 1630s and was
common towards the end of the 17th century, but probably was not used in the
16th century. The inventory dated 1700 of Medici instruments lists a
harpsichord of 1538 made by Domenico da Pesaro with a 50-note compass of G'/A'–a'',
but this may have been the result of an alteration of a 50-note C/E–f'''
compass.
Temperaments
of the 15th century to the 17th (see Temperaments, §§1–5) often gave chromatic notes
that were not enharmonically equivalent (e.g. G or A
, which were not at the same pitch); to provide
keyboards with the missing notes, extra chromatic keys (usually D and A) were sometimes added. This practice seems
to have originated in Italy, where organs were furnished with at least one
split key in some octaves as early as 1468 (Wraight and Stembridge, H1994).
Although there was interest in this approach in other countries, such keyboards
are found mostly in Italian harpsichords and virginals beginning about 1620.
The earliest surviving harpsichord made with split keys for D/E and G/A was built for the court of Alfonso II d'Este at
Ferrara around 1570 (no.1883.718, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Schloss Köpenick,
Berlin). For discussion of the most important experiments with enharmonic
keyboards, see Enharmonic keyboard.
Detailed studies to determine the original pitches of Italian harpsichords began in the 1960s. Ascertaining their pitch is essential to understanding their musical function. Although many instruments were at 8' pitch or its octave, some others were a fourth higher or lower than 8'; the purpose of such instruments and how they combined with other instruments is still a matter for study. Pitch is related to string length and also whether the instrument is strung with brass or iron wire: the string material imparts a specific timbre to the tone. The alterations that have been made to surviving instruments have tended to complicate discussions about pitch. Italian string lengths in virginals and harpsichords ranged from about 15 cm to 42 cm measured at c'' (the short end of this range mostly being small virginals), but the usual range for 8' instruments was about 25·5 cm to 36 cm. Thomas and Rhodes (1967) suggested that iron wire, which permits a higher pitch, was used for instruments with longer scales and brass for those with shorter ones; Barnes (1968; in Ripin, A1971; Barnes, H1971) argued that brass wire was used for all instruments and that pitches varied among instruments in proportion with string lengths. Later scholarship provides better data about the original scales of many instruments. It might at first appear that the wide range of string lengths among instruments allowed for considerable latitude of pitch, particularly because it is possible to tune a string over a range of pitches below its breaking point and still produce an acceptable tone. Wraight's work (Early Keyboard Journal, H2000), however, suggests that among 16th-century instrument makers in Venice (where the majority of surviving instruments were made) a range of 8' pitches (a' = c440–490) was in general use. It appears that these makers regularly and accurately used the same scales, with closely defined string lengths; there was agreement on this not only within individual workshops but also among different makers. Some later modifications to 16th-century instruments show that makers considered it desirable to alter the scale of an instrument even when changing its pitch by only a semitone.
There is clear evidence that 18th-century makers such as Cristofori, Ferrini and Solfanelli used both iron and brass wire to string some of their instruments, and that a ratio of nearly 5:6 for the lengths of brass wire and iron wire at the same pitch was consistently employed (O'Brien, A1981, and Wraight, H1997). The range of scales found before 1600 would seem also to allow for the use of either brass or iron wire, and documentary sources establish that both were used; the problem is to identify the stringing material for each individual instrument. In general, 16th-century Italian instrument makers seem to have preferred iron strings regardless of instrument type, size or compass; in any case, the stringing material of chamber keyboard instruments in this period was not exclusively linked to compass or scale. Most 16th-century harpsichords originally had c'' at about 30 to 35 cm. Many of these instruments had a 4' stop and a compass of C/E–f'''; available evidence indicates that both harpsichords and virginals with scales of this length were intended for iron strings. Galilei, in his Dialogo della musica antica e della moderna (1581), suggested that the ‘gravicembalo’ had iron strings in the treble and brass in the bass, although he did not specify how far into the bass the iron stringing extended. The scale design of these harpsichords would require brass wire only for the last few notes and implies that iron-strung, long-scaled harpsichords would have stood within the normal 8' pitch range. (The name gravicembalo does not, as it might appear, indicate a low-pitched instrument at this period; it might originally – around 1500 – have meant a harpsichord at 8' pitch as compared to the prevailing 4' pitch of chamber keyboard instruments of the time.)
A few harpsichords have a scale with c'' at about 30 cm, but are without a 4' stop and have compasses that do not reach to f'''. The Italian tradition of scale design indicates that these were also intended for iron strings; like virginals with the same scale length, they were pitched a tone above those instruments where c'' is at 33 cm. Some harpsichords with very long scales, c'' being at 41 to 47 cm (e.g. the instruments by Baffo, 1574 and 1579, and Francesco Padovano, 1561, mentioned above), would have been pitched a 4th lower than those with c'' at 30 to 35 cm, even if strung with iron wire. Harpsichords with short scales, where c'' is at 27 to 29 cm, might at first appear to be intended for brass wire at normal 8' pitch. Wraight's analysis of the scale design, including the bass strings, implies that all such instruments were probably intended for the higher 8' pitch (a' = c520) with iron wire. Examples are the 1521 Hieronymus Bononiensis instrument (discussed above) and the ‘Rigunni’, probably of 1584 (Stearns Collection, Ann Arbor, Michigan). There seem to be a few harpsichords that were pitched a 4th above 8' pitch if iron stringing is assumed (e.g. Celestini, 1608, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Celestini, 1596, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto). Octave pitch, for example in the harpsichords of 1543 and 1546 made by Domenico da Pesaro, was the highest pitch in normal use in the 16th century.
The coordination and standardization in scale length among Renaissance harpsichord makers in Venice need not imply that performance pitch was as well organized; there were enough intermediate sizes of instrument that pitch incompatibilities in performance could easily have arisen. A striking feature of many Renaissance Italian compasses is that they end on either c''' or f'''. Some scholars of the 1960s linked this with scaling, suggesting that harpsichords and virginals ending at f''' tended to have longer scales and were pitched a 4th lower than those ending at c'''. It is now clear, however, that most of these instruments sounded at 8' pitch and that the compass ending on f''' simply reflects the Italian tradition of extending the musical range only in steps of a 4th (or 5th) and much less frequently by individual notes (e.g. from c''' to d'''). The high f''', sounding a high pitch, would have facilitated the performance of music at octave pitch (printed music rarely went into this range).
Harpsichord, §2: The Renaissance
15th-century documentary evidence suggests that string keyboard instruments were first developed in northern Europe. The oldest surviving plucked string keyboard instrument, a Clavicytherium of about 1480 (Royal College of Music, London), was made in Germany. Most surviving 16th-century string keyboard instruments, however, are Italian; and the earliest known from northern Europe, a harpsichord made by Hans Müller in Leipzig in 1537 (Museo degli Strumenti Musicali, Rome; fig.4) and a virginal made by Joes Karest in Antwerp in 1548 (Instruments Museum, Brussels Conservatory; for illustration see Virginal, fig.2), share many characteristics of Italian instruments made decades earlier, such as thin case sides surrounded by applied mouldings. It was thought (Ripin, A1971) that the style of Müller and Karest was derived from Italian models, but it now seems more likely that 16th-century Italian harpsichord-making traditions had origins in 15th-century north European practices. The German clavicytherium of about 1480, which except for its upright form probably resembles a normal harpsichord of the period, anticipates several characteristics of 16th-century Italian harpsichords: thin case sides attached to the edges of the bottom board (the back in the clavicytherium), scrolled cheeks, a very acute angle at the tail and a separate outer case. The clavicytherium also resembles the clavisimbalum described by Arnaut de Zwolle about 1440 (fig.2 above): both had non-Pythagorean scaling (see §1 above), a relatively shallow space (5 cm in the clavicytherium) between the soundboard and the bottom board, and multiple roses in the soundboard. The lower guide in the instruments of Müller and Karest, consisting of a thin plate of wood covering the entire area over the portion of the keyboard behind the nameboard, may be a vestige of the clavisimbalum’s bottom board (which was placed above the keyboard in one of Arnaut’s designs), while Müller’s key-guiding system, with the distal end of the key lever forked for a vertical pin held by the back rail, is the same as that in the clavicytherium. Karest’s instruments have multiple roses and use the proportions that Arnaut specified for his clavichord. The simplest explanation for these and other correspondences is that 16th-century traditions in both Italy and northern Europe were separate branches of an earlier northern tradition. This does not, of course, preclude the possibility of subsequent Italian influences on Northern practice.
Of a small number of surviving 16th-century keyboard instruments from northern Europe, about 20 are virginals; only two securely dated before 1590 are harpsichords. Documentary sources are scant, and north European depictions of harpsichords are rare compared to representations of clavichords and virginals. It is evident, however, that the major traditions of north European harpsichord making became firmly established during the 16th century, although knowledge about such details as string scaling and case construction must be derived primarily from virginals. The Müller harpsichord of 1537 was made in a style distinct from that of Italy. The bottom board is only 8 mm thick; it is attached to the lower edges of the sides, which are 7 to 8 mm thick and of softwood veneered with Hungarian ash. The soundboard extends to the nameboard and has a separate mortise to guide each jack. Because the wrest plank is only about 5 cm wide, the nut is on active soundboard. Some details of the original disposition and scaling are obscured by later alterations. It was certainly made with two sets of strings and three registers, one of them a nasal (lute) stop very close to the nut. The original stop-changing mechanism (consisting probably of movable lower registers placed over the oversized mortises in the lower guide) is missing, but there are holes for knobs to project through the cheek, including one probably for an Arpichordum stop. The keyboard, originally CD–g''a'', could be shifted to change the sounding pitch by a whole tone (see Transposing keyboard). There appear to have been two bridges and two sets of strings a 4th apart (Koster, F1996). Müller’s scaling is foreshortened in the bass, more like that of 15th-century instruments than the typical Italian harpsichord scaling, which is Pythagorean almost to the lowest note. The foreshortened scaling may imply the use of iron strings in the treble and brass in the bass; it is also related to the reverse curve of the bridge in the bass and the straightness of the bentside from its midpoint to the tail. The ungainliness of the instrument’s outline in comparison with Italian harpsichords, however, arises largely from the added width (about 7·5 cm) required by the shifting keyboard and the short length associated with scaling for a high pitch.
Like the Müller harpsichord, the two surviving virginals made by Karest (1548 and 1550) have moderately thin case sides outlined with applied mouldings, a plate-like lower guide and foreshortened scaling. Although their absolute pitch levels are disputable, the instrument of 1550 is the larger and was probably tuned a 4th lower than the other (the f'' string in the larger instrument being roughly the same length as the c'' in the smaller). Karest and Müller may have applied the putative archaic principle that string lengths, at least in the treble, should be equivalent to the speaking lengths of organ pipes of the same pitch; that is, they may have used low-stress iron scalings, so that an instrument tuned to normal 8' pitch would have a c'' string of about 32 cm. Karest’s 1548 virginal would thus have sounded approximately a semitone above modern pitch. Some later German and Austrian instruments, stylistically similar to Müller’s and Karest’s, used such scalings (Kukelka, F1994).
Except for instruments made in the Low Countries after about 1575, most north European harpsichord making before the 18th century has stylistic affinities with Müller’s and Karest’s works. There is documentary evidence that instruments by Karest and other Antwerp makers were sent to Germany during the 16th century, which may have transmitted some of their traditions; or Müller’s and Karest’s instruments may simply represent a style that emerged gradually throughout northern Europe, spread partly perhaps by organ builders, who were necessarily itinerant and who also made string keyboard instruments. The term ‘international style’ has been applied to this group of tendencies and techniques, which include relatively thin case sides, plate-like lower guides, nuts placed on resonant soundboard, light 4' hitch-pin rails, foreshortened scalings and provision for a variety of tone colours. Although most surviving harpsichords made in this tradition, which extended from France to Sweden and from England to Austria, date from after 1600, a widespread inclination to make complex instruments is evident in early inventories. The 1566 Fugger inventory (see Smith, C1980), for example, includes an English harpsichord with several registers, an instrument made in Cologne with two keyboards for two performers, and one from the Netherlands with four keyboards for four performers.
Virginals with thick case sides and long iron-string scaling in the upper register (c'' = c36–38 cm) made in Antwerp about 1580 by Hans Bos, Hans Ruckers and others show that the basic style practised by the Ruckers family and other Antwerp makers throughout the next century was already well established. Together with an anonymous virginal dated 1568 (in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London), these instruments show the development of the layout and internal construction of muselars and spinetten. Unfortunately, no well-preserved Antwerp harpsichords survive from this period, when harpsichord making presumably underwent analogous developments. Some idea of a transitional style of the 1560s, however, is provided by a harpsichord made in London in 1579 by Lodewijk Theeus (ii), who became a member of the Antwerp Guild in 1561 but had emigrated to London by 1568. Although some of its features, such as the use of oak for the case, the chromatic compass in the bass and perhaps the 2 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition, may be regarded as English, others presumably reflect the Antwerp style of the mid-1560s (Koster, D1980). As in the Müller harpsichord, the rear portion of the bentside is straight and the soundboard, mortised to serve as an upper guide for the jacks, extends to the nameboard, so that the nuts are on active soundboard. Because the wrest plank is narrow, the 4' wrest pins are grouped with the 8' pins, and the 4' strings pass through holes in the 8' nut. The 4' hitch-pin rail is exceptionally light in comparison with those of later Antwerp harpsichords. The case sides are about 13·5 mm thick, and the lid is hinged to the spine. Mouldings applied to the interior of the walls give the illusion of a thin-cased inner instrument inside a massive outer case. The scaling, with the longer of the two c'' strings about 35·6 cm, is foreshortened in the bass. The pitch, estimated from a pipe in the organ with which the harpsichord was combined shortly after it was made, is about a semitone below modern pitch. While the disposition of Theeus’s harpsichord is different in detail from that of Müller’s, the intention of both makers must have been to provide a wealth of tone colour. Since Theeus probably placed his 4' jacks in the central register, the 8' stops, with widely separated plucking points, would have been quite different in timbre. Stop knobs at the front of the instrument moved the lower guides to change the registration. (Movable lower guides, with the soundboard used as a stationary upper guide, were apparently also used by Müller and may have been a common north European characteristic.) A set of large bent pins in the bridge was evidently intended as a permanently engaged arpichordum stop for the shorter set of 8' strings. Although the later standard Antwerp harpsichord disposition (1 × 8', 1 × 4') is decidedly less colouristic than the dispositions of Müller and Theeus, a relish for varied timbres is still evident in the development of muselars, spinetten and mother-and-child virginals, which can be coupled together to provide an 8' plus a 4' registration. In view of these it seems possible that harpsichords with complex dispositions were made in Antwerp before Ruckers. The earliest extant Antwerp harpsichords, made about 1590, are, however, nearly identical to the standard Ruckers instruments of the 17th century in disposition and layout. They differ structurally from the Theeus harpsichord, most importantly in that the nuts are placed on a solid wrest plank and the provision of a much heavier 4' hitch-pin rail.
During
the 16th century north European makers began to build harpsichords that were
wider to allow larger keyboard compasses, and longer to accommodate longer,
lower-pitched strings. The presumably typical compass described by Sebastian
Virdung in 1511 was FG–g''. As late as the 1570s some instruments
were still being made with FGA–g''a'', commonly used in organs. C/E–g''a''
had become customary in Antwerp by the 1540s and is found even in some
instruments made there in the 1590s. Karest’s 1548 virginal, however, already
had C/E–c''' which remained usual on the Continent well into the 17th
century. The Theeus harpsichord (C–c'''), as well as an English
depiction of a virginal dating from 1591 and the use of low accidentals in
English keyboard music of the late 16th century, all indicate that the
chromatic bass octave (sometimes lacking C or perhaps with the apparent C key tuned to A') was a
characteristic feature of English harpsichords.
The German clavicytherium of around 1480 was probably tuned about a 4th above 8' pitch, and the Müller harpsichord of 1537, even at the lowest level afforded by its transposing devices, was undoubtedly designed for a high pitch. The Karest virginal of 1550, however, could not possibly have been tuned higher than 8' pitch and may have been significantly lower. By the end of the century, harpsichords with two keyboards, one at 8' pitch, the other a 4th lower, had been developed in Antwerp. The earliest dated survival (Händel-Haus, Halle) was made in the Ruckers workshop in 1599, but two anonymous examples (Instruments Museum, Brussels Conservatory) may date from the 1580s. In all three instruments, before later alterations, the low-pitch keyboard had a compass of C/E–d'''. Instruments at high pitch continued to be made; the tradition of making instruments at various high and low pitches, seen most systematically in the work of the Ruckers family, persisted through the mid-17th century.
Some 16th-century German inventories hint at the existence of harpsichords with two manuals, although the generic term ‘instrument’ might refer to mother-and-child virginals or rectangular instruments with keyboards for two players at different sides of the case. Even if the instruments were wing-shaped harpsichords, the two keyboards may have been at different pitches, as in the transposing doubles made in Antwerp. An ‘instrument with two ivory keyboards, purchased in Frankfurt an der Oder’ listed in a Dresden court inventory of 1593 (transcribed in Fürstenau, C1872), however, have been a true non-transposing two-manual harpsichord, since mother-and-child instruments are described explicitly in the same source. Given the evident north European fondness for contrasting tone colours in harpsichords and the model provided by organs with multiple keyboards, it would be remarkable if non-transposing two-manual harpsichords had never been made during this period.
