Virginal [virginals]
(Fr.
virginale, épinette; Ger. Virginal, Instrument; It.
arpicordo, spinetta, spinettina).
A
smaller type of harpsichord, usually with only one set of strings and jacks and
invariably with only one keyboard (it is classified in the Hornbostel-Sachs
system as a chordophone: box zither).
1. Nomenclature and
construction.
2. Italy.
3. Flanders.
4. England and other
north European countries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
EDWIN M. RIPIN/DENZIL WRAIGHT
(1–3), EDWIN M. RIPIN/DARRYL MARTIN
(4)
Virginal
1. Nomenclature and construction.
The
precise application of the term ‘virginal’ is much debated, partly because of
its use in England to denote all quilled keyboard instruments well into the
17th century. Although some writers still reserve the term for rectangular
instruments, present usage generally applies it to instruments whose strings
run at right angles to the keys, rather than parallel with them as in a
harpsichord or at an oblique angle as in a Spinet. A distinction based on the
supposed uniqueness of a virginal’s having two bridges resting on free
soundboard is no longer tenable, since this is also the case with some
harpsichords where the wrest plank is hollowed out under the nut (wrest-plank
bridge), and some virginals have one bridge deadened by a massive plank
underneath the soundboard. However, ‘spinet’ is often applied to polygonal
Italian virginals (in English and in German) because of the similarity to the
Italian word ‘spinetta’. The late 16th-century Italian name for the rectangular
virginal was spinetta, while the most common word for polygonal instruments
was Arpicordo. During the 17th century, however,
‘spinetta’ came to be accepted in Italy as a generic term for any plucked
keyboard instrument smaller than a harpsichord. The term ‘clavicordio’ was used
in the 16th century to mean any kind of plucked keyboard instrument, but also
specifically for the polygonal virginal. The word virginale did not
appear in this sense in Italian usage until the 20th-century revival of early
music. (For further discussion of terminology, see Spinet; for Flemish usage, see §3
below.)
The
derivation of the term ‘virginal’ remains in dispute, the association with the
Latin virga (‘rod’) being unproved and that with Elizabeth I (‘the virgin
queen’) being without foundation. The term probably derives in some way,
however, from the instrument’s association with female performers – Marcuse
suggested that this results from a confusion between ‘timbrel’ (a frame drum
played by women since biblical times) and the ‘cymbel’ in such terms as
‘cembalo’, ‘clavicymbel’ etc. – or from its tone, which some theorists likened
to a young girl’s voice (vox virginalis). The term ‘pair of virginals’,
to be found in early literature derived from organ terminology, denotes a
single instrument.
In
contrast to those of a spinet, the long bass strings of a virginal are at the
front, making it possible to build the instrument in a wide variety of shapes,
from squat rectangles to more or less graceful polygons, depending on whether
the keyboard is inset or projecting. The rectangular form would appear to have
been the earliest. It is cited in the manuscript treatise of Paulus Paulirinus
of Prague (c1460), who described the virginal as ‘an instrument having
the shape of a clavichord and metal strings making the sound of a harpsichord’.
This form was also the one known to Virdung, who showed a small rectangular
instrument with a projecting keyboard having a range of just over three octaves
(FG–g'', lacking F
) in his Musica getutscht (1511).
Non-rectangular instruments appear in early 16th-century Italian
representations, notably intarsias in the Vatican and Genoa Cathedral, as well
as Giorgione’s well-known Concert in the Pitti Palace, Florence, all
dating shortly after 1510. An earlier example is the intarsia from about 1506
in Isabella d’Este’s grotta in the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, which
probably represents an instrument made for her in 1496 by Lorenzo da Pavia, and
is the earliest example of a C/E–c'''compass in a virginal (see
Wraight, ii, pp.198–201). Like the intarsia in the Vatican, this instrument has
some curved case sides and suggests that virginals may have been made in a
variety of shapes before the straight-sided, pentagonal design became
established.
The
bridges of Italian virginals were invariably parallel-sided with a moulding on
the top edge, but North European instruments usually have a triangular section.
The right hand bridge of any virginal usually has a pronounced curve in the
treble; this was always bent in Italian virginals but may be sawn in other
traditions. All instruments at quart, quint and octave pitch sometimes have the
right bridge (at least partly) made of straight sections. In the North European
traditions the left hand bridge is virtually straight, but most Italian
virginals have a curve at the bass end.
