Pedal clavichord

(Ger. Pedalklavichord, Pedalclavier).

A clavichord equipped with a pedal-board like that of an organ. Instruments of this type are mentioned by Paulus Paulirinus of Prague (c1460) and Virdung (Musica getutscht, 1511), and a 15th-century drawing shows a clavichord with a two-and-a-half-octave compass B to ƒ'', with a 12-note pedal-board B to b (with b omitted, perhaps in error) beneath it. Such instruments were primarily used for practice purposes by organists, and this function is specifically cited by Paulirinus. Most of them presumably had pull-down pedals directly connected by cords to the bass notes of an ordinary clavichord, but Adlung (Musica mechanica organoedi, 1768) noted that such a system presents problems because the pedal keys must be more widely spaced than the manual and, accordingly, the cords must slant and therefore tend to drag the keys sideways as they are pulled down. This problem could be obviated by the use of a rollerboard, which, however, was noisy and vastly increased the cost of the instrument. A better system was to provide a completely separate instrument to be sounded by the pedal keys; this was set underneath an ordinary clavichord and could be strung with sub-octave as well as unison strings, thereby better approximating the resources of the pedal division of an organ.

The most elaborate pedal clavichords consisted of three separate instruments arranged one above the other and providing an approximation of an organ with two independent manuals and pedal. A single example of such an instrument survives, in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum of the University of Leipzig; it was made by Johan David Gerstenberg of Geringswalde, and comprises two double-strung, fret-free clavichords of normal size with a range of C to e''' and a much larger instrument set beneath them, also fret-free, which is quadruple-strung – with two strings tuned in unison and two tuned an octave lower – and has a two-octave range of C to c'. A pedal clavichord in pyramid form about 275 cm high and about 214 cm wide, with ten changes of tone, was made by H.N. Gerber in 1742, and a clavichord with pedal keyboard built into a single case made by Georg Gebel (i) of Breslau (who also made a similar pedal harpsichord) is reported by Mattheson in his Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (1740). An instrument of this kind is depicted in J. Verschuere Reynvaan’s Muzijkaal kunst-woordenboek (1789), the accompanying text for which (derived from Claas Douwes’s Grondig ondersoek van de toonen der muzijk, 1699) states that on a pedal clavichord each course of strings can be struck by three or four tangents, so that only eight courses of strings would be required for its entire compass of two octaves and a note. Douwes claimed that the pedal-board on his instrument could be pushed into the instrument for ease in transporting it, an idea which to his knowledge had not been put into practice by anyone else. Music specially for pedal clavichord was composed by G.A. Sorge, H.N. Gerber, and F.W. Marpurg. The instrument continued to be used by organists until after 1800.

It is highly probable that J.S. Bach at one time owned a pedal clavichord of the kind with two independent manuals – he gave ‘3 Claviere nebst Pedal’ to his son J.C. Bach sometime before his death (the implication derived from Forkel that he also owned a pedal harpsichord does not bear close scrutiny).

The universities of Nebraska, USA, and Göteburg, Sweden, have since 1993 and 1995, respectively, used copies of the Gerstenberg two-manual and pedal clavichord and have found them to be practical and effective training instruments for organists, demonstrating a constructive affinity between the clavichord action and that of the tracker organ. The fingers and the feet must use a positive and firm touch otherwise the clavichord does not speak clearly, and the dynamic sensitivity of the clavichord reveals any unevenness. Consequently, organists who prepare themselves by facing the extra difficulties of the pedal clavichord often find that their playing is more secure than if all their preparation had been on the organ.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. Adlung: Musica mechanica organoedi, ii, ed. J.L. Albrecht (Berlin, 1768/R), 158–62; ed. C. Mahrenholz (Kassel, 1931)

J. Handschin: ‘Das Pedalklavier’, ZMw, xvii (1935), 418–25

S. Jeans: ‘The Pedal Clavichord and other Practice Instruments of Organists’, PRMA, lxxvii (1950–51), 1–15

H. Henkel, ed.: Clavichorde: Katalog, Musikinstrumentem-Museum der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig, iv (Leipzig, 1981) [museum catalogue]

J. Potvlieghe: ‘Het pedaalklavichord’, Orgelkunst viermaandelijks tijdschrift, xi (1988), 113–25; repr. in Het Clavichord, ii (1989), 4–11

H. van Veen: ‘Een tweeklaviers “pedaalclavicorde” in Alkmaar’, Het Clavichord, ii/3 (1989), 12–14

J. Rass: ‘Das Pedalclavichord und der Organist’, Het Clavichord, vii/3 (1994), 55–62

J. Barnes and J. Speerstra: ‘The Göteborg 1995 Pedal Clavichord’, Het Clavichord, viii/1 (1995), 6–13

K. Ford: ‘The Pedal Clavichord and the Pedal Harpsichord’, GSJ, l (1997), 161

De clavicordio III: Magnano 1999 [incl. J. Speerstra: ‘The Pedal Clavichord as a Pedagogical Tool for Organists’, 109–18]

EDWIN M. RIPIN/JOHN BARNES