Harpsichord, §2: The Renaissance
The harpsichord does not appear in Spanish iconography until the late 15th century but documentary references date back to the mid-15th. Juce Albariel, known as the Moor of Zaragoza, was described in 1465 as a maker of lutes, clavichords and instruments. He may have been responsible for a clavicimbalo in a black case inventoried in Zaragoza in 1469. Zaragoza was a notable centre of keyboard instrument making in the late 15th century and the early 16th, its most famous representative being another Moor, Mahoma (Joan) Mofferiz, who made instruments for royalty and the nobility, including a claviorgan with both gut- and wire-strung registers. In Seville, Maestro Enrique was building clavicimbanos in 1470, while before 1502 the Sevillian carpenters' guild required apprentice luthiers to learn how to make a clavizimbano.
Evidence for harpsichord making in the 16th century is entirely documentary. The richest source is the inventory of instruments belonging to Philip II (reigned 1556–98). His largest clavicordio (i.e. a plucked keyboard instrument; see Kenyon de Pascual, I1992) was about 223 cm long and the smallest (a triangular instrument) only about 42 cm. Ebony and maple are the woods most frequently mentioned in the inventory, although a small instrument (c55·5 cm long) made by the Moor of Zaragoza was of inlaid walnut. Many of the king's instruments may not have been made by Spaniards. Following the installation of the Habsburg dynasty on the Spanish throne with the succession of Charles I (Charles V) in 1516, instruments and instrument builders were brought to Spain from the southern Low Countries, while there were close ties with southern Italy and Milan, which were Spanish possessions. One might, therefore, expect some Spanish harpsichords to have shown features found in Flemish and Italian instruments.
Harpsichord making during this period may be divided into three major groups. One of these comprises an ‘international style’, practised with regional variations throughout most of northern Europe and perhaps also in Spain. Instruments of this group have many of the characteristics observed in 16th-century north European instruments (see §2(ii) above). Another major stylistic group, which by the final decades of the 16th century was already distinct as an outgrowth of the first group, was centred in the Low Countries under the dominant influence of the Ruckers family. The third major style of harpsichord making, largely separate from the first two, was that practised in Italy.
(ii) Transalpine Europe outside the Low Countries.
Harpsichord, §3: c1590 to c1700
The development of the harpsichord in the Low Countries during the late 16th- and 17th-centuries harpsichord of the Low Countries is inevitably associated with the work of the Ruckers family, a dynasty that dominated Antwerp harpsichord building for a century beginning in 1579, and whose instruments continued in use (sometimes radically rebuilt) throughout Europe as long as harpsichords were commonly played. In addition to a wide variety of virginals, the Ruckers workshops produced single-manual harpsichords of several different sizes, double-manual harpsichords and rectangular instruments consisting of a single- or double-manual harpsichord with an octave virginal built into the space beside the tail and played from one side of the rectangular case. Of these, the most common seems to have been a single-manual instrument approximately 183 cm long and 71 cm wide, with one 8' and one 4' register, and a buff stop, consisting of leather pads carried on a sliding batten, for the 8'. The range of these instruments was almost invariably four octaves, C/E–c''', although a few surviving examples originally had fully chromatic basses and sometimes extended to d''' in the treble. By the mid-17th century the Couchets, heirs of the Ruckers, made instruments of this type with a chromatic bass octave, and even with a keyboard extending chromatically down to F' and sometimes with a 2 × 8' disposition. Documents show that the Couchets also sometimes gave their instruments the more modern 2 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition, although no surviving instrument shows evidence of this. A late instrument, probably by Joseph Joannes Couchet (c1680; in the Nydahl Collection, Stockholm) had a compass from F'–d'''e''', only one note short of the five-octave compass common by the mid-18th century.
The
tone of a two-register Ruckers harpsichord differs appreciably from that of an
Italian instrument of the time, in having a more sustained brilliance and a
somewhat less pronounced attack. The balanced differentiation in timbre
produced by the gradual change in plucking-point from a third of the string
length in the extreme treble to about a tenth in the bass is adequate for
distinguishing contrapuntal lines but not so pronounced as to prevent
projecting a homogeneous sound in homophonic contexts; the 4' register has a
pleasant sound in its own right and is usable as a solo stop (as most 4'
registers on historic harpsichords are not) and when combined with the 8' lends
a marked brilliance and carrying power to the ensemble. A buff stop can be used
to damp the higher overtones of the 8' strings, producing a muted pizzicato
effect. This buff stop was normally split between f' and f' enabling either the
treble or bass to be damped and contrasted with the sound of the undamped
strings of the other half of the register. Registration was changed by reaching
round the instrument and pushing or pulling extensions of the jackslides that
passed through the treble cheekpiece, thereby moving the jackslide to the left
or right to engage or disengage the register. Thus the player could not change
registers except during a pause between movements or individual pieces.
The addition of a second 8' register to the basic design (whether by the original maker or at a later date), though increasing the number of possible registers and yielding a louder ensemble when all stops are engaged, seems to spoil the sound of the individual registers, partly as a result of its slightly shifting the plucking-points and partly by its loading the soundboard with additional downward force from the added strings.
The basic characteristics of Ruckers harpsichords may have arisen at any time from about 1565 but were certainly well established at the end of Hans Ruckers’s career in the 1590s. Like their virginals, Ruckers harpsichords were made in a range of sizes, with string lengths proportional to the intended pitch. The c'' strings of harpsichords tuned to the Ruckers’s normal 8' pitch (estimated to have been one or two semitones below modern pitch) were standardized at about 35·7 cm, while instruments designed to be tuned a whole tone higher (a type which became popular during the 1640s) had strings eight-ninths as long; a unique harpsichord at ‘quint’ pitch by Andreas Ruckers (1627; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague) has strings two-thirds the normal length. The cases of Ruckers harpsichords are made of poplar about 14 mm thick, with a moulding cut into the upper inside edge, the bottom is attached to the lower edges of the walls. The interior is reinforced by separate upper and lower belly rails and by two bottom braces and two upper struts in single-manual instruments (three of each in doubles). Around each bridge there is a crescent-shaped area of soundboard unencumbered by ribs.
The outside of a Ruckers harpsichord was painted in imitation of marble, or more rarely with strap-work, and the inside decorated with block-printed papers, of which four or five different types were usually used on a single instrument. In instruments in which the inside of the lid was not decorated with a painting, the printed paper would have one or more Latin mottoes lettered on it (fig.5). The soundboard decorations included arabesques and flowers and were executed in gouache, with a cast lead ‘rose’ – a soundhole ornament that included the maker’s initials (see Ruckers, fig.3). Only a few surviving Ruckers and Couchet harpsichords retain their original stands; contemporary paintings showing instruments of this kind reveal two common designs, either framed structures with thick turned legs, or complex affairs with heavy pierced fretwork ends connected by arcades supported by numerous turned balusters. The natural keys of these harpsichords are covered with bone and the sharps are made of bog oak. The fronts of the natural keys are usually decorated with a punched paper design glued on to a layer of coloured parchment. At the back of the keyboard there is a slotted rack similar to that found in an Italian harpsichord. However, instead of a slip of hardwood to fit into the appropriate slot in the rack, a Ruckers keyboard has a metal pin driven into the end of the key, and the rack is topped with a padded overrail that limits the upward motion of the keys. This system is also used in the lower manual of two-manual instruments; however, there is no space for a rack behind the keys of the upper manual of a two-manual instrument, and the backs of the upper-manual keys are therefore guided by vertical wires rising between the keys at the back of the plank of wood on which the upper-manual balance rail is mounted.
Two-manual
instruments were built in the Ruckers workshops as early as the 1590s. They had
only two sets of strings, like the typical single-manual instrument, and only
one of the two keyboards could be used at a time. In the most common type of
Ruckers double (see Ruckers, fig.2, the lower keyboard had 50 keys and a
range of C/E–f''', and the upper had 45 keys and the smaller
range of C/E–c'''. The c''' key of the upper keyboard was
aligned over the f''' key of the lower keyboard, and a wide block filled
in the space to the left of its lowest key (see Transposing
keyboard, for
illustration). Playing a piece on the lower
keyboard transposed it down a 4th with respect to the tonality it had when
played on the upper manual. Because of the addition of strings in the bass to
extend the range downwards a 4th from the C/E on the upper manual, and
the additional space required for the added lower manual, two-manual
instruments of this kind are some 7·5 cm wider and 40·5 cm longer than the
normal four-octave single-manual harpsichord of just under 2 metres. As a
special refinement, extra 8' and 4' strings were added to each of the G keys on the lower manual,
so that these keys would not be obliged to sound A corresponding to the E on the upper manual. Because of
these extra strings, the keyboards of such instruments could not use any rows
of jacks in common, and instruments so equipped had four rows of jacks (one 8'
and one 4' on each keyboard) for their two sets of strings. Pictorial evidence
and two much-altered examples (the Ruckers of 1599 in the Händel-Haus, Halle,
and an unsigned instrument, probably also made in the 1590s, in the Instruments
Museum, Brussels) suggest that this refinement was sometimes omitted, such that
an instrument might have only three rows of jacks (one a dogleg playable from
both manuals); if conventional mean-tone temperament was used, the upper-manual
E strings would have
to be retuned for use as G on the lower manual.
The musical purpose for which the Ruckers ‘transposing’ harpsichords were made remains disputed (see Shann, G1985). The lower manual may have been used for transposing music to sound a 4th lower than notated (necessary in accompanying certain choral music; see Chiavette). This explanation is consistent with the statement by Q.G. van Blankenburg (1654–1739) that musicians were ‘so inexperienced in transposing that … they made expressly a special second keyboard in the harpsichord’ (Elementa musica, 1739).
There is no evidence that the Ruckers or the Couchets made two-manual harpsichords with aligned keyboards (i.e. at the same pitch), but evidence from paintings of about 1618 to 1626 suggests that such instruments existed by then in the Low Countries. The only known pre-18th century example, in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, was made in 1658, probably in the Dutch Republic. It originally had two aligned keyboards with compass C/E–c''' but with only one set of 8' strings and one set of 4' strings. However, it had four registers: a close-plucking nasal stop played only by the upper maual and two 8' registers both plucking the same string but separated by the 4' register, all three of which could be played by the lower manual. Such an instrument can be considered as a ‘contrasting’ double in that the nasal stop on the upper manual could be contrasted with the more mellow sound of either of the sets of jacks plucking the same string from the lower manual. But there would be little dynamic contrast between the combined 1 × 8', 1 × 4' on the lower manual and the more agressive sound of the lute on the upper manual, and the sounds could not be contrasted without a pause to change registration, since (as is also the case in transposing doubles) damper interference prevents registers acting on the same set of strings from being engaged simultaneously on both keyboards. The only instantanteous contrast possible would have been between the 4' played on the lower manual and the nasal 8' played on the upper.
In view of the Dutch and Flemish makers’ apparent antipathy toward multiple 8' stringing, it is likely that any aligned two-manual harpsichords made during the first half of the 17th century had 1 × 8', 1 × 4' stringing. If they did not have nasal stops, they may have been disposed like Ruckers transposing doubles with aligned keyboards. Van Blankenburg described a practice of altering Ruckers doubles by rearranging the lower-manual keys so that they play at the pitch of the upper manual but without adding a second set of 8' strings. Several Ruckers harpsichords altered in this conservative manner still exist. Certainly neither the 1658 harpsichord nor these ‘aligned transposers’ can be considered as ‘contrasting’ two-manual harpsichords like those beginning to be made in France during this period (see §3(ii)(a) below). Rather, these early Dutch or Flemish non-transposing doubles are like two single-manual harpsichords with different tone qualities contained within the same case (while transposing doubles are like two single-manual harpsichords tuned to different pitches). The principal advantage of the 1658 harpsichord over contemporary German four-register instruments with a single keyboard is that, with fewer jacks carried by each key, the action would be more supple.
About a dozen harpsichord makers in addition to the Ruckers family were active in Antwerp in this period, and about two dozen makers’ names are known from elsewhere in the Low Countries. The small number of their instruments that have been preserved are almost identical to those of the Ruckers, whose influence was dominant both through the large-scale importation of their instruments and through the emigration of makers trained in Antwerp. Many makers of German origin were also active in the northern Netherlands, and the nasal register in the anonymous two-manual harpsichord of 1658 indicates that the German style of harpsichord making (see §3(ii)(c) below) had some influence there. The earliest definite appearance of true contrasting two-manual harpsichords in the Low Countries is found in an advertisement of 1687 by the maker Cornelis van Dort in The Hague, who offered a three-manual harpsichord as well as two-manual instruments with four registers and three sets of strings.
Harpsichord, §3: c1590 to c1700
While Ruckers harpsichords were being shipped to many parts of Europe and even to the Spanish colonies of the New World, harpsichords of a different kind were being made elsewhere in northern Europe. Most of these instruments were discovered in the late 20th century and their places in the history of the harpsichord have not yet been thoroughly assessed. Many seem to present a mixture of Italian and Ruckers-style features. This has sometimes been explained either as the result of influence from both directions or as a stage of arrested development between the Italian style (as the presumed source of all harpsichord making) and that of the Ruckers. A more recent interpretation is that these instruments are part of an indigenous north European tradition, already apparent in the 15th century and observable in the work of such 16th-century masters as Hans Müller, Joes Karest and Lodewijk Theeus (ii) (see §2(ii) above).
Although the particular origins of harpsichord making in 17th-century England, France and Germany may be disputed, the instruments themselves are important because of their association with notable composers of the period. These, including the English virginalists, the early French clavecinistes, and such German-speaking composers as Froberger, Buxtehude and J.S. Bach, greatly outnumber the important composers, such as J.P. Sweelinck and Frescobaldi, associated with the better known harpsichords of the Ruckers and the Italian makers. Further, while the Ruckers influence strongly affected north European 18th-century harpsichord making, it did not penetrate far into central and southern Germany. Even in Ruckers-dominated 18th-century French harpsichord making, some important aspects of the earlier style persisted.
Harpsichord, §3(ii): c1590 to c1700: Transalpine Europe outside the Low Countries
The ‘contrasting’ or ‘expressive’ harpsichord, with two keyboards that can be used simultaneously or in rapid alternation, was developed in France by the mid-17th century. This type of instrument soon became known throughout northern Europe and continued to be made until the obsolescence of the harpsichord at the end of the 18th century. Also arising in 17th-century France was an important school of harpsichordists, including Chambonnières, Louis Couperin and J.-H. d’Anglebert, whose compositions, skilfully exploiting the idiomatic capabilities of the harpsichord, were long and widely influential.
What little is known about the harpsichord in 16th-century France stems from inventories. These suggest that wing-shaped harpsichords were rare, while inexpensive small épinettes (virginals) predominated. The earliest clear evidence of a harpsichord is in an inventory made in 1600 of the estate of the Parisian organist Pierre de la Barre (i), who left a ‘clavesin’ as well as a clavichord and three ‘espinettes’. In 1617 the organist J. Lesecq (fl 1583–1626) owned two harpsichords, each with two stops. Further technical details are in a 1632 inventory of the workshop of Jean Jacquet, where there were two harpsichords, one with a single set of strings, the other with 100 strings (presumably having two registers and a keyboard compass of 50 notes, probably G'/B'–c''', a small downward extension of the CD–c''' compass common in French organs of the period).
The most voluminous French source of information about harpsichords before the 1640s is Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle (1636–7), but this must be used with caution: Mersenne described not only the commonplace and native but also the unusual and foreign, without always specifying the difference, and added his own suggestions and theorizing. His passing remark about harpsichords with seven or eight jeux (stops or combinations of stops) and two or three keyboards may refer to otherwise unknown early 17th-century French harpsichords, but it is also consistent with the familiar two-manual transposing harpsichords of the Ruckers, in which the two registers on each keyboard provide three jeux (8' alone; 4' alone; 8' and 4' together), at least two additional jeux are provided by the buff stop, and a third keyboard is sometimes available in a virginal built into the hollow of the bentside.
Mersenne’s main description of the harpsichord is illustrated by a fine, realistic engraving of a single-manual instrument, presumably a typical Parisian harpsichord of the period. The illustration is generally consistent with what is known about early north European harpsichord making and with the few details known from other French sources. Like Ruckers harpsichords, it has a 1 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition. As in the pre-Ruckers harpsichord made by Lodewijk Theeus (ii) (see §2(ii) above), the nuts in Mersenne’s harpsichord are straight and may lie on the resonant soundboard; the 4' wrest pins are grouped together with the 8' pins near the nameboard, such that the 4' strings must pass through holes drilled through the 8' nut. The scaling is quite long in the treble, evidently intended for iron strings, and is strongly foreshortened in the tenor and bass. Although the keyboard, with compass C–c''', is consistent with Mersenne’s initial description of an instrument with 49 notes, the engraving shows sets of 50 wrest pins, strings and jacks. Mersenne stated that the harpsichord ordinarily has 50 keys and 100 strings. This corresponds both to the 100-string harpsichord in Jean Jacquet’s workshop in 1632 and to the typical G'/B'–c''' compass of later 17th-century French harpsichords. Mersenne mentioned that the registers of a single-manual harpsichord can be controlled by a conventional stop mechanism but that many persons preferred a different system in which the keyboard was pushed in and pulled out. In this arrangement a small block is glued near the distal end of each key lever. With the keyboard shoved all the way back, the blocks push up the jacks in the rear row but miss the front row; with the keyboard pulled out they push up only the front jacks; in an intermediate position they engage both sets of jacks. This mechanism, later occasionally used in Italy and Germany but not found in any extant French harpsichord, would have been especially advantageous in harpsichords in which the jacks were guided by stationary slots in a soundboard extending to the nameboard, as seems to have been the case in the instrument shown in Mersenne’s illustration.