In a
typical virginal the jacks are placed along a line running from the front of
the instrument at the left to the back of the instrument at the right. The
key-levers are correspondingly quite short in the bass and quite long in the
treble, giving the keyboard of the virginal a characteristic touch, and, in
some cases, making it difficult to play notes in the extreme bass easily and
quickly. The jacks (one for each key) are arranged in pairs and pluck in
opposite directions, so that the pairs of jacks are separated by closely spaced
pairs of strings. In Italian instruments, each jack passes through a slot in
the soundboard and in the solid register or jackslide (about 4 cm by 3 cm)
glued to the underside. In North European virginals each pair of jacks is
usually served by a single slot in the soundboard, together with another slot
below in a thin guide above the keys. Leather on the soundboard and lower guide
provides a quiet bearing surface for the jacks.
Although
virginals were made in many shapes, the internal bracing is similar for the
different types. There is a brace extending from the front to the back of the
case at each side of the keyboard; this may be supplemented by corner blocks. A
liner around the inside of the case supports the soundboard and carries the
hitch-pins; the wrest pins (tuning pins) are held by a larger piece of
hardwood. In rectangular instruments a separate diagonal hitch-pin rail and
wrest plank are provided. The back corners of rectangular Italian virginals
were sometimes cut off as shown by the 1593 virginal by Giovanni Celestini
(Donaldson Collection, Royal College of Music, London). A few employ the false
inner-outer construction in which a thick softwood case is fitted with cypress
veneer and half-mouldings to make it appear as if a cypress instrument were in
an outer case. The oldest known such instruments are by Joseph Salodiensis (c1570;
see Wraight, ii, p.263) and Celestini (1587; in the Beurmann Collection,
Hamburg). By far the most common Italian construction used thin (3–5 mm)
cypress case sides with mouldings on the top and bottom edges, as in Italian
harpsichords. Many of these thin-cased virginals were kept in a painted outer
case.
The
case joints of Italian virginals are mitred, as might be expected considering
the thinness of their wood; accordingly, it is noteworthy that the corners of
the 1548 Karest virginal (fig.2) are dovetailed, even
though the wood is scarcely thicker. Otherwise, the structure of the instrument
is hardly different from that of an Italian example (compare with fig.1), except for the replacement of the solid Italian jack
register by a complete counter-soundboard mortised for the jacks and serving as
a lower guide (this feature is also found in a number of German and English
instruments, and dovetailing of the case joints in German harpsichords and
clavichords persisted into the 18th century).
Later
Flemish virginals have thick cases, like those of Flemish harpsichords, and are
assembled before the bottom is put on rather than being built from the bottom
up. As with the Italian instruments, however, the two principal braces run from
the front of the instrument to the back at the ends of the keyboard. The
decoration of these instruments normally corresponds to that of the Flemish
harpsichords, either plain paint or marbling outside and block-printed papers
inside, except for the inside of the lid, which may have a painted landscape on
it. A few examples are painted with arabesques instead of being papered, but
this must have been relatively uncommon. The inclusion of a Latin motto either
on the inside of the lid, on the jackrail, or around the inside of the case
above the soundboard was quite common, and this is also seen in German
instruments. The case-side covering the keywell (the ‘fallboard’) was usually
hinged to the case along its underside. The decorated inside face, sometimes
with a motto, was thus displayed when the fallboard was opened.
