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A two-manual harpsichord. While many harpsichords have one string per note, more elaborate harpsichords can have two or more strings for each note. When there are multiple strings for each note, these additional strings are called "choirs" of strings. This provides two advantages: the ability to vary volume and ability to vary tonal quality.
The keyboard of a harpsichord by Bernhard von Tucher (Germany). The keyboard has "divided black keys" in order to tune the instrument in two different keys (in meantone temperament). In this harpsichord built by Clavecins Rouaud of Paris, the two lowest sharps are split, following the broken octave scheme. Archicembalo keyboard in cents.
Hans Ruckers was a Catholic and had 11 children, two of whom became harpsichord makers, and his daughter Catharina (to whom harpsichord maker Willem Gompaerts (c.1534 – after 1600) was godfather) married into the instrument-making Couchet family, ensuring a strong continuation of both dynasties; his son Joannes continued in the family craft.
The New Grove musical dictionary summarizes the earliest historical traces of the harpsichord: "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'; [1] and the earliest known representation of a harpsichord is a sculpture (see below) in an altarpiece of 1425 ...
A typical harpsichord keyboard. Even though the keyboard layout is simple and all notes are easily accessible, playing requires skill. A proficient player has undertaken much training to play accurately and in tempo. Beginners seldom produce a passable rendition of even a simple piece due to lack of technique. The sequences of movements of the ...
As in all harpsichords, the strings in the oval spinet are plucked by plectra suspended in jacks, thin vertical strips of wood. Each jack rises from the far end of its key, passes through a guiding register in the soundboard, and terminates adjacent to its assigned string, close enough for the bit of quill held by the jack - the plectrum - to pluck the string.
The harpsichord concertos were composed in a manner completely idiomatic to the keyboard (this was equally true for those written for two or more harpsichords). They were almost certainly originally conceived for a small chamber group, with one instrument per desk, even if performed on one of the newly developed fortepianos , which only ...
What primarily distinguishes the spinet is the angle of its strings: whereas in a full-size harpsichord, the strings are at a 90-degree angle to the keyboard (that is, they are parallel to the player's gaze); and in virginals they are parallel to the keyboard, in a spinet the strings are at an angle of about 30 degrees to the keyboard, going ...