Approximately 35 17th-century French harpsichords are known; half of those whose origin can be determined were made in Paris, and about a quarter in Lyons. Most were discovered after 1970. The earliest signed and dated example (Musée de l’Hospice Saint-Roch, Issoudun) was made by Jean Denis (Paris, 1648). It has two keyboards, originally G'/B'–c''', with three sets of strings and three registers, 8' and 4' on the lower manual, 8' on the upper. It may thus be regarded as a combination of two typical single-manual harpsichords, one disposed 1 × 8', 1 × 4', like Mersenne’s, the other with only a single 8' stop, like the single-strung harpsichord in Jacquet’s workshop in 1632. The use of such two-manual harpsichords was explained by Denis in his Traité de l’accord de l’espinette (1643), where he mentions ‘harpsichords with two keyboards for passing all the unisons’, that is, on which it is possible to play pièces croisées, the earliest extant examples of which were written by Louis Couperin. The Denis harpsichord of 1648 has a shove coupler, now operated by shifting the upper manual; but before the compass was enlarged around 1700, the coupler may have been engaged by pulling the lower manual forward to bring the coupler dogs under the distal ends of the upper manual keys. This arrangement is found in several later 17th-century French harpsichords. The shove coupler allows the keyboards to be separated for playing pièces croisées or combined for playing all the registers from the lower manual. A few 17th-century French harpsichords have been found with only a 4' stop on the upper manual or with dogleg jacks rather than a shove coupler. Such dispositions, which do not allow pièces croisées to be played, are in most instances probably the result of misguided restorations. Well-preserved instruments that have been examined in detail almost invariably have the standard dispostion of 1 × 8' and 1 × 4' on the lower manual, 1 × 8' on the upper, and a shove coupler.
Only a few single-manual harpsichords from this period are known. Generally, as in an instrument by Nicolas Dufour (Paris, 1683; now at America's Shrine to Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota), they are disposed 2 × 8'. The more substantial tone provided by this disposition in comparison with 1 × 8', 1 × 4' may reflect increased use of the harpsichord for basso continuo accompaniment. Nevertheless, an inventory shows that in 1672 Jean Denis was still making single-strung harpsichords in addition to larger models. Two one-manual harpsichords with three sets of strings, presumably 2 × 8', 1 × 4', were listed in the inventory of d’Anglebert’s estate in 1691.
While
some harpsichords with expanded compasses, such as G'A'–c''',
began to be made shortly before 1700, the G'/B'–c'''
compass (sometimes with the E key divided to provide both B' and E; sometimes also with
the C key
divided to provide both A' and C) was commonly made as late as the 1690s. The
keyboards and actions of 17th-century French harpsichords are especially
elegant. Keys are quite small, with natural heads often as short as 30 mm. The
three-octave measure is very narrow, typically about 470 mm, allowing a normal
hand to span the interval of a 10th, as is required in certain French
compositions of the period. The naturals are covered in ebony; the sharps are
usually blocks of solid bone. The natural fronts are usually decorated with
carved trefoils. The backs of the keys of single-manual harpsichords and the
lower manual of doubles are guided by metal pins fitting in the slots of a
wooden rack. Upper-manual keys are guided by a slot cut through each key-lever,
near the back but in front of the jack. For each slot there is a vertical pin
held in the back rail of the key-frame. The jack slides and lower guides
consist of thin wooden battens covered with leather, the mortises in the wood
being oversized, so that the jacks bear only against the leather (fig.6).
Although extant instruments show much uniformity in dispositions and in details of the keyboards and actions, other features of design and construction vary considerably. No chronological progression is apparent in case shape, construction, materials or scaling. Three of the earliest examples, by Jean Denis (1648) Claude Jacquet (Paris, 1652; Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida), and Louis Denis (Paris, 1658; private collection, France), are similar in construction. The case walls, of softwood or poplar, are thick, about 12 to 13 mm, and the spine somewhat thicker. The bottom board is applied to the bottom edges of the walls. There are separate upper and lower belly rails. The several bottom braces, butted to the spine and bentside, are approximately perpendicular to the latter. The ends of the braces in the two Denis instruments are shaped like knees reaching up the liners, and all three instruments have several upper struts between the spine and bentside liners. In the Jacquet there are also several diagonal struts to the bentside liner.
These thick-cased instruments, made of inexpensive woods intended to be painted, superficially resemble Ruckers harpsichords. In many other French instruments, for example, by Louis Denis (1677; Musée de la Musique, Paris), and Antoine Vaudry (Paris, 1681; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; fig.7), the cheekpiece, bentside, and tail are of walnut, only about 10 mm thick, with the spine of softwood, often thicker than the other walls. Presumably the handsome walnut wood was originally left unpainted, while the plain back of the spine, placed near the wall of the room, was usually not visible. In some instruments, for example by Nicolas Dufour (1683) and Gilbert Desruisseux (Lyons, c1680; Musée de la Musique, Paris), the tail is combined with the bentside in an S-shaped curve.
Bracing systems other than those made by Jacquet and the Denis are known. In the Vaudry harpsichord, for example, there are four bottom braces with ends shaped like knees, but no upper-level braces or diagonal struts. In an anonymous Parisian harpsichord dated 1667 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) the bentside is braced only by two diagonal struts. A harpsichord dated 1668 (Musée de la Musique, Paris), made at least partly by Girolamo Zenti, is constructed in the Italian false inner-outer manner. The walls are attached to the edges of the bottom board, and the interior structure includes knees and a belly rail in the Italian style. Some native French makers, for example Vincent Tibaut of Toulouse and Nicolas Blanchet of Paris in a harpsichord dated 1693 (private collection), also attached the walls to the edges of the bottom board.
Bridges were sometimes bent to their curve but sometimes sawed, and were made with various cross sections, sometimes truncated-triangular (as in Ruckers harpsichords), sometimes moulded (as in Italian harpsichords). Normally, the 4' hitch pin rail is very light, only about 20 mm wide in the bass. Ribbing patterns vary considerably in detail, but there are usually several ribs that cross under the bridges.
Scalings also varied considerably. Some instruments, for example the anonymous Parisian harpsichord of 1667 with a c'' string length of 26·5 cm, were undoubtedly intended to be strung in brass throughout the compass. The many instruments with longer scalings, for example the Denis harpsichord of 1648 with a c'' length of 34·5 cm, would have had iron strings in the treble. The otherwise quite similar harpsichord of 1652 by Claude Jacquet (i), with a c'' length of 31·6 cm, may have been designed for a higher pitch. The existence of more than one pitch standard is implied by ‘a harpsichord with one keyboard which transposes one tone’ (presumably by sliding toward the treble or bass) in the Denis workshop in 1686 (see Hubbard, A1965). Nevertheless, the exceptionally long scaling of a harpsichord by Michel Richard (Paris, 1688; Yale University Collection, New Haven, Connecticut), with a c'' length of 38·8 cm, might not imply that it was intended for a much lower pitch than the more typical c'' scalings of about 34·5 cm, but rather that the strings were more highly stressed. Richard seems to have imitated a Ruckers two-manual transposing harpsichord that had been modified into a French-style contrasting double. In conversions of actual Ruckers harpsichords, the addition of a second set of 8' strings on the bass side of the jacks results in similarly long scalings.
As early as the 1640s, and perhaps earlier, harpsichords from Antwerp were used in France. Towards the end of the century Ruckers harpsichords were beginning to influence some French makers. Although the Ruckers style of scaling, case construction and soundboard design became dominant in the 18th century, important aspects of the native style, particularly in dispositions and the design of the keyboards and action, were never abandoned.
Harpsichord, §3(ii): c1590 to c1700: Transalpine Europe outside the Low Countries
Despite the importance of the English harpsichord composers active during the last quarter of the 16th century and the first quarter of the 17th, very little is known about the instruments that they played. Apart from one or two examples of dubious authenticity, only two English harpsichords from this period are known, both made in London: one by Lodewijk Theeus (ii) in 1579 (see §2(ii) above) and the other by John Hasard in 1622 (Knole House, Sevenoaks, Kent). It has often been assumed that the early English harpsichordists played instruments mainly imported from Italy and Antwerp, but the English repertory of the period frequently requires accidentals that were usually lacking in the short-octave basses of continental instruments. English-made instruments with chromatic bass compasses, already present in the Theeus harpsichord of 1579, were probably in common use. The dearth of surviving examples is explicable as a result of such events as the Fire of London (1666) and of the 18th-century rise in prosperity, which allowed outdated instruments to be discarded for new ones.
The Hasard harpsichord of 1622 is now a shell without its soundboard and keyboard. The compass was 53 notes, probably C to e'''. With moderately thin oak walls (8 mm), separate upper and lower belly rails, a plate-like lower guide, and one of the nuts placed on active soundboard, the instrument is closely related to the north European tradition seen earlier in the work of Hans Müller and the pre-Ruckers makers of Antwerp. The 20 or so extant English virginals, dated between 1638 and 1684, also have characteristics of this early style. The state of the Hasard harpsichord precludes a definite reconstruction of its disposition, but with three sets of strings and three rows of jacks it undoubtedly provided a wide variety of tone colour. One stop was probably tuned about a 4th below 8' pitch, with the others an octave higher, one of these being a close-plucking nasal stop.
The only other surviving 17th-century English harpsichord was made by Charles Haward in London in 1683 (Hovingham Hall, Yorkshire). It has moderately thin (8 mm) walnut walls, with an S-shaped bentside. The short scaling, with c'' about 27 cm long, is suitable for brass strings at 8' pitch. Similar characteristics of construction and scaling are seen in English bentside spinets of the period. The disposition of the Haward harpsichord, now 2 × 8', has been altered, but it originally included one or perhaps even two nasal stops. A further indication of a relish for varied tone colour is a report by Thomas Mace (Musick’s Monument, 1676) that John Haward (almost certainly a close relation of Charles) invented a harpsichord with several stops controlled by pedals.
The few surviving English harpsichords made during the first quarter of the 18th century, before the ascendancy of Jacob Kirkman and Burkat Shudi, are stylistically similar to the late 17th-century instruments. Single-manual harpsichords, for example by Thomas Hancock (London, 1720; Russell Collection, Edinburgh) and William Smith (London, c1720; Bate Collection, Oxford), however, were now made without nasal stops, being disposed 2 × 8'. Two-manual harpsichords start to appear, the earliest surviving example being by Joseph Tisseran (London, 1700; Bate Collection, Oxford). This and one by Francis Coston (London, c1725; Russell Collection, Edinburgh), are scaled for iron strings in the treble and have three-stop dispositions, with 1 × 8' and 1 × 4' on the lower manual and a dogleg 8' playable from both keyboards. A harpsichord made by Hermann Tabel in London in 1721 (County Museum, Warwick; fig.8) has the same disposition with the addition of a nasal stop on the upper manual. This instrument, however, lacks the vestiges of 17th-century style still evident in the Tisseran and Coston doubles and is essentially a fully developed example of the pattern followed by Tabel’s pupils, Kirkman and Shudi, and their successors throughout the 18th century (see §4(ii) below).
Harpsichord, §3(ii): c1590 to c1700: Transalpine Europe outside the Low Countries
Only a few harpsichords made in Germany and regions to the east and north survive from this period. While varying greatly in detail, in general they belong stylistically to the same tradition as the Hans Müller harpsichord of 1537 (see §2(ii) above). Case walls are usually of moderately thin hardwood and are sometimes attached to the edges of the bottom. While most instruments have a normal bentside and tail, bentsides are occasionally S-shaped, a form first seen in Praetorius's illustration of a clavicytherium (1620); or the tail may be composed of two small straight sections angled to approximate a reverse curve. Nuts are often on resonant soundboard wood. Usually there are soundboard ribs crossing under the bridges. While many instruments seem to have been scaled for iron strings in the treble, brass scalings were also used. Some harpsichords were probably intended to be tuned to Chorton (a' = c465), the pitch of organs in many places.
The dispositions usually provide a wealth of tone colour and often include buff stops and multiple 8' stops with widely different plucking points. One of the few signed and dated examples, a harpsichord made by Johann Mayer in Salzburg in 1619, is typical, having two sets of 8' strings acted upon by three rows of jacks, one of them a close-plucking nasal stop. An anonymous early 17th-century German clavicytherium (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg) has a similar disposition, with a 4' stop as well. In an anonymous German harpsichord of c1630 (Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich) there are two sets of 8' strings plucked by two registers of jacks with normal plucking points, two nasal registers (one of them with metal plectra), and a fifth register with plucking points exceptionally far from the nut, therefore with a flute-like tone. Some harpsichords, however, had less elaborate dispositions, as in two early 18th-century instruments in conservative styles, one made by I.N. Cousseneers in Düsseldorf in 1726 (private collection, USA; described in Watson, C1997), with 1 × 8', 1 × 4', and an anonymous Thuringian harpsichord (Bachhaus, Eisenach), with 2 × 8'. Towards the end of the 17th century, two-manual harpsichords were undoubtedly made, but none has survived.
Harpsichord, §3(ii): c1590 to c1700: Transalpine Europe outside the Low Countries
Those few instruments of the 17th century that are extant in Austria show more parallels with the organ and harpsichord traditions of central and southern Germany than with those of Italy. Two magnificent claviorgans by Valentin Zeiss, the Linz organ builder and court joiner to Ferdinand III, have been preserved. The harpsichord part of the claviorgan of 1634 (Museum Carolinum Augusteum, Salzburg) is mounted on a large rectangular chamber organ with three stops and a pedal. That of 1646 (private collection) has no pedal, but the sets of jacks are arranged in a fan shape, allowing the harpsichord section to produce strong contrasts of tonal colour. This feature and other stylistic peculiarities are found in several harpsichords of this period that are assumed to be south German or Austrian, the ‘Habsburg type’ of harpsichord (Museum Carolinum Augusteum, Salzburg and the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich). Another instrument (Hungarian National Museum, Budapest) was also originally combined with an organ. Its case is made without any crossbars, braces or struts. (According to tradition, this instrument came into the possession of Emperor Joseph II.) An Innsbruck court inventory of Archduke Siegmund Franz, drawn up in 1665, mentions a harpsichord with several registers, made by the Tyrolean organ builder Daniel Herz (1618–78).
The only other signed ‘Austrian’ harpsichords of the 17th century are an instrument made by Johann Anton Mikliš in Prague in 1671, and a harpsichord signed ‘AN 1696’ and probably made in Vienna. Stylistically and technically the latter is conservative, especially in the absence of braces in the case, the thin, lightly ribbed soundboard, the divided bridges in the bass, and the hollow wrest plank, which is covered with a soundboard. The keyboard, with a range of F'–g''' (unusually large for this period), is diatonic in the lowest octave, and has natural keys split into twos or threes with contrasting intarsia work (this is known as a ‘Viennese bass octave’). This feature seems to have been the norm in Austria by 1676, as it appears to have been presupposed in a number of compositions and a set of instructions for stringing given by Alessandro Poglietti in his Compendium (1676), and it remained standard type until the middle of the 18th century.
Harpsichord, §3(ii): c1590 to c1700: Transalpine Europe outside the Low Countries
16
genuine 17th- and 18th-century harpsichords probably or definitely attributable
to Spain have been located. Considerable doubts exist about the authenticity of
a least eight further instruments with inscriptions giving the makers' names
and indicating that they had been made in Spain during the 17th century. In
contrast, none of the genuine instruments are signed or dated. The great
variety in the styles of these instruments shows that Spanish makers
(frequently organ builders) had an idiosyncratic approach to their craft, each
producing his own blend of personal and borrowed elements. One early example is
an instrument found in Castille and now in the private collection of R. de
Zayas (Seville) that has two 8' registers like a harpsichord, a protruding keyboard
like a spinet and a long side that forms an atypical angle of 140° with the
left-hand cheek. After restoration in the Dolmetsch workshop it has a full
four-octave compass. Developments that took place in other countries appear
also to have occurred in Spain. The question of enharmonic instruments was
raised in 16th-century Spain by Francisco de Salinas and Juan Bermudo among
others, and an experimental five-manual harpsichord was built in the mid-17th
century by, or to the order of, Felix Falco de Belaochaga, who was responsible
for its tuning. An Italian, Bartolomé Jovernardi, who for some years was a
musician in the Spanish Royal Chapel, made and presented a one-manual ‘cimbalo
perfetto’ to Philip IV in 1634. As well as three innovatory 8' registers that
could be changed quickly while playing to produce piano and forte
effects, it had split D/E and G/A keys.