Virginal
2. Italy.
Numerous
Italian 16th-century virginals have survived and show that often considerable
trouble was taken to provide elaborate decoration: the 1577 Rossi instrument (Victoria
and Albert Museum, London), with inset precious and semi-precious stones is a
fine piece of work. More typical was a plain cypress case with fine mouldings,
but sometimes the casework was set with intarsia work in contrasting coloured
woods, as in the 1523 Francesci de Portalupis virginal (Musée de la Musique,
Paris). All of these virginals have a rose in the soundboard, usually made of
three or four layers of wood veneer, pierced in intricate gothic or geometric
designs. Sometimes carved brackets were set either side of the keyboard. Ivory
was sometimes used for the natural-key covers, but boxwood was most commonly
used, with ebony-topped sharps. Most instruments by Venetian makers had
projecting keyboards, and virginals from the Milan–Brescia area had partly
recessed keyboards, but exceptions to these traditions are found in both
regions. There is no overwhelming acoustical advantage in one system or the
other. Almost all 16th-century virginals have a C/E–f''' compass
and later 17th-century examples only C/E–c'''. Early 16th-century
instruments were made with an FGA–f''' compass, but in the few
instruments that survive the keyboard has since been modified. Some
17th-century virginals (e.g. by Francesco Poggi and Stefano Bolcioni) had split
keys for d/e
and g/a. Flemish and Italian virginals usually
ended on a C/E short octave. A well-known instrument, the
so-called ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal’ (in the Victoria and Albert Museum,
London; see fig.3), is Italian, probably by Giovanni
Baffo. Its original keyboard had a C/E–f''' compass, but a
C–c'''d''' (i.e. no c''') keyboard was later installed,
presumably in order to alleviate the difficulty of the non-chromatic bass. In
turn, this keyboard was later modified to the present G'/B'–c'''
compass (see Wraight, ii, p.50). English virginals tend to have a wide compass
(see §4 below).
Modifications,
which have obscured the history of the Italian harpsichord, were not undertaken
often for the virginals. It was relatively difficult to replace keyboards with
those from other instruments since the pairwise jackslide tends only to match
the keyboards for which it was made. Nevertheless, some virginals had their
scales changed and keyboards altered to keep them abreast of changing musical
requirements.
Considerable
discussion has been devoted to the question of the pitch of Italian virginals (see
Harpsichord, §2(i), for a detailed discussion): it has been
argued that the long scales (usually corresponding to C/E–f'''compasses)
were intended for low pitches. Most 16th-century Italian virginals have scales
between 30.5 and 35 cm at c'' (with only a few being shorter than this).
These instruments were, however, designed to be strung in iron wire, which
requires a longer scale than brass wire, and means that this long scale came to
a normal pitch (i.e. for 35 cm about a tone below a'= 440).
Although
most Italian virginals were designed for iron wire, some were quite clearly
intended for brass wire at the same pitch (by reason of their sealing; for
further details, see Harpsichord, §1, such as the 1693 instrument
by Cristofori (Musikinstrumenten-Museum, Universität Leipzig)). Several
rectangular instruments by the 17th-century maker Honofrio Guarracino are
examples of the latter. They have the tuning pins on the left-hand side and
only one bridge on free soundboard, with the result that the sound is much brighter
than that of most virginals and closely resembles that of a bentside spinet.
These virginals by Guarracino appear to have been the continuation of a
Neapolitan tradition: a similar instrument was made by Alessandro Fabri in 1598
(Tagliavini and van der Meer, 1986). Since instruments of this design are
unknown further north of the Italian peninsular, the speculation is permissible
that this design might have been influenced by Spanish virginals. Virtually
nothing is known of the latter, but Naples was under Spanish administration at
that time so the introduction of Spanish instruments would have been possible.
In the 16th century the use of brass wire on virginals is believed to have been
uncommon, but Isabella’s intarsia virginal was probably so strung; the pitch
would have been about a fourth above normal 8' pitch (a' = c415–440).
Italian
makers (unlike Flemish makers; see §3, below) all adopted similar scalings and
plucking points, thereby giving a fairly uniform character to their
instruments. The sound of an Italian virginal is usually louder than that of an
Italian harpsichord, since the virginal has two bridges on free soundboard.
However, as with all keyboard instruments with a plucking action, it is
possible to vary the volume considerably by voicing the plectra.
A
few virginals were made with two sets of 8' strings although this was not
common. Four such instruments are known: two by Donatus Undeus (1623, Brussels
Museum of Musical Instruments; 1633, Kirby Collection, Cape Town), one by
Celestini (1594, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg) and an unsigned
instrument attributed variously to Undeus and Celestini (but probably by the
latter) in Fenton House, London. Another rectangular virginal, made by
Celestini in 1610 (Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments), does not have the
usual pairwise arrangement of jacks: instead each string is separated from the
next string by one jack. On the nameboard this instrument is described as an
‘arcispineta’. Other Italian makers whose instruments gained a high reputation
at the time included Domenico da Pesaro, Vito Trasuntino and Alessandro
Trasuntino (no instruments by the latter two makers survive).
