Still vulgarly known as mono chord, Virdung's clavichord was really a box of mono chords, all the strings being of the same length He derives the clavichord from Guido's mo110chord as he does the virginal from the psaltery, but, at the same time confesses he does not know when, or by whom, either instrument was invented We observe in this drawing the short sound-board, which always remained a peculiarity of the clavichord, and the straight soundboard bridge-necessarily so when all the strings were of one length To gain an angle of incidence for the tangents against the strings the keys were made crooked, an expedient further rendered necessary by the “ fretting ”- three tangents, according to Virdung, being directed to stop as many notes from each single group of three strings tuned in unison; each tangent thus made a different vibrating length of string. In the drawing the strings are merely indicated The German for fret is Band, and such a clavichord, in that language, is known as a “ gebundenes Clavichord” both fret (to rub) and Bund (from binden, to bind) having been taken over from the lute or viol The French and Italians employ “ touche ” and “ tasto, ” touch. Praetorius w ho wrote a hundred years later than Virdung, says two, three and four tangents were thus employed in stopping There are extant small clavichords having three keys and tangents to one pair of strings and others have no more than two tangents to a note formed by a pair of strings, instead of three Thus seven pairs of strnigs sufhce for an octave of twelve keys, the open notes being F, G, A, B flat, C, D, E flat, and by an unexplained peculiarity perhaps derived from some special estimation of the notes which was connected with the church modes, A and D are left throughout free from a second tangent A corresponding 1 alue or these notes 1S shown by their independence of chromatic alteration in tuning the double Irish harp, as explained by ncent1o Gahlei in lns treatise on music (Dzalogo della musica, florence 1581) Adlung w ho died in 1762, speaks of another trcttmg but it must have been an adaptation to the modern major scale, the “ free” notes being E and B Clavichords wire made with double fretting up to about the year 1700* that is to say, to the epoch of I S. Bach, who, taking advantage ot its abolition and the consequent use of independent pairs of strings tor each note, was enabled to tune in all keys equally, w bich had been impossible so long as the fretting was maintained lhe modern scales having become established, Bach was now able to produce, in 1722, Das wo/zlfemperzrle Clamer, the first collection ot preludes and fugues in all the twenty-four major and minor scales for a clavichord which was tuned, as to concordance and dissonance, fairly equal
I'he oldest clavichord, here called manicordo (as French mtuzzcorde, from mono chord), known to exist is that shown in twg 4 It will be observed that the lowest octave is here already Pit. 4-Manicordo (Clavichord) d'Eleonora di Montalvo, 1659; Kraus Museum, Florence
bundtrei ” or fret free The strings are no longer of equal length, and there are three bridges, divisions of the one bridge, in different positions on the sound-board. Mersenne's “ manitorde ” (Harmonie umverselle, Paris 1636, p 115), shown in an engraving in that work, has the strings still nearly of equal length but the sound board bridge is divided into five The fretted clavichords made in Germany in the last years of the Ijlll century have the curved sound-board bridge, like a spinet In the clavichord the tangents always form the second bridge, indispensable for the vibration, besides acting as the sound exciters (fig. 5). The common damper to all the strings is a list of cloth, interwoven
behind the tangents As the
tangents quitted the strings thecloth
immediately stopped all
vibration Too much cloth
would diminish the tone of this
already feeble instrument which
gained the name of “ dumb
spinet” from its use In the
clavichord in Rubens's St Cecilia
(Dresden Gallery)- interesting
as perhaps representing that
painter's own instrument-the
damping cloth is accurately
painted The number of keys
there shown is three octaves and a third, F to A~the same extent as in Handel's clavichord now in the museum at Maidstone (an Italian instrument dated 1726, and not fretted), but with the peculiarity of a combined chromatic and short octave in the lowest notes, to which we shall have to refer when we arrive at the spinet; we pass it by as the only instance we have come across in the clavichord.
The clavichord must have gone out of favour in Great Britain and the Netherlands early in the 16th century, before its expressive power, which is of the most tender and intimate quality, could have been, from the nature of the music played, obser ed, - the more brilliant and elegant spinet being preferred to it. Like the other keyboard instruments it had no German name, and can hardly have been of German origin. Holbein, in his drawing of the family of Sir Thomas More, 1528, now at Basel, indicates the place for “Klavikordi und ander Seytinspill" But it remained longest in use in Germany-until even the beginning of the 19th century. It was the favourite “ Klavier ” of the Bachs Besides that of Handel already noticed there are in existence clavichords the former possession of which is attributed to Mozart and Beethoven The clavichord was obedient to a peculiarity of touch possible on no other keyboard'instrument. This is described by C. P Emmanuel Bach in his famous essay on playing and accompaniment, entitled Versuch uber dw wahre Art das Klawer zu spzeleu (“ An Essay on the True Way to play Keyboard Instruments ”) It is the Bebung (trembling), a vibration in a melody note of the same nature as the tremolo frequently employed by violin players to heighten the expressive effect, it was gained by a repeated movement of the fleshy end of the finger while the key was still held down The Bebung was indicated in the notation by dots over the note to be affected by 1t, perhaps showing how many times the note should be repeated According to the practice of the Bachs, as handed down to us in the above mentioned essay, great smoothness of touch was required to play the clavichord in tune As with the mono chord, the means taken to produce the sound disturbed the accuracy of the string measurement by increasing tension, so that a key touched too firmly in the clavichord, by unduly raising the string, sharpened the pitch, an error in playing deprecated by C P. Emmanuel Bach. This answers the assertion which has been made that ] S. Bach could not have been nice about tuning when he played from preference on an instrument of uncertain intonation.
The next instrument described by Virdung is the virginal (mrgiw alzs, proper for a girl), a parallelogram in shape, having the same projecting keyboard and compass of keys the same as wrgiua, the clavichordium Here we can trace derivation from the psaltery in the sound-board covering the entire inner surface of the instrument and in the triangular disposition of the strings. The virginal in Virdung's drawing has an impossible position with reference to the keyboard, which renders its reproduction as an illustration useless But in the next drawing, the clavi- Cl # cimbalum thisis rectihed, and the drawing, reversed on C, ,'f, ba, ,, u, account of the keyboard, can be accepted as roughly representing the instrument so called (fig 6). There would be
/ S.
»....»~, ..., " I ' 1
WL':fl-if-'r | I
FIG 5. -Clavichord Tangent.