Harpsichord, §3: c1590 to c1700
The history of Italian harpsichords from the 16th century to the 18th is not the seamless continuum described by some earlier authors. Modification of early instruments, adapting them to later taste, for some time obscured an understanding of the change in traditions that took place between the 16th and 17th centuries. It is now known, for instance, that after about 1600 the C/E–f''' compass became less popular and the 4' register was rarely provided. In this period the Italian harpsichord was called upon to provide a basso continuo, for which two 8' registers were obviously judged more suitable. Whereas no harpsichord at 8' pitch with 1 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition and a C/E–f''' compass is known to have been made after 1585, a few 2 × 8' harpsichords with this compass were built between about 1600 and 1674. Throughout the 17th century, but particularly in the first half, the C/E–c''' compass was the most commonly used.
Not only did new instruments no longer conform to typical 16th-century specifications, but older instruments were modified. A document reveals that a harpsichord made in 1570 by Vito Trasuntino had already had its 4' bridge removed by 1674; the practice of modifying old instruments continued until about 1700. In most instances the older C/E–f''' compass was changed to G'/B'–c''', a modification easily achieved since the same number of keys is involved. At the same time the 4' bridge was usually removed, sometimes also with a minor modification to the position of the 8' nut in order to adjust the scale. The resulting change of scale, typically from about c'' = 35 cm to about c'' = 27 cm, required the use of brass wire instead of the previous iron wire: because of the difference in the tensile strength of iron and brass wire, the pitch remained at the same basic level. Of course, the new G' key sounded a 4th lower than the original bottom C, but it may be supposed that the principal motivation in these changes was to achieve a wider range in the bass. This was possible without any significant compromise in tonal quality since the 16th-century design with its bottom C note used a case length (c220 cm) which was almost the same as that later used for instruments starting on G' (c230 cm).
The
earliest surviving harpsichord with G' as its lowest note is probably of
about 1619 and attributed to Boni; it has multiple split natural keys (private
collection, England; see Wraight, H1997), but its original compass is
uncertain. A more conventional keyboard, G'/B'–c''', was
unsigned, but now attributed to Albana and dated c1624–48 (Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, Inv.no. 45.41), and the oldest dated occurrence of
this range is in a Boni harpsichord of 1653 (private collection, Vienna). The G'/B'
short octave was never as popular in Italy as the G'A'
arrangement (i.e. lacking G'), the first dated instance of the latter being the
1662 harpsichord of Giacomo Ridolfi (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg),
but it was probably already used in the 1620s. Although many compasses started
on G', it was uncommon in the 17th century for them to exceed c'''
the datable exceptions reaching to d''', (d'''e'''), or f'''.
This has seemed puzzling in view of the earlier use of compasses reaching to f'''
at 8' pitch even though the normal range of music did not usually exceed f'',
but these changes in compass are evidence of a changing performing practice
which in the earlier period had made much more use of the extra octave (f''–f''')
as an effective ‘octave’ (4') register. The lowest range used in Italian harpsichords
emerged at the end of the 17th century: F'G'A'–c'''
is first found in an unsigned instrument dated 1695, now known to be by Antonio
Migliai (Händel-Haus, Halle; see Wraight, H1992). The less common F'G'–c'''
compass was used in Rome by Mattia di Gand (b 1663–7, d after
1740) in 1675 (Tagliavini collection, Bologna).
As in the 16th century, single-register harpsichords were made; ten that survive can be assigned to the first half of the 17th century. Although the principal disposition in use in the 17th century was 2 × 8', stop knobs were rarely provided for changing registers; it appears that rapid changes of colour were not an essential part of performing practice. Some instruments, including one each by Boni and Albana, were made with 3 × 8', an arrangement which is only possible if one of the sets of strings is at a different level (see §1 above, and Wraight, H1997). Albana appears to have achieved this by using two nuts. Another 3 × 8' harpsichord, attributable to Migliai around 1702 (private collection, England; see Wraight, H1997), used two different bridges so that iron and brass strings were at the same pitch.
Throughout the 17th century short scales (c'') at 25–9 cm) predominated and in most cases these indicate normal 8' pitches (a' = c415–c467) intended for brass wire stringing. Some may have been intended for the high 8' pitch (a' = c520), strung with iron wire, but (as discussed in §2(i) above) it is difficult to distinguish this design from the brass-strung harpsichord. Indeed, it is possible that what has come to be seen as the ‘traditional’ Italian harpsichord with a short, brass-wire scale is in fact the restringing of a 16th-century, iron-wire scaled design. Scales used, and therefore pitch levels, after 1600 were substantially the same as those of the 16th century; no general rise in pitch seems to have taken place. The harpsichord of 1610 by Vincentius of Prato (Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY) could have been intended for the high 8' pitch strung in iron wire, but the scaling of the 1637 Zenti bentside spinet (see Spinet, fig.3) demonstrates more clearly that this high pitch was still used well into the 17th century. Another exception is the 1628 Albana harpsichord (c'' at 24·8 cm; Museo Civico, Bologna) which was probably intended to stand a 4th higher than normal 8' pitch. Long scales (c'' at c35 cm) at normal 8' pitch intended for iron wire, which were common in the 16th century, are unknown in harpsichords of this period, although used in virginals until the 1630s. A few harpsichords, even as late as 1700 (e.g. by Migliai, c1680, described below) have c'' at about 30 cm, which, when strung with iron wire, corresponds to the higher of the two 8' pitches normally used before 1600. There is little evidence to explain why brass wire scales at the same pitch as iron wire scales should have been preferred in the 17th century. That brass wire gives a louder, even coarser sound had already been noted by Virdung in 1511. The clear tendency towards a 2 × 8' disposition in the 17th century also suggests the desire for a high volume of sound. However, it must also be remembered that this assumption of a change of string material is based on the comparison of mostly Venetian scales before 1600 with largely Florentine and Roman scales after 1600. It is possible, though not proven, that there was always a strong tradition of using brass scales in Rome and Florence.
There are some documentary references to harpsichords with an ottava bassa: Urbani (fl 1642) and Zenti made such instruments, and since both worked in Rome this may have been a Roman speciality. A harpsichord by Zenti, now in the Deutsches Museum, Munich, and thought to be identical with the instrument of 1658 mentioned in the Medici inventory of 1700, was made with a single manual and a 2 × 16' disposition (it was subsequently given two extra manuals and a fake ‘Bartolomeo Cristofari’ inscription; see Wraight, H1991, and Gai, C1969).
It
is the early 17th century that provides the most examples of keyboards with
split keys, included to extend the chromatic degrees of the tuning, usually
providing D as well
as E and A as well as G. The common practice was to place
the note more often used at the front of the split sharp, for example E in front and D in back. In most such
instruments the C/E short octave was also filled out with the
addition of F
and G as split
sharps. Whereas it was previously thought that these instruments (including
virginals) were made throughout Italy over a period extending into the 18th
century, it has now become clear that most of them were made between about 1620
and about 1650, and that many of them were the products of Poggi's workshop in
Florence and Boni's in Rome (Wraight and Stembridge, H1994).
Two-manual harpsichords are rare in the Italian tradition: one interesting exception, attributed to Migliai around 1680 in Florence (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Inv.no. MIR 1078), also has a 4' register as well as 2 × 8' despite having been built at a time when the 4' stop was no longer common. The keyboard has no coupler and the 4' is on the upper manual.
Most 17th-century harpsichords were ‘inner-outer’ instruments, that is, made with thin case sides and kept in separate decorated outer cases. One of the earliest virginals made in the ‘false inner-outer’ fashion, with a single case having mouldings around the inside edge to give the illusion of two separate cases, is dated 1587 (Celestini; Beurmann Collection, Hamburg), but this style was apparently not adopted for harpsichords until the early 18th century, as in some Cristofori instruments.
Francesco Poggi, Pasquino Querci (fl 1610–25), Stefano Bolcioni (fl 1627–41) and Antonio Migliai (fl 1682–1704) are the 17th-century Florentine instrument makers whose work was best known in the late 20th century; some of those working in Rome whose instruments survive are Boni, Albana, Filippo Fabbri (b c1636–41; d 1691), Zenti, G.B. Giusti (b c1624–35; d after 1692), Ridolfi (fl 1650–82) and Giuseppe Mondini (fl 1678–1718). Among these makers the reputation of Zenti (b ?1609–11; d 1666–7) appears to have been the greatest, since he worked at royal courts in Sweden, England and France. His surviving instruments are competently made but not elaborate.
(iv) Germany and other European countries.
The history of French harpsichord making at the beginning of the 18th century is largely an account of the rapid expansion of the keyboard compass and the definitive adoption of a national variant of the thick-cased, long-scaled Ruckers design. Although harpsichords of the 1690s were still made with the typical 17th-century compass of G'/B'–c''' and sometimes with other features of earlier styles, such as thin cases and moulded bridges, a harpsichord made by Nicolas Dumont in Paris in 1707 (private collection, France), with compass F'–e''', has most of the characteristics of a mature 18th-century French instrument. The reasons for these changes seem to have been the preference of musicians for the tone of Ruckers harpsichords and for the expanded musical possibilities inherent in larger instruments.
Although Ruckers harpsichords had long been known in France, they had existed alongside native instruments, many of which were radically dissimilar in scaling and construction. Even those instruments from the middle of the 17th century (such as those made by Jean Denis in 1648, Claude Jacquet in 1652 and Louis Denis in 1658; see §3(ii)(a) above) whose external design coincidentally resembles that of Ruckers harpsichords are significantly different internally, having, for example, ribs crossing under the bridges and much lighter 4' hitch-pin rails. The increasing regard for Ruckers harpsichords towards the end of the century, however, is shown by deliberate imitations of them by French makers, for example by Michel Richard in 1688 (see §3(ii)(a) above) and by a certain ‘D.F.’ (undated instrument in the collection of Yannick Guillou, Paris, described by Anselm, C1996). Both instruments are not only thick-cased and long-scaled but also decorated with Antwerp-style soundboard painting and, in the ‘D.F.’, block-printed papers. While some divergences from Ruckers practice, such as the positioning of the bottom braces nearly perpendicular to the bentside rather than to the spine, may be seen as reasonable efforts to strengthen the case, the reinforcement of the soundboard with ribs crossing under the bridges suggests that Richard and ‘D.F.’ did not entirely appreciate all the subtleties of Ruckers soundboard design. Nevertheless, the massive Ruckers-style 4' hitch-pin rails in these harpsichords indicates that their makers were beginning to adopt Ruckers principles more than superficially.
Knowledge of all aspects of the design of Ruckers harpsichords was undoubtedly acquired during ravalement, the process of rebuilding old harpsichords to suit new musical requirements. A normal Ruckers transposing harpsichord with the range of C/E–f''' on the lower manual could accommodate the normal 17th-century French compass of G'/B'–c''' without altering the string spacing on the bridge or the scale, simply by aligning the keyboards. While the original Ruckers keys were usually retained in ravalements done in the Low Countries, French rebuilders routinely supplied new keyboards and actions in their own more delicate style. That this was already being done in the 1680s is suggested by the Richard harpsichord of 1688, which, with a false ‘HR’ rose and the date ‘1613’ painted on the soundboard, was evidently intended to be passed off from the start as a Ruckers rebuilt with French keyboards and disposition. Ravalement also normally included the addition of a second choir of 8' strings. Almost as many Ruckers or Couchet harpsichords with French keyboards and actions, but with unaltered cases and soundboards, survive from the first quarter of the 18th century, as do original French instruments of the period. Likewise attesting to their popularity in this period are workshop inventories of Nicholas and François-Etienne (ii) Blanchet (see Hubbard, A1965), which list nearly as many ‘Flemish’ harpsichords as there are new instruments under construction. This popularity continued throughout the century, but the demand for an increased compass altered the purity of design of these early ravalements. A G'–c''' keyboard with the narrower French spacing could be fitted in to the case of a standard Ruckers double. The less common type of Ruckers double with chromatic basses could accommodate a G'–c''' compass without alteration of the spacing and, with French-style keyboards, the compass could be G'–d''' or even e'''. Further extensions of the compass, however, required more radical rebuilding of the old harpsichords.
The
full five-octave compass of F'–f''', which was to remain standard
until the decline in harpsichord making at the end of the century, is already
found in instruments made by Pierre Donzelague in Lyons in 1711 (London, private
collection) and 1716 (Musée Lyonnais des Arts Décoratifs, Lyons). In Parisian
harpsichords, however, the standard range from early in the century until about
1760 was F'–e''', but G'–e''' was not uncommon.
This is strange as the music of the period almost never exceeds G'–d'''.
The F' was used in one piece each by Rameau and François Couperin (ii)
in their solo harpsichord works, but it was not in general use until the 1740s.
Neither Couperin nor Rameau employed e''' in their solo works.
Dagincourt used it in 1733 (Pièces de clavecin), but it was not often
found until the F' was commonly written. The e''' seems to have
fulfilled a sense of order: the keyboards were balanced with one natural after
a group of sharps at each end. G'–e''' instruments, such as a
Louis Bellot of 1742 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and a Jean Goermans
of 1748 (private collection, USA), continued to be made almost to mid-century.
Indeed, much of the repertory from the first half of the century is playable on
instruments with the old compass beginning on G'/B', especially
if there are a divided E key and the c''' and d''' that were often crowded into
the existing cases of old instruments undergoing ravalement. Perhaps the
major advantage of chromatic basses beginning on F' or G' was not
the availability of more accidentals in the bass but rather the more sonorous
tone resulting from larger soundboards and longer bass strings. Already in the
first volume of François Couperin's Pièces de clavecin (1713), several
pieces exploit this rich low tessitura. By 1760 the compass F'–f'''
had become standard in Parisian harpsichords. During the late 1770s and the
1780s a few harpsichords were made with the compass E'–f'''. The
purpose of the added E' key is not known, but it may have been tuned to
a lower note in some short-octave arrangement along with the seldom-used F' and G' keys.
Nicholas Blanchet, who was admitted to the guild in 1689, founded the most important dynasty of Parisian harpsichord makers, which included his son François-Etienne (i), grandson François-Etienne (ii) and Pascal Taskin, who worked for the last-named and married his widow. Eight harpsichords by the Blanchets and seven by Taskin are known to survive. In the 1740s the Blanchets’ connection with the court began, and shortly after the middle of the century their firm became ‘facteur des clavessins du Roi’. During this time, besides their maintenance work for the court, they became increasingly occupied with the rebuilding of Ruckers and Couchet harpsichords into large five-octave French instruments. About as many of these rebuilds survive as do harpsichords entirely made by Blanchet and Taskin. Two other families were notable: Jean Goermans and his son Jacques (c1740–89; later Jacques Germain), and Henri Hemsch (1700–69), his brother Guillaume (1709–74) and their nephew Jean-Henri Moers (1734–93). About nine of the Goermans’ harpsichords and nine by the Hemsch family survive; four of Henri Hemsch's date from the decade 1751–61, a remarkable survival rate. The majority of 18th-century French harpsichord makers were of the Parisian school, but there was a distinct though similar school in Lyons. 18th-century harpsichords from other parts of France are rare, and most of them are either archaic or are the occasional work of an artisan of another craft such as organ building.
A great portion of the energies of 18th-century French harpsichord makers appears to have gone into the massive rebuilding of older harpsichords, especially those of the Ruckers family. Since a rebuilt Ruckers harpsichord was worth several times as much as a new instrument in 18th-century Paris, such a diversion of the makers’ efforts from building new instruments was clearly justified on a financial basis. It led not only to the most elaborate sort of rebuilding, including the conversion of narrow 45-note-compass single-manual instruments to five-octave doubles and the building of new harpsichords around the soundboards of old virginals, but also to outright faking of new instruments to make them look like rebuilds. But as the rebuilding was intended to update earlier instruments to current musical requirements and not to preserve their antique qualities, the sound of a Ruckers or Couchet harpsichord rebuilt by Taskin represents late-18th-century Paris rather than 17th-century Antwerp.
The Blanchets and Taskin were famous for their work in this vein, and they applied to it all the ingenuity and craftsmanship found in the instruments they built in their own names, producing neither crude enlargements in which extra notes were crammed into the bass (in effect sliding the keyboard towards the treble, thereby disastrously shortening the scaling) nor such dubious expedients as the jointing of extensions on to the wrest plank and belly rail. Rather, they used a wide variety of slightly differing techniques, determined by the nature of the original instruments. Of these, the most subtle and ingenious involved rebuilding the spine, in addition to the usual extending of the bentside and bridges and replacement of the cheekpiece, wrest plank and belly rail with new ones of appropriate length. The front of the original spine was cut down to the level of the soundboard. A tapered layer of new wood of the same size would then be added on the outside of the cut-down original spine; then a wholly new spine of the same height as the rest of the case, and long enough to reach the front of the instrument, would be glued on to the outside of the tapered piece. The result was simultaneously to provide more room at the front of the instrument for additional bass keys and to rotate the entire body of the instrument with respect to the strings. This rotation, in turn, had the effect of lengthening the scaling to compensate for the shortening produced by the addition of the new notes in the bass. For all their rebuilds, the Blanchets, Taskin and other reputable makers also supplied beautifully made new French-style keyboards and actions.