Virginal
3. Flanders.
Although
the tonal resources of the virginal (which has a single set of strings and is
seldom equipped with any means of changing timbre) are more limited than the
harpsichord’s, it none the less occupies a crucial position both in musical
life and in the development of quilled instruments in general in the 16th and
17th centuries. Harpsichords certainly existed throughout this period both
north and south of the Alps, but they are more rarely represented in paintings,
drawings etc. than virginals, and it must be concluded that they were much less
common than the smaller, simpler and cheaper instrument. In addition, the sound
of the virginal is excellently suited to most of the keyboard literature of the
period. That the virginal occupied a central position in Flemish instrument
building is well illustrated by the fact that in the rules for the admission of
keyboard instrument makers to the Antwerp Guild of St Luke (drafted in 1557)
the piece of work to be submitted by a candidate was specifically designated as
‘a rectangular or polygonal virginal’ (‘een viercante of gehoecte
clavisymbale’) and no mention of harpsichords is made at all. Furthermore,
O’Brien (1974) has shown that the Ruckers family made many more virginals than
harpsichords.
The
earliest surviving Flemish virginal (see fig.2), like
those depicted in Flemish paintings from before 1565, is thin-cased and
polygonal. These instruments thus bear a superficial resemblance to their
Italian counterparts, the most obvious difference being that their keyboards
are entirely recessed rather than wholly or partly projecting; however, some
Italian virginals of false inner-outer design have completely recessed
keyboards. The appearance of a Flemish polygonal instrument seems somewhat
heavier than the graceful Italian design. Ripin (1971) has speculated that the
Flemish polygonal design was transmitted to the Low Countries by way of
Germany. It is known that some of the earliest 15th-century makers working in
the Low Countries came from Cologne: of the earliest string keyboard instrument
maker in Flanders, Hans van Cuelen (Hans from Cologne; fl 1509–57),
little is known, but Joes Karest (builder in 1548 of the oldest surviving
Flemish virginal; see fig.2) headed the instrument
makers’ petition to the Guild of St Luke in 1557 as they sought to be admitted
as instrument makers and not grouped with the painters. A German harpsichord of
1537 made by Hans Müller in Leipzig shows striking resemblances to thin-cased
Italian harpsichords. However, the answer as to where these harpsichord or
virginal designs originated probably lies in the 15th century, and about this
period so little is known in detail that answers can be no more than
speculative. As is often the case with inventions, similar designs may have
been developed simultaneously in different parts of Europe.
As
noted above, however, the guild regulations make it clear that rectangular as
well as polygonal instruments were being made in Antwerp in the 1550s, and
presumably these instruments were also thin-cased. Although no example from
this period survives, the earliest Flemish depiction of a rectangular virginal
(an engraving by Cornelis Cort printed in 1565, based on a painting by Frans
Floris from ten years earlier, now lost) shows an instrument without a lid,
suggesting that it was thin-cased and intended to be kept in a stout outer case
like an Italian instrument. By the end of the 1560s, however, it would seem
that a thick-cased rectangular instrument very much like those now considered
typically Flemish had come into being, since a painting by Michiel Coxcie
purchased by Philip II of Spain in 1569 clearly shows an instrument of this
kind, which seems immediately to have superseded the thin-cased types in the
Low Countries.
At
the end of the 16th century, three types of virginal were being made in Flanders:
one with the keyboard centred in one of the longer sides (fig.4), one with it
placed off-centre to the left (called ‘spinett’ by Claas Douwes; see fig.5), and one with it placed off-centre to the right
(‘muselar’; fig.6). The centre-keyboard design in normal-pitch
virginals is known only from one instrument, that made for the Duke of Cleves (fig.4), and it is impossible to say whether this was an
isolated example or whether it was a design that was later forgotten. Octave
(4') instruments retain their central placement of the keyboard, although this
is virtually obligatory because of their small size. The difference in the
placement of the keyboard is important since it determines the placement of the
jacks in relation to the two bridges. With the keyboard placed to the left, the
jacks run in a line close to the left-hand bridge; therefore the point at which
the jacks pluck the strings is close to the mid-point in the treble and well
away towards the left end in the bass. This is also true with virginals with
centrally-placed keyboards, although the displacement of the plucking point
from the centre of the strings in the bass is reduced (see fig.3).
