Harpsichord
Harpsichords are keyboard instruments that make sound by having the strings plucked with a plectrum. They are thought to have originated when a keyboard was attached to a psaltery. This makes them different from a clavichord where the strings are hit. The piano is therefore closer to a clavichord than a harpsichord. On a piano it is possible to play louder or quieter by playing the keys with more or less force. On a harpsichord the volume (playing louder or softer) cannot be controlled by the way it is played. However, some large harpsichords have several "stops", each one giving a different kind of sound. The largest harpsichords have two manuals (keyboards) which gives more variety. It makes it possible for the right hand to play the tune on one manual while the left hand plays an accompaniment more quietly on the other.
 Harpsichord in the Flemish style | |
| Classification | Keyboard instrument |
|---|---|
| Related instruments | |
| Spinet | |
Some small harpsichords were called "virginals", perhaps because they were played by young girls. There are also spinets which were very small and sometimes wing-shaped. They could be picked up and put on a table.
Harpsichords were very important in music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. They were used as solo instruments as well as to accompany an orchestra. Some of the most famous composers of harpsichord music are William Byrd (1543-1623), François Couperin (1668-1733), Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). The last of these composers wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier, which has a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key. It is said that Bach wrote this collection of music to show how keyboard instruments like the harpsichord can be tuned in a way to make playing in any key possible.
Harpsichord Media
Harpsichord with double keyboard. The inside of the lid is decorated with two original paintings depicting the battle between Apollo and Pan based on The Judgment of Midas by Hendrick Goltzius (1590). The front cover shows Apollo and the Muses on Mount Helicon. The exterior was repainted with red chinoiserie decoration in the 18th century.
An early diagram of a vertical harpsichord (clavicytherium) by Arnault de Zwolle, c. 1430
Detail of the mechanism of the Harpsichord by Christian Zell, at Museu de la Música de Barcelona
Figure 1: schematic view of a 2 × 8' single manual harpsichord
Figure 2: upper part of a jack
Figure 3: how the harpsichord action works
Sound board of a harpsichord with Chladni patterns
Detail of the harpsichord by Karl Conrad Fleischer; Hamburg, 1720 in Museu de la Música de Barcelona. A decorative rose descends below the soundboard in which it is mounted; the soundboard itself is adorned with floral painting around the rose. The bridge is at lower right.
Double-manual, Franco-Flemish harpsichord, loosely based on models by Ruckers and others, built in 2004 by Titus Crijnen in Holland
Figure 4. French shove coupler. To the left: uncoupled keyboards. The depressed upper key lifts the jack A upwards. The depressed lower key lifts jacks B and C. To the right: The upper keyboard is coupled to the lower one by pulling the latter. The depressed upper key lifts the jack A upwards. The depressed lower key lifts jacks A, B and C.
Bach's Little Prelude in C major being played on a harpsichord
Other websites
Media related to Harpsichords at Wikimedia Commons