Except for their size, the construction of early 18th-century French harpsichords was very similar to that of Ruckers. The framing was a bit heavier, especially the upper struts, which were more numerous. A horizontal brace was glued to the back edges of the upper belly rail in two Blanchet harpsichords of 1730 (private collection, USA) and 1733 (Château de Thoiry). This brace or ‘T’ section, a normal feature of later Blanchet and Taskin harpsichords, enormously stiffened the belly rail, and struts running from it to the bentside, along with gap spacers between the wrest plank and belly rail, strengthened this critical area. In some instruments by other makers, including Henri Hemsch, the upper struts are set on edge and butt against the liners rather than lying flat under them. Case sides were sometimes of a softwood (spruce or fir) rather than poplar, which was invariably used by the Ruckers. Bentsides, however, were usually of poplar, since resinous softwoods are difficult to wet-bend. While Ruckers bentsides and those of most 17th-century French harpsichords are curved throughout their entire length, French bentsides early in the 18th century assumed a characteristic shape with the curve concentrated in the treble and the remainder, towards the tail, straight. Those of the 1730 and 1733 Blanchets are straight for almost two thirds of their lengths. This shape continued in use in the Blanchet-Taskin workshop and was also used by Henri Hemsch and others; completely curved bentsides occur only occasionally later in the century. Bentsides were never made to incorporate the tail in an S-curve. In the second half of the century, the framing became a bit heavier and more sophisticated, and the sides were a little thicker, walls of 18 mm being not uncommon and spines even thicker, up to about 24 mm. In Taskin’s harpsichords the framing, liners, ribbing and 4' hitch-pin rail are beautifully rounded.
The soundboard barring generally follows the Ruckers pattern but, especially in the first half of the century, was not so standardized. The 1707 Dumont and 1733 Blanchet lack cut-off bars, and the ribs perpendicular to the spine extend to the 4' hitch-pin rail. The 1730 Blanchet has a normal cut-off bar but, like the 1707 Dumont, it has two ribs crossing the 8' section of the soundboard around the midsection and tenor, and a third approaches the bass of the 8' bridge from the 4' hitch-pin rail. Harpsichords by Henri Hemsch, probably 1736 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and by Hemsch’s master, Antoine Vater, in 1738 (private collection, France), have ribs parallel to the spine crossing the bridges. All known 18th-century French ribs were cut out to free the soundboard where they pass under bridges. Cross-ribs are not found in the later Blanchet and Taskin instruments and were only occasionally used by makers in the second half of the century, as in a Jacques Germain harpsichord of 1785 (America's Shrine to Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota) in which a rib crosses under the 8' bridge in the tenor. Some makers, including Vater and Henri Hemsch, curved their cut-off bars to be parallel to the 4' bridge.
The keyboards and actions of 18th-century French harpsichords continue the design of the previous century but are a little heavier, with wider jacks, a slightly wider key span (the three-octave measure typically 477 mm), and thicker key levers, especially in the lower manual. Boxwood arcades replaced the carved trefoils on the key fronts, and the sharps, instead of being solid bone, were composed of a thin bone slip glued to a black stained wooden base. The jack-slides and guides were still made of wood covered with punched-leather bearing surfaces, and the accurately made jacks were slightly tapered in width and thickness, fitting the slide only when at rest. These actions were light and quiet, and repeated very quickly. Apparently very few single-manual harpsichords were made; these were almost always disposed 2 × 8'. The two-manual disposition of an 8' and 4' register on the lower manual, shove coupler, and an 8' on the upper, with the 4' between the 8's and the lower 8' plucking the longer strings remained absolutely standard until the third quarter of the century.
After the middle of the century several additions to the standard French two-manual disposition began to appear. The buff stop, rare in the first half of the century, became almost universal. During the late 1750s harpsichords began to be equipped with a variety of foot- or knee-operated devices for producing crescendo effects and for changing registers without taking the hands from the keyboard. The first of these, developed by the Dutch maker Andries Veltman (Weltman, Wittman) in collaboration with a certain Dumontier, was advertised in Paris in 1758 and was demonstrated the following year to the Royal Academy of Sciences. In addition to knee levers to control the registers it was provided with a hammer action and glockenspiel. In the late 1760s an innovation of more lasting significance was introduced, a fourth register having jacks fitted with plectra of soft buff leather (peau de buffle) added behind the three registers of the normal two-manual disposition as a special solo stop. The peau de buffle jacks pluck the same strings as the normal, quilled, lower-manual 8' jacks, which should be disengaged when the fourth register is in use. Most writings of the period credit the invention of the peau de buffle register to Taskin in 1768, although J.-B. de La Borde (Essai sur la musique, Paris, 1780) ascribed the initial idea to the prominent organist, harpsichordist and composer Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, who is known to have had a harpsichord fitted with this device in 1770. A similar invention was claimed by a certain de Laine, who in 1769 announced an instrument fitted with leather plectra and a pedal to change the registers. Soft peau de buffle plectra tend to stroke the strings rather than pluck them. Thus a certain amount of dynamic nuance is made possible by touch alone. Except, perhaps, for the occasional three-register harpsichord provided with peau de buffle as a substitute for the customary quill of the lower-manual 8', peau de buffle was normally only used as a fourth register in harpsichords also provided with knee levers to change the stops. As devised by Taskin in 1768 and found in most of the extant late 18th-century harpsichords made or rebuilt by Taskin or other Parisian builders, five or six pommels, to be raised by the knees, are held in the front rail of the harpsichord’s stand. From left to right these control: a decrescendo, which gradually removes the 4', then the lower-manual quilled 8', then the upper 8', leaving the piano tone of the peau de buffle; the 4'; the lower-manual quilled 8'; the shove coupler (in some instruments this pommel is absent and the coupler is controlled by hand in the usual manner); the peau de buffle; and a batten that raises all the peau de buffle jacks when they are not in use in order to keep the touch as light as possible.
The peau de buffle and knee levers or pedals to change the stops came into being at about the same time as the piano was being introduced to France from Germany and England. Grand pianos by Johann Heinrich Silbermann of Strasbourg were known in Paris by 1759, and in 1763 Balbastre owned a clavecin à marteaux (grand piano) made by Blanchet. Another was in Blanchet’s workshop at the time of his death in 1766. Although the repertory associated with the early German-style grand pianos and the English square pianos which became very popular in Paris in the late 1760s was in the Italian and German styles, the addition of knee levers and peau de buffle to the beloved French harpsichord was manifestly an attempt, far more successful than most such efforts, to graft on to it some of the qualities of the piano, which itself was incapable of realizing works in the highly idiomatic style of the clavecinistes. Late 18th-century French harpsichords with these devices possess all the musical qualities of earlier harpsichords, and the peau de buffle provides the option of a voluptuous tone which is quite similar to that of pianos by Cristofori and the Silbermanns.
The plan of the average 18th-century French harpsichord more nearly follows that of the chromatic rather than the short-octave Ruckers transposer. This design had shorter tenor scaling to keep the tailpiece from becoming too wide in a wider instrument of the same length. The French tonal ideal around 1700 was that of Ruckers, but making larger instruments resulted in a grander and smoother tone. Although the ‘presence’ and immediacy of a small instrument were lost, the sound was no less transparent. As the century passed, the tone grew more complex and less direct; nevertheless even the late Taskins never lost the balance bewteen attack and sustaining power that permits cleanness of articulation. The declamatory style of French keyboard music from the 17th century to the Rococo period required this sensitivity to articulation, and their harpsichords met the demand well. Indeed, although there is little evidence that French harpsichords were exported to other countries during the 18th century, it has been recognized during the 20th-century revival of the harpsichord that the classic five-octave French double perhaps comes closest to the ideal of an all-purpose instrument, versatile enough to be a satisfactory medium for the interpretation of harpsichord music of all countries and periods. Thus modern harpsichords modelled after the work of Taskin and other 18th-century French makers have been in widespread use since the last half of the 20th century.
Whether new or rebuilt, a French 18th-century harpsichord was a major piece of decorative furniture. The soundboards were painted with flowers in a more sophisticated style than the Flemish, the cases were painted or lacquered in any of a variety of fashionable styles and the instruments were equipped with elaborate six-, seven- or eight-legged bases often carved and gilded in one of the royal styles. Simpler instruments were painted in one or two colours, panelled with gold bands and mouldings and fitted with less elaborate bases but still in one of the royal styles (fig.9). Despite the use of walnut and marquetry in 17th-century harpsichords, and the superb quality of veneered furniture in 18th-century France, French harpsichords seem never to have been veneered.
The standard 18th-century national type of harpsichord seems to have crystallized slightly earlier in England than in France, namely in the work of Hermann Tabel (d 1738), a builder, trained in Antwerp, who moved to London in about 1700. Both of the makers whose firms dominated English harpsichord building in the 18th century, Burkat Shudi (1702–73) and Jacob Kirkman (1710–92), worked in Tabel’s shop and both built instruments strikingly like the sole surviving example of Tabel’s work, a double-manual harpsichord dated 1721 (fig.8).
A typical Shudi or Kirkman double has a 2 × 8', 1 × 4' specification, disposed so that one 8' register, known as the dogleg, is available from both manuals, while the lower manual has the second 8' and the 4' register, and the upper manual has a lute register as an alternative to the dogleg. In addition, a buff stop on a Shudi acts on the lower-manual 8' strings, and on a Kirkman on the dogleg 8' strings (fig.11). Their cases are made of oak, and are veneered mostly in walnut in early examples and mahogany in later ones. All are invariably cross-banded with a wide range of stringings, and some, particularly those of Kirkman, have spendidly rich marquetry in the keywell. The instrument is supported on a trestle stand with four legs, which vary throughout the 18th century from turned George II to square Chippendale; occasional special examples have rather ungraceful cabriole legs curving outwards from the level of the trestle’s lower stretchers. The soundboards are not decorated with paintings, and Shudi soundboards do not have a gilded metal rose; the barring and case bracing are rather like those of a Ruckers harpsichord. Like the bottom, all the braces are pine. The lower ones are not as tall as in a Ruckers instrument; there are only two transverse bottom braces in addition to the lower belly rail, but these are supplemented by a diagonal brace running along the bottom from the intersection of the rear brace and the bentside to the centre of the forward brace. In addition, there are two or three longitudinal braces running upwards from the front bottom brace to the upper belly rail. The upper-level braces are more numerous than on a Ruckers harpsichord, where there are three set nearly parallel to one another and at a slightly oblique angle to the spine. In a Kirkman or Shudi harpsichord there are four such braces which, however, are set vertically rather than flat, so that they bear on the face of the liner rather than merely being nailed to its underside. These four are supplemented by a fifth, heavier one, that passes from the bentside to the upper belly rail in the crucial treble area. (For excellent illustrations of the inner construction of a Kirkman harpsichord see van der Meer, C1991, p.146, and Koster, C1994, p.99.) The inner case construction of a single-manual Kirkman or Shudi is identical to that of a double, and the specification of single-manual harpsichords by both makers is either 2 × 8', or 2 × 8', 1 × 4'.
Except in matters of decoration, these instruments changed little throughout the century, apart from a shift in the plucking-points of Shudi harpsichords after 1770 that produces a rounder and less incisive tone in the later instruments (a change in line with the occasional substitution of leather for quill plectra in the lower-manual 8' jacks), and the addition of the pedal-operated mechanisms described below. The overall lengths of Kirkman’s harpsichords (and, correspondingly, of their longest F' string) varied over the years, being around 180·3 cm in 1745, decreasing to around 172·7 cm in the early 1760s and increasing again to around 177·8 cm in the 1770s and 80s. The reason for these changes is not known.
Tabel’s
five-octave F'G'–f''' keyboard had lacked the F' (presumably for reasons
of visual symmetry), and Kirkman and Shudi, like other English builders,
followed this practice until about 1780, when the F' was included as a matter of
course.
A minor difference between Shudi and Kirkman harpsichords concerns the arrangement of the stop-knobs in two-manual instruments. On Shudi double-manual harpsichords the three stop-knobs at the left side of the nameboard control are (from left to right) the lute stop, the 4' and the buff stop, whereas in a Kirkman the order is buff stop, lute stop and 4'; both have 8' stops located at the right side of the nameboard with the dogleg controlled by the left-hand knob and the lower manual 8' controlled by the right-hand knob. As a result of this arrangement, one can rapidly engage whichever of the unison stops may temporarily have been disengaged simply by squeezing the knobs together. Although Kirkman is known only once (1772) to have built an instrument with a compass greater than five octaves (a double of F'–c'''), Shudi regularly made instruments with a compass of C'–f''', of which 12 dating from 1765 to 1782 have survived.
The tone of a Kirkman or Shudi harpsichord is enormously rich and powerful; whereas that of a French harpsichord may be compared to the sound of a woodwind ensemble, the tone of these developed English instruments, with their brilliant trebles and imposing basses, may be compared to that of a brass band. The sound thus lacks the subtlety of a French instrument but more than compensates by its volume and sensual impact. As is true of many of the harpsichords made in the second half of the 18th century – that is, after the great age of harpsichord composition – the sound of these instruments sometimes tends to call attention to itself rather than merely serving as a vehicle for projecting the music, a quality that may in abstract terms be viewed as a defect despite its splendour. (For further discussion of tone and voicing see Kirkman.)
Beginning no later than the early 1760s, English harpsichords were customarily fitted with crescendo devices. The so-called Machine stop of Kirkman and Shudi disengages the 4' register and then the front 8' register as a pedal is depressed (on double-manual instruments, since the disengagement of the front 8' register would silence the upper manual, it simultaneously engages the lute stop); thus when the pedal is fully depressed the registration on the upper manual of dogleg 8' is replaced by lute stop, and that on the lower of dogleg 8', lower-manual 8' and 4' by lower-manual 8' alone. In both single- and double-manual instruments, the machine stop can be disengaged when desired to permit normal hand-stop operation. Small variations on this arrangement may be found in the harpsichords of Thomas Haxby and of Longman and Broderip. By 1766, the machine stop was supplemented by a second crescendo device, the ‘nag's head Swell’, which enabled the performer to open either a section of the harpsichord’s lid (if not already raised) or the ‘Venetian swell’, a series of louvres covering the soundboard (fig.12). The two devices used in conjunction with one another produce a surprisingly wide and effective crescendo, beginning with the pianissimo of the lower-manual 8' alone with the lid or louvres closed, followed by the successive addition of the front 8' and the 4' and finally the gradual opening of lid or louvres to permit the fortissimo of the full harpsichord.
Most of the known 18th-century Italian harpsichord makers were active in Florence and among these Bartolomeo Cristofori was pre-eminent. His few surviving harpsichords show a number of refinements in design aimed at better structural or tonal performance. Those he influenced included not only his assistant Giovanni Ferrini, but also makers who worked in other towns, such as Giuseppe Solfanelli (active in Florence and Pisa) and Giuseppe Maria Goccini of Bologna.
Even
in the 18th century C/E–c''' was still a widely used
compass (as also in Italian organs of the same period); for the accompaniment
of the human voice this compass was presumably sufficient. However, the once
common C/E–f''' compass became practically obsolete. Of
compasses reaching below C, the majority started on G'A'
(i.e. without G').
Those having a G'/B' short octave were no more common than in the
17th century. More chromatic compasses beginning on G' were used than in
the 17th century but were only slightly more common than G'/B'
compasses. Compasses starting on F'G'A' became more
popular than previously, being produced in almost the same numbers as G'A'
compasses. Most keyboard compasses did not exceed c''', even when
starting on F', but a few reached f''', or even g'''.
After 1700 the majority of dispositions were 2 × 8', but four instruments have survived which had three 8' registers. Six 2 × 4' harpsichords are also known. Although many 16th-century instruments had only a single 8' register, this disposition became a rarity after 1700. In contrast to instruments from north of the Alps, a 2 × 8', 1 × 4' registration remained rare in Italy. A general lack of interest in the possibility of registration changes is suggested both by the rarity of two-manual Italian harpsichords and by the absence of stop levers in many 18th-century Italian harpsichords.
Although some jacks in surviving instruments now contain square slots for leather plectra it is likely that some of these are later modifications; the preference at the time was for bird quill. Some experimentation is recorded in the description of the Cembalo angelico, invented in Rome in 1775 (see Russell, A1959, appendix 2), which enabled a range of different tone colours to be produced.
It is easier to draw conclusions about 18th-century scalings than about those of the 16th and 17th centuries. Documentary evidence and the design of scales combine to show that brass wire was used in most designs, where a c'' of between about 25 cm and 28·5 cm is found (see Wraight, H1997). Some instruments by Cristofori and others show the combined use of iron and brass scales, with separate bridges, in order to overcome space restrictions. The scaling of both harpsichords and virginals suggests that a range of 8' pitch was used throughout Italy which covered a whole tone, with c'' measuring 25 to 28·5 cm. Within this range of a tone in there were in Florence three further divisions rather than two semitone sizes. It is probable that this whole-tone range of pitches was in simultaneous use, although scales of 25 cm are first found around 1740. Thus, there is no clear evidence from these instruments that pitch rose in the 18th century compared with earlier times; rather, the range of pitches for which instruments were made remained at a constant level from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The evidence of 18th-century pitches is mainly from Florentine harpsichords; virtually none have been identified from Venice, Milan or Rome. In 1704 Goccini modified a 1530 harpsichord by Alessandro Trasuntino from 1 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition and C/E–f''' compass to 2 × 8' with G'/B'–c'''; another instrument, by Vito Trasuntino (dated 1560; Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung, Berlin), was rebuilt with a shorter scale. This gives the impression that the pitch was raised, but since brass was used instead of iron the pitch was lowered by a minor whole tone (ratio 10:9).