Because of this varying plucking-point, the timbre of these virginals gradually
changes from flute-like in the treble to reedy in the bass, being similar in
this respect to the timbre of a harpsichord. Muselars, with their keyboard at
the right, have their strings plucked at a point near the centre for virtually
their entire range, producing a powerful, flute-like tone that varies little
from treble to bass. Both spinetten and muselars were made in a variety of
sizes, the smaller ones presumably tuned to higher pitches and the smallest
ones clearly tuned an octave above the largest ones. Among the surviving instruments,
muselars are more numerous in the full-size examples, spinetten in the smaller
sizes.
The
earliest surviving example of a muselar is by Hans Ruckers (d1598) and
is dated 1581 (fig.6); it is entirely possible that
Ruckers invented the muselar design, even though it must be emphasized that the
other characteristics now associated with Ruckers’s work are to be found in
virginals made by the preceding generation of makers, notably Hans Bos and
Marten van der Biest. Muselars always have both their bridges resting on free
soundboard in contrast to the spinetten and the polygonal instruments, which
often appear to have had the bridge at the left deadened by a plank underneath
the soundboard. Ruckers’s practice in this regard was not consistent; the
smaller spinetten all seem to have the left-hand bridge deadened, but some of
the full-size examples have both bridges resting on free soundboard. Muselars
have the further distinction of being the only virginals normally provided with
any means of changing timbre. A substantial number of the surviving examples
have an Arpichordum stop, which may be engaged to produce a
buzzing sound in the tenor and bass to contrast with the clear flute-like sound
of the alto and treble. (For a detailed discussion of surviving Ruckers
instruments, see Ruckers, §2.)
The
culmination of the Flemish virginal makers’ art was the double virginal called
‘mother and child’ by Joos Verschuere-Reynvaan (Muzijkaal kunst-woordenboek,
2/1795), a usage apparently sanctioned by the makers, since the original
Ruckers numbers on surviving examples include an ‘M’ and a ‘k’ for moeder
and kind on the large and small instruments respectively. These
instruments consisted of a virginal of normal size (the ‘mother’) with a
compartment next to its off-centre keyboard in which a removable octave
instrument (the ‘child’) was housed. The octave instrument was designed to be
coupled directly to the larger one. An oblique slot was cut in the bottom of
the octave instrument, and if the jackrail of the ‘mother’ was removed and the
‘child’ was put on top of it in place of the jackrail, the larger instrument’s
jacks reached through the slot to touch the underside of the octave
instrument's key-levers. Thus when a key of the ‘mother’ instrument was
depressed its jack pushed upwards on the back end of the corresponding key of
the ‘child’, causing the octave instrument to sound at the same time as the
larger one. In addition, the octave instrument could be played separately, either
when in place on top of the larger instrument or entirely removed from it.
Instruments of this kind appear to have been imitated in Germany and Austria,
and an Innsbruck inventory made in 1665 mentions a virginal in which two
smaller ones were contained, ‘all three of which could be placed on one another
and sounded together’.
Virginal
4. England and other north European countries.
Unlike
some Italian and Flemish examples, the surviving English virginals are all
rectangular in shape. Their cases are typically of oak, and the lids were
always originally vaulted. The decoration is also standardized: the outside of
the cases are plain, ornamented only by ironwork strap hinges and locks; but
the insides are given stylized and colourful embellishment including paintings
on the lid and fallboard generally of landscapes with figures, painted
decorations on the soundboard, and gilt embossed papers contrasting with finely
cut mouldings, normally of cedarwood, sometimes painted. The natural keys are
usually boxwood, with dark sharps, occasionally inlaid, although instruments
survive with snakewood or ebony naturals and solid ivory sharps. The compass of
early virginals is often from C to c''', later instruments
usually having a very wide G'/B'–f''' compass, although three
instruments from the mid-1660s have compasses extending down chromatically to G'
or below. The short scalings, often based on a c''' string length of 6
inches (15·24 cm) suggests many instruments were strung in iron at a high pitch
standard, probably one or two semitones above a' = 440. Other
instruments were built to pitches one or two semitones below this high pitch
and there is one instrument, the orphan of a mother-and-child virginal made by
Thomas White (c1600–60; the only such instrument known to be made in
England), which was designed to play a 5th above the standard high pitch.
