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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 ...
The use of multiple manuals in a harpsichord was not originally provided for the flexibility in choosing which strings would sound, but rather for transposition of the instrument to play in different keys (see History of the harpsichord). Some early harpsichords and organs had a short octave in the lowest register. It replaced rarely used bass ...
Harpsichord building was often considered a lesser side job for organ builders, while some few were specialized in either harpsichord or clavichord building. [ 1 ] Note that in the German speaking world the harpsichord was only one of several instruments referred to as clavier, and keyboard instruments seem to have been used more ...
Americus built both harpsichords and pianofortes. He is described by composer, musician and chronicler Charles Burney in Rees's Cyclopaedia for 1772 as "a harpsichord maker of second rank, who constructed several pianofortes, and improved the mechanism in some particulars, but the tone, with all the delicacy of Schroeter's (see below) touch, lost the spirit of the harpsichord and gained ...
At the time of the publication of his book, Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making, in 1965, Ralph Kirkpatrick wrote that "he unquestionably knows more about the history and construction of harpsichords than anyone alive today". He developed a harpsichord in 1963 based on a Pascal Taskin instrument of 1769 which was sold as a do-it-yourself kit ...
He made a great many innovations in the harpsichord: from c.1765 he introduced the machine stop, a mechanism engaged by a handstop and operated by a foot pedal which gradually reduces the registration on each manual; from c.1765 he extended the range down to CC; from c.1769 he introduced the Venetian swell: a contraption nearly identical in ...
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 ...
Musicians who play the harpsichord are known as harpsichordists. This list includes post 19th-century harpsichordists. This list includes post 19th-century harpsichordists. Notable earlier harpsichordists mostly appear on the list of Baroque composers .