Research on harpsichords of all countries has attempted to elucidate the ways in which instruments were strung in order to understand better the makers' intentions and permit more faithful restorations (O'Brien, A1981, and Gug, A1984). Comparison of the few known diameters of old wire with archival and documentary sources and the identification of old wire bobbins shows that Nuremberg wire was used in Italy in the 18th century. It has been discovered that a basic principle of stringing using a system of gauges (with only slight variations) was employed mainly by Cristofori and other Florentine makers, by which the top ten notes were strung with gauge 10 wire, the next nine with gauge 9, and so on down to gauge 2 (for details, see Wraight, H2000).
Compared to the number of surviving 18th-century harpsichords from Italy, France, England and the Low Countries, there are progressively fewer from Germany, Scandinavia, Portugal and Spain, and hence progressively less information is available concerning the character and development of the instrument in these areas. This is specially regrettable since Germany and Spain in particular produced so much harpsichord music of interest.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
There were arguably four schools of harpsichord making in Germany during the 18th century, in Hamburg, Berlin, Saxony and Thuringia. Hamburg was a major centre whose sphere of influence extended to Stockholm in the north and Hanover in the south, and is the only school represented by an appreciable number of surviving examples. Two harpsichords (one a reworking of an instrument originally built by Johannes Ruckers in 1618) survive by Johann Christoph Fleischer and three by his younger brother Carl Conrad Fleischer. There are six extant harpsichords signed by Hieronymus Albrecht Hass, two by his son Johann Adolph Hass and three by Chistian Zell, who married Carl Fleischer's widow.
Harpsichords of the Hamburg school vary greatly in size, compass and disposition, but are all built in essentially the same manner. Coniferous wood is used for the case sides, the baseboard and the lid, and beech for the wrest plank, nuts, bridges and jackrail. As with Flemish harpsichords the case sides are glued and dowelled to the upper surface of the baseboard; Flemish influence is also evident in the soundboard layout and in the bridge cross-section of early Hass harpsichords which is similar to that of Ruckers harpsichords. Rather than a bentside and an angled tail, however, Hamburg harpsichords are characterized by an S-shaped bentside, made either of oak or lime. Full-depth braces cross the case from the bentside to the spine, with no upper-level bracing.
The natural keys are veneered with ivory or tortoiseshell and the sharp blocks are of lime or beech (often ebonized) covered with ebony, ivory or tortoiseshell. The natural fronts are decorated with embossed paper, incised paper glued to a red backing, or small blocks of ebony or ivory in which a semicircular moulding has been cut. Key levers of single-manual harpsichords and of the lower manual of double-manual harpsichords are guided by wooden or whalebone slips riding in the vertical slots of a rack. Upper-manual keys are guided either by vertical pins positioned between the tails of the key levers or by vertical pins positioned in mortises cut in the centre of the key tails. The three-octave span of the natural keys ranges from 49 to 50 cm. On the double-manual harpsichords built by H.A. Hass in 1723 (Musikhistorisk Museum, Copenhagen) and 1734 (Brussels Conservatory) there are small padded blocks on the underside of the upper-manual keys and on the upper surface of the lower-manual keys. The manuals are coupled together either by pushing in the upper manual (1723) or by pulling out the lower one (1734). In the harpsichord built by J.A. Hass around 1760 (Yale University), short doglegs are provided for the upper-manual 8' jacks; small padded blocks on the lower-manual keys are positioned under the doglegs so that when the lower manual is pushed in the lower-manual keys lift the upper-manual jacks without the upper-manual keys having to be moved.
Most Hamburg harpsichords have iron scales of about 36 cm, but a few instruments, including the 1728 Zell (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; fig.13) and the 1740 Hass (Puyana Collection, Paris) have scales of about 34 cm; these harpsichords may have been intended to sound about a semitone higher than the longer-scaled instruments.
Although some Hamburg-built harpsichords have the classic 2 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition, five instruments by H.A. Hass are exceptions. One made in 1726 (Leuvsta Bruk Manor House, Sweden) has the typical 16th-century Italian disposition of 1 × 8', 1 × 4', while two others originally had three choirs of 8' strings. The Hass 1723 harpsichord is disposed 3 × 8', 1 × 4', with the 8' nut stepped such that there are two levels of 8' strings: two sets are positioned on the upper section of the nut with the third set positioned on the lower section and passing through the nut to the tuning pins. A 1721 harpsichord by Hass (City Museum, Gothenburg) survives as a single-manual piano, but seems to have originally had two manuals and the unique disposition of 3 × 8', 2 × 4'.
Various 18th-century German makers (including J.C. Fleischer, Michael Mietke, Harass, Zacharias Hildebrandt, Gottfried and J.A. Silbermann and J.A. Stein) are now thought to have built harpsichords with a set of 16' strings. No two of the three surviving Hass harpsichords with a 16' register are exactly alike, but their 16' strings are arranged in the same ingenious fashion. Inside the case a low curving rim is attached to the deep frame members and follows the line that the bentside of a normal instrument would take. This rim serves as a hitch-pin rail for the 8' strings. Beyond it and at a slightly higher level there is a completely separate soundboard for the 16' bridge, and the 16' strings are hitched to the pins driven into the lining of the bentside along the far edge of this soundboard. As a result, the 16' bridge does not have to be pierced to permit the 8' strings to be hitched at the bentside, and the layout of the 8' and 4' strings, which still comprise the basic core of the harpsichord, is undisturbed.
The
1734 double-manual harpsichord by H.A. Hass has the compass G'–d'''
and the disposition 1 × 16', 2 × 8', 1 × 4', lute. The 1740 Hass, which is the
only unquestionably genuine three-manual historical harpsichord still in
existence, has the compass F'G'–f''' (i.e. lacking F'), and the disposition 1
× 16', 2 × 8', 1 × 4', 1 × 2', lute. The upper two manuals of this instrument
provide a lute stop on the upper manual, a dogleg 8' register played by both
the upper and the middle manuals, and a 4' and a second 8' playable on the
middle manual only. The doglegs reach down to the middle manual, and there is
no coupler between these two keyboards. The 16' and the 2' are confined to the
lowest manual, which (like the keyboards of some organs) can be pushed entirely
into the case like a drawer for playing on only the 8' and 4' registers, but
can be pulled partly forward so as to play the 16' and 2' by themselves, or
further forward to permit all the registers except the lute stop to sound at
once from the lowest manual.
The remaining Hass instrument with a 16' stop has only two keyboards, but compensates by having two rows of 2' jacks (both playing the same strings), one on the upper manual and one on the lower. Its date is not known for certain, but comparison with Hass clavichords suggests about 1760. As on the 1734 double, buff stops are provided for the lower-manual 8' and the 16', and the lower-manual 2' (like that on the 1740 triple) extends only from F' to c''. This curtailment is necessary because, even with the narrow jackslides used on these instruments, the gap between the wrest plank and the belly rail required for the five slides (and thus the minimum distance between the 2' nut and the 2' bridge) must be so wide that no string stretched across it could be tuned appreciably higher than the c'''' equivalent to c'' at 2' pitch. This explains why the sixth slide carrying the jacks of the upper-manual 2' on the instrument of about 1760 goes only to b.
The outer case and lid of Hamburg instruments are always painted, sometimes with chinoiserie, while the inside of the lid often bears a painting in oils, with subjects including (on instruments by H.A. Hass) The Grand Concert in the Garden (1723) and The Trojan Horse (1734). The keywell area above the keyboard is usually veneered in hardwoods and exotic materials. Most soundboards are decorated with painted flowers, the near edge being reserved for the signature and sometimes small groups of classical or pastoral figures. Only the harpsichords of the Fleischer brothers have a soundboard rose, which is geometrical and multi-layered. The stand for the H.A. Hass harpsichords of 1726, 1732 and 1734, as well as the 1728 Zell, appear to be original, and consist of turned and carved legs between an upper and a lower stretcher.
Only two harpsichords survive from Hanover: a single-manual of 1738 by Christian Vater with the compass G'/B'–e''' (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg), and a claviorgan of 1712 by Hermann Willenbrock with the compass CD–c''' (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Like the Hamburg instruments, both have S-shaped bentsides; the keywell veneering of the Willenbrock is reminiscent of the work of Zell. There are, however, various differences between these instruments and those of Hamburg: the Vater, for example, has a brass scale of 27 cm, and both instruments have ebony rather than ivory natural plates.
Harpsichord builders active in Berlin during the 18th century included Johann Hohlfeld (1711–71), Johann Straube (1725–1802) and Johann Oesterlein (b 1728/9), who is represented by a single surviving harpsichord dated 1792 (Berlin Museum). The Berlin school is, however, dominated by the court instrument builder Michael Mietke, whom J.S. Bach visited in 1719 to take delivery of a double-manual harpsichord for the Duke of Anhalt-Köthen. A single-manual harpsichord signed by Mietke and dated 1710 survives (Hälsinglands Museum, Hudiksvall, Sweden). According to Kilström (H1994) this instrument, constructed mostly from walnut, has the compass G'A'–c''' and the disposition 2 × 8'. Two further harpsichords (Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin) have been attributed to Mietke and dated to before 1713: a single-manual white harpsichord disposed 2 × 8', whose compass was originally G'A'–c''', and a double-manual black harpsichord disposed 2 × 8', 1 × 4', originally with the compass F'G'A'–c''' (the compasses of both were later extended to F'G'–e'''). All the Mietke instruments have S-shaped bentsides and use box slides to guide the jacks rather than upper and lower registers. The c'' scaling of the double-manual Mietke was originally 29 cm which, when compared with the shorter 27·5 cm scale of the Hudiksvall Mietke, would suggest that both instruments were designed to be strung in brass but were intended to sound at two different pitches, about a semitone apart.
Surviving harpsichords from the Saxon school include a double-manual instrument by Jacob Hartmann (Bach-Haus, Eisenach) and a double-manual instrument attributed to Gottfried Horn (Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Dresden). There are five extant harpsichords signed by members of the Gräbner family, and two vis-à-vis harpsichord-piano combination instruments by Johann Andreas Stein. These instruments all differ significantly from those of the Hamburg school: the cases, made of hardwood or veneered, are not painted and have angled tails, and the soundboard barring includes transverse ribs running under the bridges. Although only one of the Stein combination instruments now includes a 16' stop, there is documentary evidence (see Henkel, F1990) of a harpsichord by Gottfried Silbermann which was also disposed with a set of 16' strings.
The possible existence of a Thuringian school of harpsichord building has been given weight by Krickeberg's attribution (in Restle, ed., F1995) of an unsigned harpsichord (the so-called Bach harpsichord, Berlin Museum, no.316; see §5 below) to either Johann Heinrich Harass the elder or Johann Matthias Harass of Gross-Breitenbach, on the basis of the instrument's similarity to a double-manual harpsichord (Schloss Museum, Sondershausen) believed to have been signed by Harass. Krickeberg and others have suggested that the Berlin instrument was designed to include a set of strings at 16' pitch.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
The few extant 18th-century Austrian harpsichords have cases mostly of solid walnut or walnut veneer with a double-curved bentside and sloping cheeks (similar to the early South German and Viennese pianos). The most important feature of instruments before about 1760, appearing on eight surviving harpsichords and one clavichord, is the ‘Viennese bass octave’, with multiple divided keys starting at F. Haydn must have had access to an instrument of this kind during his early period (Walter, F1970). The earliest signed and dated Viennese harpsichord was made in 1747 by Johann Christoph Pantzner (d 1761). The short scaling of most Austrian harpsichords indicates stringing throughout with brass wire and a high pitch (a' = 450–470) which corresponds with the Chorton pitch of most organs of the period. Besides several anonymous 18th-century instruments, the only other signed Austrian harpsichords or spinets that survive are by Viennese makers: Johann Leydecker, 1755 (Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz); Matthias Blum, 1778 (Schloss Greillenstein, Lower Austria); Gottfried Malleck, 1778 (Mestské múzeum, Bratislava); Englebert Klingler, 1799 (Naródni múzeum, Prague). A spinet built in 1804 by Christoph Bock (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) is thought to be the last Austrian plucked keyboard instrument built before the 20th-century revival.
Virtually nothing is known of any 18th-century harpsichord building in what are now the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia or Slovenia, although the craft seems to have been practised there from the 16th century to the 18th. A harpsichord made by the Pressburg organ builder Glöckner is in the Slovak National Museum, Bratislava.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
The S-shaped bentside began to appear in some Spanish harpsichords at the beginning of the 18th century, perhaps due to the influence of imports from Hamburg. Three examples showing this style are a harpsichord, later converted into a piano, labelled as being made in Seville in 1734, a photograph of a lost five-octave, single-manual harpsichord made, also in Seville, in 1754 by Francesco Pérez Mirabel (who also built the earliest surviving Spanish piano), and a claviorgan, also converted into later into a piano, bearing the label of Tadeo Tornel of Murcia and the date 1777. Mirabel's instruments, like several by other makers, were decorated with chinoiserie. In contrast, three related instruments, one of which was built in Valladolid in 1728 by Andrés Fernandez Santos, have angled tails. In the latter part of the century Juan del Mármol made instruments combining harpsichord and piano actions. Perhaps the greatest Spanish harpsichord maker of the period was Diego Fernández Caparrós (1703–75), who was maker and repairer to the Spanish royal family from 1722 until his death. None of his instruments survives, but the wills of Scarlatti's pupil Queen María Bárbara, Antonio Soler's patron Infante Gabriel, and of the singer Farinelli give some idea of his work. For the Queen he made at least two 61-note harpsichords in the Italian style, a smaller one, and a cembalo di registri: a five-register instrument with button pedals for operating the wire-strung, gut-strung and flute-like registers, some of which were divided. He also built instruments with a 63-note compass for Infante Gabriel. Farinelli owned a Spanish transposing harpsichord probably by Fernández. According to Burney, Farinelli's Spanish harpsichords were built in the Italian manner with a separate outer case. Some of Queen María Bárbara's instruments were made of cedar and cypress with a white poplar outer case, but Fernández also made walnut instruments apparently without a separate case. Two three-manual harpsichords were advertized for sale in Madrid in the late 18th century. The only surviving signed harpsichord of Catalonian origin is a single-manual 2 × 8' instrument with the surprisingly conservative compass of C/E–c''', made in Barcelona in 1743 by Salvador Bofill.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
The only catalogued Danish 18th-century instruments of the harpsichord family that survive are a small C–d''' virginal from 1762 (Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen) by Christian Ferdinand Speer, a Silesian émigré active in Copenhagen, and a one-manual harpsichord of 1770 (Falsters Minder Museum, Nykøbing) by Moritz Georg Moshack, a Copenhagen maker. The Speer virginal has a short c'' scale of only 17·5 cm and was probably designed to be strung in iron and to sound an octave above normal pitch. The 1770 Moshack has an S-shaped bentside and case dimensions so close to those of the 1764 Hass (Russell Collection, Edinburgh) that it seems likely that Moshack either learnt his craft in Hamburg or copied an imported Hamburg instrument.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
In Sweden, a number of instruments and some secondary evidence indicate that harpsichord making flourished during the 18th century, especially after 1756, when the government banned the import of musical instruments to encourage native builders. A one-manual five-octave harpsichord (Musikmuseet, Stockholm) dated 1748 is signed by Philip Jakob Specken, who learnt his craft in Dresden before moving to Stockholm. Niels (or Nicolas) Brelin, a clergyman, is known to have built an upright harpsichord (clavicytherium) in 1741 with eight registration pedals. A contemporary sketch printed in the proceedings of the Swedish Royal Academy shows that it had a five-octave compass and that its disposition included a 4' stop. Brelin is said to have made two trips abroad to study instrument building, but where and with whom he worked is not known.
The harpsichord signed ‘Johannes Broman, Stockholm 1756’ (Musikmuseet, Stockholm) is a five-octave two-manual instrument similar in construction to a Hamburg harpsichord (including an S-shaped bentside). It is disposed 3 × 8', 1 × 4', lute, and designed, incredibly, to have iron strings throughout the compass; it consequently measures 360 cm. The two-manual five-octave instrument signed ‘Gottlieb Rosenau, Stockholm 1786’ (Musikhistorisk Museum, Copenhagen), while also similar in style to contemporaneous Hamburg instruments, has strings which foreshorten in the usual way and a standard case length of 276 cm.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
Few 18th-century harpsichords from the northern Netherlands are recorded as extant: two instruments made in Amsterdam in the 1760s, a 1787 instrument from Leiden, and from Roermond a curious survival of 17th-century style, dated 1734. The Roermond instrument (Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp) is an unusual two-manual harpsichord with a virginal filling out the space between the bentside and the extended cheekpiece. The harpsichord portion is reminiscent of an earlier transposing double after alignment. The compass is certainly the normal late 17th-century Flemish range, G'/B'–c''', the lower manual plays sets of 8' and 4' jacks, and the upper controls a dogleg 8' and a second set of 4' jacks playing on the same strings as those of the lower-manual 4'. The virginal, with a keyboard to the left, has a compass of CD–c'''. The maker, Johannes Josephus Coenen, was a priest and the organist of Roermond Cathedral, and seems to have made instruments in his spare time.