The
virginal in England probably developed in the early part of the 16th century,
influenced by early instruments from Flanders and the Spanish Netherlands.
There are many references to virginals in this period, including several in the
inventory taken at the death of Henry VIII in 1547. Although a number of these
were probably made on the Continent, about 20 virginal makers are known to have
worked in Britain in the 16th century. The typical layout and decorative scheme
found in the surviving instruments were most likely established by the last
quarter of the century.
The
surviving instruments date from 1638 to 1684, although two undated examples are
probably earlier. The White family appear to be the most prolific of the early
makers judging from surviving examples. Five of Thomas White's instruments have
survived, including an unusual instrument with double stringing from G'/B'
to A, then single strung to f'''. His son James has left two
instruments. Later virginal makers of note include Stephen Keene (c1640–1719)
and John Player (c1634–c1706), who both went on to make spinets,
Adam Leuersidge (fl 1650–70), and the Exeter makers John Loosemore
(1613–81) and Charles Rewallin (fl 1657–97). Loosemore, Rewallin and
James White were also involved in making or repairing organs.
Praetorius
(Syntagma musicum, ii, 2/1619/R), who also mentioned placing
virginals on top of one another, depicted a rectangular instrument differing in
several respects from the developed Flemish design, rather resembling
pre-Ruckers examples in having a central keyboard and a jackrail supported at
the left by an arm extending from the bass end of the key-well. The instrument
shown by Praetorius also has a larger range than the regular Flemish virginal
compass of four octaves with a bass short octave (C/E–c'''),
its keyboard extending to d''', with divided accidentals in the lowest
octave to provide the F and G not ordinarily available with the C/E Short
octave, as
well as having the E
keys divided in the remaining octaves to sound D, thereby extending the range of available
keys to include E major and E minor. As with virtually all north European
virginals, a tool box is set in the space to the left of the keyboard.
Although
north European polygonal virginals were normally housed in outer cases like
their Italian counterparts, this does not seem always to have been true of the
rectangular instruments. Praetorius did not show a lid for the instrument he
illustrated (presumably to save space), although the presence of a hinged front
board to cover the keys strongly suggests that the instrument had one; it would
be of great interest to know whether such a lid would have been vaulted like
those shown in French illustrations of the 1580s, on the title-page of Parthenia
(London, 1612–13; fig.8) and found on all surviving English virginals, which range
in date from 1641 to 1679. Despite the fact that the English instruments seem
to be patterned on Flemish spinetten, the vaulted lid, the method of supporting
the left end of the jackrail and the shorter scaling of English virginals (fig.9) suggest that they actually derive from the same
non-Flemish tradition represented by Praetorius's illustration and the
surviving 17th-century harpsichords and virginals from Germany and France – a
tradition also represented by the polygonal Flemish virginals from the mid-16th
century.
Outside
Italy the making of rectangular virginals seems to have come to an end by the
close of the 17th century, these instruments having been replaced by bentside
spinets. Since only one bridge of a spinet is on free soundboard, the sound of
a spinet resembles that of a harpsichord, and it may be for this reason that
taste changed in favour of the spinet and against the virginal. Although the
spinet is typically somewhat smaller than a rectangular virginal, the scalings
employed in both instruments are similar. Polygonal virginals and spinets
usually have less soundboard area in the low tenor and bass than rectangular
virginals; this can impart a clearer, reedier character to the sound but, as in
all keyboard instruments, it is the skill of the maker that ultimately
influences the quality of the sound. Some virginals were made in the early 19th
century in Italy: they resemble square pianos in appearance, but contain a
plucking mechanism. The last dated of these (1839, now in the
Musikinstrumentum-Museum, Leipzig University) is by Alessandro Riva of Bergamo.
The
importance of the virginal has been exaggerated by some, who, unaware that the
term was used for all plucked keyboard instruments in England, assume that the
music of Byrd, Bull, Gibbons, Tomkins and others was intended specifically for
these single-strung instruments. However, as is made clear by the title-page
illustration of Parthenia In-violata or Mayden-Musicke for the Virginalls
and Bass-Viol (c1624–5), which shows a harpsichord rather than the
rectangular instrument of the earlier version of Parthenia, the music of
the ‘virginalist composers’ was not intended to be restricted to the virginal.