In sharp contrast a modern, large two-manual instrument with a 16' stop was advertised for sale in Amsterdam just a year later by Rutgert Pleunis. His career as one of the most inventive keyboard instrument builders of his time was centred from 1741 in London, where he was known as Roger Plenius. Unfortunately no instrument of his survives.
A harpsichord now at Leipzig, unsigned but with the initials ‘L.V.’ in the rose, bears the date 1766 on the highest key (f''') and its place of origin, Amsterdam, on the lowest (G'/B'). A one-manual harpsichord of 1768, by C.F. Laeske of Amsterdam (private collection, New York) is disposed 2 × 8', 1 × 4' and has the compass C–f'''. A harpsichord by Abraham Leenhouwer of Leiden (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague), a standard two-manual instrument of five-octave compass disposed 2 × 8', 1 × 4', is remarkable not only for its late date, 1787, but also for the archaic stop-knobs, which are extended register ends protruding through the cheekpiece. This feature, also found in the Coenen, ‘L.V.’ and Laeske harpsichords, seems to have survived longer in the northern Netherlands than anywhere else.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
From the southern Netherlands a considerable number of instruments remain to substantiate the written record. In the early 18th century new harpsichords began to be made in the form characteristic of earlier instruments of the Ruckers type after they were enlarged in the late 17th century. Two 8' stops rather than a single unison register were the rule. Two-manual instruments had either three sets of jacks (one each for the two 8' and one 4' choirs) or four, as in the earlier transposing harpsichords. In the latter case, the fourth set would be used either as a second 4' stop playing on the upper manual (as on the Coenen harpsichord of 1734), or for a cut-through lute stop, plucking one of the unison choirs close to the nut. But quite a few simpler instruments continued to be produced, even in the late 18th century. Albert Delin of Tournai, for instance, seems to have done without a second manual or 4' stop, although he was a builder of great skill and refinement, judging from his surviving ten or so instruments dated 1750 to 1770. In addition to making conventional harpsichords and spinets, Delin also produced clavicytheria that are outstanding for both their mechanical excellence and their rich sound. Three examples survive (Berlin Collection; Brussels Conservatory; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague).
Jérôme Mahieu of Brussels (d 1737) was probably active before 1732, the earliest date recorded for him. He built harpsichords with both one and two manuals, generally with three registers (2 × 8', 1 × 4') but occasionally with only two, in which case he preferred the older 1 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition to the more modern 2 × 8'. The compass was either of 58 notes (G'–e''') or 61 (F'–f'''). (The 1732 Mahieu instrument with an apparent compass of D'–d''' reported in Paris in 1952 was presumably altered by a 19th-century restoration from the original F'–f''' range.) Also active during the mid-18th century was Jacobus Van den Elsche of Antwerp. One instrument (Vleeshuis Museum, Antwerp), dated 1763, survives from his workshop; apart from its exceptionally sturdy construction it is a standard two-manual five-octave harpsichord disposed 2 × 8', 1 × 4'. Another instrument (formerly in Berlin; destroyed 1945) was ostensibly dated 1710, seven years before Van den Elsche's entry into the Guild of St Luke, and signed to indicate that it was rebuilt in 1790 by Johann Heinemann of Antwerp. A one-manual harpsichord by Heinemann (Brussels) with a C/E–d''' compass, disposed 2 × 8', is dated 1793; this would make it apparently the latest extant Flemish harpsichord, but the short-octave keyboard is strangely archaic in view of the date.
Members of the Dulcken family were distinguished harpsichord builders in the region during the 18th century. At least eight harpsichords by Joannes Daniel Dulcken (bap. 1706; d 1757), who worked mainly in Antwerp, are known (instruments made in Brussels and bearing later dates are the work of his sons). His harpsichords tend to have long scales, the single-manual harpsichord of about 1740 (private collection, Edinburgh) having a c'' scale of nearly 39 cm. Consequently the cases are long, his two-manual instruments being some 260 cm. Occasionally he used a singular type of construction with both an inner and an outer bentside. All his mature instruments have a five-octave compass, disposed 2 × 8', 1 × 4', often with a cut-through lute stop on the upper manual. Dulcken preferred to use a dogleg jack for the normal upper 8' rather than a coupler (fig.14). But since the lute register and the lower 8' usually pluck the same choir, with the second unison strings sounding only when the dogleg 8' is engaged, no dialogue of lower 8' and lute stop is normally possible and the upper manual is limited to providing a softer sound contrasting with the tutti of the lower manual. Johannes Petrus Bull, another German who settled in Antwerp, was apprenticed to J.D. Dulcken there. Four of his instruments have survived, dated 1776 to 1789, all of five-octave compass and disposed 2 × 8', 1 × 4'. Three are two-manual instruments. One of these, dated 1778, has most ingeniously wrought, very wide upper-manual dogleg jacks, with two tongues facing in opposite directions. These jacks can pluck either 8' choir and thus a combination of 2 × 8' is available on each manual, since the dogleg and the lute stop can be combined on the upper keyboard. But the lower 8' jacks are fitted with peau de buffle plectra so that only the dogleg 8' is available to give a normal quilled 8' sound on the lower manual. Thus, as with Dulcken, no dialogue of a quilled lower 8' and a lute stop is possible in the manner of the English double harpsichord. A later two-manual instrument by Bull (1789) lacks the double tongues in the dogleg upper-manual jacks, but it is so arranged that damper interference between the lower 8' jacks and the dogleg upper 8' prevents the use of the upper keyboard as an echo manual.
Harpsichord, §4(iv): 18th century: Germany and other European countries
Although in Switzerland some sparse records survive of harpsichord making as far back as the late 15th century, the only surviving instruments identifiable as Swiss date from the 18th century and come from the German-speaking area. There is no firm evidence that the craft ever took root in the other regions. (A spinettino in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum Zurich, known to have been decorated in Stupan, Engadin, in 1722, is of uncertain origin and probably 17th-century.) Swiss harpsichords of the 18th century were probably similar in construction to the models produced in Strasbourg, particularly to those made in the Silbermann workshop. Peter Friedrich Brosi, a native of Swabia, was apprenticed to Silbermann before moving to Basle where he set up as an organ and harpsichord builder. A spinet signed by him (Schweizerisches Landesmuseum) is somewhat archaic for its date (1755), with a compass of C–e''', a distinctly 17th-century type of dark walnut case and a black-stained stand of heavy turned legs connected by a stretcher. A spinet of 1755 signed by his son, Johann Jacob Brosi, is closer in dimensions, compass (F'–f''') and appearance to the late German type of instrument. An instrument by the Zurich craftsman Hans Conrad Schmuz, dated 1761, is in the Alstetten Museum. It is a single harpsichord of five-octave compass with two 8' registers; the rather plain walnut case and simple turned legs suggest provincial origins. An ottavino by his elder brother, Leonhard Schmutz, was sold in Paris in 1924 on the dispersal of the Savoye Collection.
Harpsichord, §5(i): 19th century
The Kirkman firm is said to have made its last harpsichord in 1809; the latest extant example is dated 1800. 19th-century restorers such as Tomasini, Danti and Fleury in Paris produced a few new instruments, and the harpsichord still appeared sporadically as a continuo instrument in oratorio and opera, and even as a vehicle for virtuoso pianists such as Moscheles (1837) and Pauer (1861–7) to play in ‘historical recitals’. But generally the traditions of harpsichord playing and construction slumbered in the 19th century; scholars, performers and public alike assumed that if Bach and Handel had known the modern piano in its iron-framed, cross-strung, repetition-action perfection, they would surely have preferred it to the ‘deficient’ harpsichords of their time.
In the mid-1860s the French virtuoso pianist Louis Diémer began to include in his recitals selections performed on the harpsichord, generally using a 1769 instrument by Pascal Taskin which was owned by the maker’s descendants (but now at the Russell Collection in Edinburgh; see fig.9 above). In 1882 this harpsichord was restored by Louis Tomasini and subsequently borrowed for study by the Erard firm of piano and harp makers in Paris, with a view to resuming production of such instruments. Shortly thereafter the rival firm Pleyel also examined the Taskin harpsichord, and at the Paris Exposition of 1889 both these firms and Tomasini displayed elaborately decorated harpsichords (which are now in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Berlin; see fig.15 below).
The early revival Erard and Pleyel harpsichords – two-manual, five-octave instruments, disposed 2 × 8', 1 × 4' – are actually constructed more along the lines of English instruments of the mid- and late 18th century, such as Kirkman’s and Shudi’s, than those of Taskin instruments. Their framing, open at the bottom like that of the modern grand piano, is much heavier than that of 18th-century harpsichords, Erard’s rather more so than Pleyel’s. (Pleyel had been influenced by the piano to a greater extent in other respects such as scaling, soundboard ribbing and buttoned-on bridges.) While no metal bracing was used, the strings and bridges were far heavier than in antique instruments. The jacks were wooden, with traditional dampers. Erard used quill plectra in the lower 8'; but the other registers were leathered, as were all of Pleyel’s (including the extra English-type cut-through lute stop which Pleyel added to the Taskin disposition). After initially opting for stop levers going through the nameboard, Erard changed to an instrument solely with pedals, such as Pleyel had made from the start. The keyboards are proportioned like those of the makers’ pianos.
In London during the late 1880s Arnold Dolmetsch, a young French-born violin teacher who had trained at the Brussels Conservatory (where he had attended historical concerts with early instruments) and the Royal College of Music, London, began to present concerts of Renaissance and Baroque music. By 1890 he had acquired and made serviceable a Kirkman double harpsichord, an Italian virginal, a large German clavichord and a spinet. His concerts attracted a growing and influential circle of artists, writers and critics. In 1894 he constructed his first clavichord, and in 1896 at the suggestion of William Morris his first harpsichord, for display at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in London (now in the Dolmetsch collection, Horniman Museum, London). This was a one-manual instrument of G'–f''' compass, disposed 2 × 8' with buff stop and four pedals, and it so impressed the conductor Hans Richter that he engaged Dolmetsch, with the instrument, to accompany the recitatives in the 1897 Covent Garden production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. It was also used in Purcell performances in Birmingham. While antique instruments had served on rare occasions during the 19th century for continuo playing, this was apparently the first such use of a modern harpsichord. The revival in Britain owed much also to the efforts of A.J. Hipkins, a concert pianist, associate of the Broadwood firm and historian of keyboard instruments. In the 1880s and 90s Hipkins gave lecture-demonstrations on 18th-century English harpsichords, using both his personal Kirkman and Shudi-Broadwoods from his firm’s collection, and later the new Pleyel and Erard revival instruments.
Harpsichord, §5(i): 19th century
In Germany and central Europe the harpsichord revival took hold more slowly. Almost from the first, moreover, a baleful influence made itself felt – the acceptance, as a model specimen, of a much-altered instrument that was allegedly associated with Bach (catalogue no.316 in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Berlin) which had in fact been rebuilt sometime in the 18th century from a 16' and a 4' register on the lower manual and an 8' with buff stop and shove coupler on the upper, to a disposition of 16' and 8' on the lower manual and 8' with buff stop and 4' on the upper (see Bach harpsichord). As early as 1899 a modern instrument based on no.316 was built by Wilhelm Hirl of Berlin for the Dutch collector D.F. Scheurleer of The Hague. Other early German revival makers, such as Carl A. Pfeiffer (Stuttgart), Johannes Rehbock (Duisburg) and J.G. Steingraeber (Berlin), soon followed with their own versions of the ‘Bach’ harpsichord. Even more elaborate and curious instruments were occasionally attempted in central Europe at this time, such as a three-manual one by Seyffarth of Leipzig (1909; now in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Leipzig University).
The director of the Berlin Collection, Oskar Fleischer, published an article (A1899–1900) summing up the aesthetics of the early harpsichord revival. He reported that the new Erard harpsichord had been seen and heard at the Vienna Music and Theatre Exposition of 1892 along with historical instruments from such collections as those of Moritz Steinert (New Haven). He found the sound of the Erard ‘hard, brittle and unsatisfying, quite apart from the lack of tonal combinations’, and went on to praise Hirl’s copy, allegedly faithful (save for a few small improvements) to the ‘Bach’ harpsichord which Fleischer had had acquired by the collection. He stressed, as a principle, variety of timbres and ease of changing registrations. The perfected modern harpsichord, with its pedals with half-hitches or special hand stops for dynamic variation, variety of plectra material, historically rare registers (16' and cut-through lute), in addition to the basic 2 × 8', 1 × 4' disposition of the classic instrument, embodied the fulfilment of this ideal. In extolling such features, Fleischer particularly emphasized 18th-century music and the works of Bach and his contemporaries. The practicality and desirability of the ‘Bach’ disposition (lower manual: 16', 8'; upper manual: 8', 4'; plus buff stop and coupler) were assumed without question. Fleischer also raised some of the practical questions that continue to plague those concerned with presenting early music in the concert hall: whether the harpsichord can or should be capable of the level of loudness required to fill large auditoriums and balance modern string and wind instruments; and the best specification for an all-purpose harpsichord. At the time, when the shift from piano back to harpsichord was getting under way, there was as yet no concept of specialized instruments being specially suited to performing particular music.
During the first half of the 20th century many harpsichord players praised the instruments made according to the plans of J.G. Steingraeber (1858–1932), the son of the Bayreuth piano manufacturer Eduard Steingraeber, and a keen collector of historical instruments. When he moved to Berlin in 1906 he opened a workshop in which eight harpsichords were built according to his instructions, to seven different models. Steingraeber’s instruments were all modelled after the ‘Bach’ harpsichord in scaling and disposition, and did not have pedals (unlike most other makes of their time).
The Erard firm built harpsichords for only a limited period, but Pleyel continued their production. In 1912, at the urging of Wanda Landowska, the first modern harpsichord virtuoso of international renown, a new Pleyel model was introduced at the Breslau Bach Festival, and it was on this type of instrument that she performed, recorded and taught until her death in 1959. In 1922 Pleyel (fig.15) added an iron frame to hold the thick strings at high tension. The barring was almost identical to that of the modern grand piano, and the finely veneered case correspondingly heavily constructed. The touch depth and the dimensions of the five-octave keyboard were those of the modern piano. The cheekpiece and the spine were cut away in a delicately curved line to reveal the harpsichordist’s hands playing on the keyboards. An extra set of overhead dampers was provided for the 16' strings, and a highly sophisticated fine-tuning system was also fitted. The registers were controlled by seven pedals (but without half-hitches), disposed as follows – lower manual: 16', 8', 4'; upper manual: 8', lute (Nasat) and buff; and coupler. The pedal action was largely negative (i.e. a pedal was raised to engage the register), a system that may have derived from the English 18th-century machine-stop pedal.
The arrival of this new Pleyel, first demonstrated in Germany, had a marked effect on harpsichord making in that country. Some makers now favoured the Pleyel disposition over that of the ‘Bach’ model, and the iron frame and generally heavier construction were taken up by such firms as Maendler-Schramm, a Munich workshop set up in 1906, and Neupert of Bamberg, a piano manufacturer (established 1868) that began harpsichord making at the same time. The preference for the Pleyel disposition owed much to Landowska’s influence as professor of harpsichord at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where she taught from 1913 to 1919, training an entire generation of harpsichordists. (In Germany, as elsewhere, very few harpsichords were made during World War I.)
From about 1930 most German harpsichord makers reverted to the ‘Bach’ disposition, and abandoned metal framing. Organist-harpsichordists, especially, had complained that an upper manual with only a single 8' stop could not balance the mass of registers on the lower manual of the Pleyel-type instrument. Compromises of considerable mechanical ingenuity were offered by German makers, and later by some English builders as well: a 4' stop normally played on the lower manual which could be coupled up to the second keyboard; 4' strings playable by two sets of jacks, one for each manual; and two sets of 4' strings, one for each keyboard.
From 1902, while the German revival was beginning, Arnold Dolmetsch had toured the USA extensively, presenting concerts of early music. In 1905 he was invited by the Chickering firm of piano makers in Boston to establish a department for the production of harpsichords, clavichords, lutes and viols. He accepted, and headed this department until 1910, when the firm’s financial difficulties forced them to discontinue it. 75 keyboard instruments, including 13 harpsichords, were produced. These were two-manual instruments freely derived from a French 18th-century harpsichord used in Dolmetsch’s concerts (the so-called Couchet-Taskin, possibly by Jean Goermans, dated 1764 and rebuilt in 1783–4 by Taskin; now in Edinburgh). The keyboards were back-pinned in the Taskin manner. While heavily cased, the Dolmetsch-Chickering harpsichords were lighter in construction than most other contemporaneous examples. The scaling was longer than that of 18th-century French harpsichords and the ribbing of the soundboard, while light, was distinctly modern, crossing under the bridge. The tone, somewhat lacking in brightness, was nonetheless closer to the sound of antique instruments than any modern harpsichord had been. The lower 8' was leathered and was provided with two sets of jacks, rather than half-hitches, to offer two dynamic levels. The upper 8' was quilled, which rendered a combination with the lower 8' less homogeneous, as in the case of the Erard model of 1889. The 4' and the 16', the latter added in 1908 to two of the last of this series of harpsichords, were leathered, and the 16' (which used overspun strings) was stacked on top of the 8' bridge. The instrument case was not extended to accommodate the deep register; in fact, it was made (like that of earlier Dolmetsch instruments) shorter than the Taskin prototype, with an incongruously Germanic or piano-like double-curved bentside, and, for good measure, with a heavy timber under the soundboard that actually rendered its last 23 cm ineffectual.
From Boston, Dolmetsch moved to Paris, where he continued his work at the piano manufacturers Gaveau, who had not previously made early keyboard instruments. The four or five harpsichords produced were essentially similar to the Chickering instruments. The heavy timber member under the soundboard was abandoned, but the case was shortened still further. The 16' register was now a standard feature of the larger Dolmetsch harpsichords. In the spring of 1914, Dolmetsch returned to England, and by 1918 he had established his workshop in Haslemere, Surrey, where his successors have maintained their workshop. Gaveau continued to build harpsichords and related instruments (from Dolmetsch’s plans) until the 1940s.
The Pleyel firm introduced a smaller version of its ‘Landowska’ model concert harpsichord in 1927, still iron-framed but without a 16' stop and descending only to A' instead of F'; the pedal action was negative as in the large model. In 1925 Dolmetsch implemented a new conception in harpsichord actions, a mechanism intended to avoid the accessory noises and jangle that can mark the passage of the plectrum past the string on the jack’s return to its original position. Regulation of the new action, however, was difficult to attain and maintain; and though the action did afford the possibility of fitting a damper pedal, this was insufficient to redeem it and it was eventually discarded. A device fitted to the upper manual allowing for a kind of clavichord-like Bebung was a feature of Dolmetsch harpsichords for some years afterwards. A compound metal frame of wrought iron and steel welded together was introduced by Dolmetsch in 1930 but given up a few years later as it did not bring about the desired increase in stability of tuning. Modernization of the instrument was attempted by other makers as well. Karl Maendler in Munich, for instance, worked for years to develop a harpsichord with an action that would admit touch dynamics. The resultant instrument, dubbed the ‘Bachklavier’, was introduced with some success by the German harpsichordist Julia Menz, but it failed to survive. Maendler’s addition of a damper pedal which raised the dampers of the lower-manual jacks only, was longer-lived. About 1933, again in response to the wishes of organists, Ammer Brothers (Eisenberg) began producing pedal keyboards with independent sets of strings and jacks which could be placed under a conventional harpsichord. Other builders, such as Neupert (fig.16) and Maendler-Schramm in Germany, and Alec Hodsdon in England, began a similar production shortly after.
Despite unfavourable economic conditions, professional harpsichord building in the USA, which had been suspended since the departure of Dolmetsch for Paris in 1910, was resumed in 1931 when John Challis (1907–74) returned to his homeland after four years at Haslemere as the first Dolmetsch Foundation scholar-craftsman. In the earliest Challis harpsichords framing was wholly of wood and no adjusting screws were added to the traditional wooden jacks. But subsequent instruments reflected Challis’s ingenuity in adapting the latest synthetic materials and technological advances. In his last years he achieved his aim of creating a harpsichord that would be at least as stable in the rigorous North American climate as were indigenous pianos. His late instruments were constructed wholly of metal, including the soundboard, with wood veneers used only as a decorative covering on keyboards and casework. While the tonal quality of Challis instruments – very little influenced by the sound of the early harpsichord – was not to everyone’s taste, his craftsmanship was universally admired. Two pedal harpsichords built for organist clients represent the summit of his achievement. The disposition of the more elaborate of the pair set a record for sheer complexity – Pedals: 16', 8', 4', 2'; lower manual: 16', 8', 4'; upper manual: 8', 4'; plus the usual buff stops and manual coupler.
In 1935 Thomas Goff, a London barrister, set up a workshop to build instruments to the designs of Herbert Lambert, which were influenced by both the later Dolmetsch and the modern German harpsichords. Only 14 Goff harpsichords were produced, disposed like the large Pleyel model, with metal frame and heavy case, as well as heavy stringing and plectra (on later instruments both of leather and quill). They were widely used as concert instruments in the years immediately after World War II. Robert Goble, after 12 years in the Dolmetsch workshop, set up on his own in 1937, but undertook large two-manual instruments only a decade later. These sturdy wood-framed harpsichords in the modern tradition offered the resources of the Pleyel disposition but with greater volume of sound and stability of tuning and regulation.
Harpsichord, §5(i): 19th century
Harpsichord making suffered extensively from the havoc wrought by World War II. Talented younger builders died, including Rudolph Dolmetsch, the elder son of Arnold. Maendler’s workshop and others were destroyed by bombing and never regained the momentum of their pre-war years. After 1945 such surviving shops as Neupert and Pleyel resumed production much as it had been in 1939. Many renowned modern makers began learning their craft as apprentices during the postwar years: Konrad Sassmann, Kurt Wittmayer and John Feldberg at the Neupert workshop, Frank Hubbard (1920–76) at the Dolmetsch shop, and William Dowd (b 1922) and Frank Rutkowski at Challis’s. Hubbard also worked briefly in London with Hugh Gough (1916–97), who was also influenced by Dolmetsch and who had built early keyboard instruments from 1946. Gough made relatively few harpsichords, but these were remarkable at the time for their closer resemblance to historical instruments than any modern ones since the Dolmetsch-Chickering models. After moving to the USA in 1959, however, Gough devoted himself exclusively to other types of instrument.
In 1949 Hubbard and Dowd established their joint workshop in Boston, Massachusetts, the first in modern times dedicated to the construction of harpsichords according to historical principles, but not adhering slavishly to them in every detail, for example in the introduction in the late 50s of the newly invented synthetic material Delrin as a substitute for quill. Their collaboration continued until 1958, and in the words of Ralph Kirkpatrick, ‘accomplished the major revolution of this century in harpsichord building … a return to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century traditions and principles of construction that had hitherto been practised only in isolated instances’. From this point on, players were faced with a fundamental choice between the modern harpsichord as it had evolved since the beginning of the revival, and reconstructions of historical instruments.
Among the first German harpsichord makers who realized the importance of timbral characteristics for national schools of harpsichord making was Rainer Schütze (1925–89). While studying architecture, he worked in the harpsichord workshop of Walter Merzdorf. In 1954 he founded his own workshop in Heidelberg, producing a model after Ruckers and thus departing from the ‘Bach’ disposition. Schütze’s ideal was the combination of historical sound qualities with modern design. He was one of the first modern harpsichord builders who consequently dispensed with the 16' stop.
Working independently, Martin Skowroneck (b 1928) of Bremen completed his first harpsichord (now in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Berlin) in 1953, combining in it features of the ‘Bach’ harpsichord and a harpsichord of about 1740 attributed to Gottfried Silbermann (no.5, Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Berlin). But in Germany it was specially difficult for the traditional type of instrument to gain a foothold. In no other country had the modern type of harpsichord become so firmly established. Every concert hall and radio station had acquired or had ready access to a modern instrument, invariably a large two-manual harpsichord with the ‘Bach’ disposition. Conservatory teaching was based on this standard concert model. Performers and public alike had grown used to it, and even its appearance – because this instrument was exported round the world to an extent unparalleled by harpsichords of any other country – was a part of musical life. Though Skowroneck’s work was followed in a few years by that of other historically orientated makers, such as Klaus Ahrend, the modern instrument continued to dominate the concert stage in Germany into the 1970s. In the USA, on the other hand, the use of traditional harpsichords became widespread, the modern instrument being used almost exclusively for 20th-century music, at least by the younger generation of performers.
With the shift away from the modern harpsichord to the historical instrument, performing style has also been greatly reformed, with far less emphasis being placed on registration changes than formerly. Earlier types of harpsichord, such as models after Ruckers and the older Italian school, are coming into wider use for specialized purposes, although the large 18th-century double harpsichord has tended to assume the central role formerly occupied by the modern concert instrument. The influence of builders active in the restoration of antique harpsichords (see Instruments, conservation, restoration, copying of) has contributed to a greater awareness of the special qualities of the best historical instruments. The new generation of harpsichord makers, without significant exception, are concentrating on the historical instrument. A certain share of the credit for the growing interest in harpsichord making and playing is due to the introduction of instruments in kit form. This was pioneered by W.J. Zuckermann (b 1922) in 1960 with a simplified, modern type of instrument, and shortly thereafter reproductions of historical instruments in kit form were introduced by Frank Hubbard (fig.18). The higher-quality kits could offer excellent harpsichords of quite authentic construction and materials. Contemporary composers, who until the 1970s generally favoured the modern instrument (and most often prescribed specific registration changes possible only with pedals), now accept the limitations of the classic instrument in this respect. Since the 1980s, almost all performers of early music have opted for the harpsichord in its traditional form.
By the end of the 20th century there were about 250 professional harpsichord builders worldwide, with high concentrations in western Europe and the USA. Most of these work on their own or with a workforce of three or less. Many copies of 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century models are being produced, after Ruckers, Blanchet, Taskin, Mietke, Hass, Giusti and many other renowned makers.
Electronic harpsichords have also been introduced by several firms. They offer complete stability of tuning and a choice of several historical temperaments as well as equal-tempered tuning.
A General. B Treatises and references. C Catalogues and lists. D English. E French. F German and Austrian. G Low Countries. H Italian. I Spanish and Portuguese. J Other.
BoalchM
O. Fleischer: ‘Das Bachsche Clavicymbel und seine Neukonstruktion’, ZIMG, i (1899–1900), 161–6
H. Neupert: Das Cembalo (Kassel, 1933, 4/1969; Eng. trans., 1960, 2/1968 as Harpsichord Manual)
E. Harich-Schneider: Die Kunst des Cembalo-Spiels (Kassel, 1939, 3/1970)
F. Trendelenburg, E. Thienhaus and E. Franz: ‘Zur Klangwirkung von Klavichord, Cembalo und Flügel’, Akustische Zeitschrift, v (1940), 309–23
H.-H. Dräger: ‘Anschlagsmöglichkeiten beim Cembalo’, AMf, vi (1941), 223–8
J. Wörsching: Die historischen Saitenklaviere und der moderne Klavichord- und Cembalobau (Mainz, 1946)
N. Dufourcq: Le clavecin (Paris, 1949, 2/1967)
E. Harich-Schneider: Kleine Schule des Cembalospiels (Kassel, 1952; Eng. trans., 1954, 2/1960, as The Harpsichord)
R. Russell: ‘The Harpsichord since 1800’, PRMA, lxxxii (1955–6), 61–74
R. Russell: The Harpsichord and Clavichord (London, 1959, rev. 2/1973 by H. Schott)
J. Lade: ‘Modern Composers and the Harpsichord’, The Consort, no.19 (1962), 128–31
F. Hubbard: Harpsichord Regulating and Repairing (Boston, 1963)
F. Hubbard: Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making (Cambridge, MA, 1965, 2/1967)
E.A. Bowles: ‘On the Origin of the Keyboard Mechanism’, Technology and Culture, vii (1966), 152–62
C.A. Hoover: Harpsichords and Clavichords (Washington DC, 1969)
W.J. Zuckermann: The Modern Harpsichord (New York, 1969)
E.M. Ripin: ‘Expressive Devices Applied to the Eighteenth-Century Harpsichord’, Organ Yearbook, i (1970), 65–80
W.D. Neupert: ‘Physikalische Aspekte des Cembaloklanges’, Das Musikinstrument, xx (1971), 857–64
E.M. Ripin, ed.: Keyboard Instruments: Studies in Keyboard Organology 1500–1800 (Edinburgh, 1971, 2/1977) [articles by J. Barnes, E.A. Bowles, F. Hellwig, J. Lambrechts-Douillez, G. Leonhardt, J.H. van der Meer and others]
P. Williams: ‘Some Developments in Early Keyboard Studies’, ML, lii (1971), 272–86
W.R. Thomas and J.J.K. Rhodes: ‘Harpsichord Strings, Organ Pipes, and the Dutch Foot’, Organ Yearbook, iv (1973), 112–21
K. Bakeman: ‘Stringing Techniques of Harpsichord Builders’, GSJ, xxvii (1974), 95–112
H. Schott: ‘The Harpsichord Revival’, EMc, ii (1974), 85–95
La facture de clavecin du XVe au XVIIe siècle: Louvain-la-Neuve 1976 [articles by J. Bosquet, M.K. Kauffmann, J. Lambrechts-Douillez, H. Legros, N. Meeùs, P. Mercier and J. Tournay]
F. Hellwig: ‘Strings and Stringing: Contemporary Documents’, GSJ, xxix (1976), 91–104
M. Lindley: ‘Instructions for the Clavier Diversely Tempered’, EMc, v (1977), 18–23
A. and P. Mactaggart: ‘Some Problems Encountered in Cleaning Two Harpsichord Soundboards’, Studies in Conservation, xxii (London, 1977), 73–84
N. Meeùs: ‘Renaissance Transposing Keyboards’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.6 (1977), 18–26; no.7 (1977), 16–24
S. Germann: ‘Regional Schools of Harpsichord Decoration’, JAMIS, iv (1978), 54–105
J.H. van der Meer: ‘A Contribution to the History of the Clavicytherium’, EMc, vi (1978), 247–59
A. and P. Mactaggart: ‘Tempera and Decorated Keyboard Instruments’, GSJ, xxxii (1979), 59–65
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A. Curtis: ‘Dutch Harpsichord Makers’, TVNM, xix/1–2 (1960), 44–66
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J.H. van der Meer: ‘Studien zum Cembalobau in Italien’, Festschrift to Ernst Emsheimer, ed. G. Hilleström (Stockholm, 1974), 131–48
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F. Hammond: ‘Musical Instruments at the Medici Court in the Mid-Seventeenth Century’, AnMc, no.15 (1975), 202–19
M. Tiella: ‘The Archicembalo of Nicola Vicentino’, English Harpsichord Magazine, i/5 (1975), 134–44
D. Esch: ‘Die früheste Erwähnung des Clavicymbalum in italienischer Sprache’, AnMc, no.19 (1979), 378–9
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L.F. Tagliavini: ‘Giuseppe Maria Goccini cembalaro bolognese del primo Settecento’, Restauro, conservazione e recupero di antichi strumenti musicali: Modena 1982, 95–110
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D. Wraight: ‘Italian Two-Manual Harpsichords’, FoMHRI Quarterly, no.36 (1984), 19–22
P. Barbieri: ‘Giordano Riccati on the Diameters of Strings and Pipes’, GSJ, xxxviii (1985), 20–34
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D. Wraight: ‘Strong Iron Wire and Long Scales in Italian Harpsichords’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.50 (1988), 37–40
D. Wraight: ‘The 1605 Celestini Harpsichord: Another Misleading Instrument’, Organ Yearbook, xix (1988), 91–103
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S. Pollens: ‘Michele Todini's Golden Harpshichord: an Examination of the Machine of Galatea and Polyphemus’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, xxv (1990), 33–47
D. Wraight: ‘The Early 16th-Century Italian Short Octave’, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.59 (1990), 17–23
E. Fontana: ‘An Italian Harpsichord of 1571: Clues to its Construction’, GSJ, xliv (1991), 55–70
H. Henkel: ‘Anmerkungen zu einigen Ergebnissen neuerer Forschungen zum historischen Cembalobau’, Das Musikinstrument, xl (1991), 68–72
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K. Restle: Bartolomeo Cristofori und die Anfänge des Hammerclaviers: Quellen, Dokumente und Instrumente des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1991)
S. Pollens: ‘Three Keyboard Instruments Signed by Cristofori's Assistant, Giovanni Ferrini’, GSJ, xliv (1991), 77–93
L.F. Tagliavini: ‘Giovanni Ferrini and his Harpsichord ‘a penne e marteletti’, EMc, xix (1991), 398–408
D. Wraight: ‘A Zenti Harpsichord Rediscovered’, EMc, xix (1991), 99–101
C. Stembridge: ‘Music for the cimbalo cromatico and Other Split-Keyed Instruments in Seventeenth-Century Italy’, Performance Practice Review, v/1 (1992), 5–43
D. Wraight: ‘The Identification and Authentification of Italian String Keyboard Instruments’, The Historical Harpsichord: a Monograph Series in Honor of Frank Hubbard, iii, ed. H. Schott (Stuyvesant, NY, 1992), 59–161
C. Stembridge: ‘The cimbalo cromatico and Other Italian Keyboard Instruments with Nineteen or More Divisions to the Octave; Surviving Specimens and Documentary Evidence’, Performance Practice Review, vi/1 (1993), 33–59
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B. Kenyon de Pascual: ‘Francisco Pérez Mirabal’s Harpsichords and the Early Spanish Piano’, EMc, xv (1987), 503–13
B. Kenyon de Pascual: ‘“Clavicordios” and Clavichords in 16th-Century Spain’, EMc, xx (1992), 611–30
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C. Bordas Ibáñez: ‘El clave de Salvador Bofill’, RdMc, xx (1997), 857–66
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L. Palmer: Harpsichord in America: a Twentieth-Century Revival (Bloomington, IN, 1989)