Other writers have relegated the instrument to a status rather lower than that
of the modern upright piano. The proper assessment of the virginal lies between
these extremes. Despite the limitations imposed by a single register, virginals
are useful and remarkably versatile instruments with special qualities of their
own, on which virtually the entire literature of their period can be played
with considerable success. Thus, although virginals were often used merely as
practice instruments and for domestic music-making, they should not, like the
spinet, be thought of essentially as substitutes for the harpsichord.
For a discussion of the instrument's repertory, see Keyboard
music, §I.
Virginal
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BoalchM
G. Zarlino: Le
istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1558/R 3/1573/R);
Eng. trans. of pt ii, 1968, as The Art of Counterpoint)
A. Banchieri: L'organo
suonarino (Venice, 2/1611/R)
C. Douwes: Grondig
ondersoek van de toonen der musijk (Franeker, 1699/R)
R. Russell: The
Harpsichord and Clavichord (London, 1959, rev. 2/1973 by H. Schott)
S. Marcuse: Musical
Instruments: a Comprehensive Dictionary (New York, 1964, 2/1975)
F. Hubbard: Three
Centuries of Harpsichord Making (Cambridge, MA, 1965, 2/1967/R)
V. Gai: Gli
instrumenti musicali della corta medicea a il Museo del Conservatorio ‘Luigi
Cherubini’ di Firenze (Florence, 1969)
M.M. Velimirović: ‘The Pre-English Use of the Term “Virginal”’, Essays in Musicology in Honor of Dragan Plamenac (Pittsburgh, 1969),
341–52
G. Leonhardt: ‘In Praise of Flemish Virginals of the Seventeenth Century’, Keyboard Instruments: Studies in Keyboard
Organology, ed. E.M. Ripin, (Edinburgh, 1971, 2/1977), 42–6
J.H. van der
Meer: ‘Beiträge zum Cembalobau der Familie Ruckers’, Jb des Staatlichen Instituts für
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E.M. Ripin: ‘On Joes Karest's Virginal and the Origins of the Flemish Tradition’, Keyboard Instruments: Studies in Keyboard
Organology (Edinburgh, 1971, 2/1977), 65–73
J.H. van der
Meer: ‘Studien zum Cembalobau in Italien’, Festschrift Ernst Emsheimer (Stockholm, 1974),
131–48, 275–9
N. Meeùs: ‘La facture de virginales à Anvers du 16e siècle’, Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments
Bulletin, iv (1974), 55–64
N. Meeùs: ‘Epinettes et “muselars”: une analyse théorique’,
La facture de clavecin du XVe au XVIIIe siècle: Leuven
1976, 67–78
J. Koster: ‘The Mother and Child Virginal and its Place in the Keyboard Instrument
Culture of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Ruckers klavecimbels en copieën: Antwerp 1977,
78–96
G. Nitz: Die
Klanglichkeit in der englischen Virginalmusik des 16. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1979)
S. Howell: ‘Paulus Paulirinus of Prague on Musical Instruments’, JAMIS, v–vi (1979–80), 9–36
N. Meeùs: ‘The Nomenclature of Plucked Keyboard Instruments’, FoMRHI Quarterly,
no.25 (1981), 18–20
J. Barnes: Making a
Spinet by Traditional Methods (Welwyn, Herts., 1985) [with reference to instruments by S.
Keene]
L.F. Tagliavini and J.H. van der
Meer, eds.: Clavicembali e spinette dal XVI al XIX secolo (Bologna, 1986)
A.E. Beurmann and A. Pilipczuk: ‘A Rarity in the Art of Harpsichord Building: the 1594 Venetian
Virginal by Celestini’, Das
Musikinstrument, xl/10 (1991), 66–8
L. Stella: ‘La spinetta di Domenico da Pesaro delle collezione “Luigi Ciceri”’, Societât Filologjche Furlane, xlvi/2–3 (1994),
25–35
G.G. O'Brien: ‘Two Virginals by Gian Francesco Antegnati’, Gli Antegnati: Studi e documenti su una stirpe di organari bresciani
del Rinascimento, ed. O. Mischiati (Bologna, 1995), 50–62
D. Wraight: The
Stringing of Italian Keyboard Instruments c1500–c1650
(diss., Queen's U. of Belfast, 1997)
For further bibliography see Harpsichord.