Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/587

Still vulgarly known as monochord, Virdung’s clavichord was really a box of monochords, all the strings being of the same length. He derives the clavichord from Guido’s monochord 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 sound-board 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 Bund, 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 who 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 strings suffice 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 value of these notes is shown by their independence of chromatic alteration in tuning the double Irish harp, as explained by Vincentio Galilei in his treatise on music (Dialogo della musica, Florence, 1581). Adlung, who died in 1762, speaks of another fretting, but it must have been an adaptation to the modern major scale, the “free” notes being E and B. Clavichords were made with double fretting up to about the year 1700—that is to say, to the epoch of J. S. Bach, who, taking advantage of its abolition and the consequent use of independent pairs of strings for each note, was enabled to tune in all keys equally, which had been impossible so long as the fretting was maintained. The modern scales having become established, Bach was now able to produce, in 1722, Das wohltemperirte Clavier, the first collection of 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.

Fig. 4.—Manicordo (Clavichord) d’Eleonora di Montalvo, 1659; Kraus Museum, Florence.

The oldest clavichord, here called manicordo (as French manicorde, from monochord), known to exist is that shown in fig. 4. It will be observed that the lowest octave is here already “bundfrei” 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 “manicorde” (Harmonie universelle, 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 17th 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 the cloth 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.

Fig. 5.—Clavichord Tangent.

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, observed,—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 über die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen (“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 it, 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 monochord, 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 J. 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 (virginalis, proper for a girl), a parallelogram in shape, having the same projecting keyboard and compass of keys the same as 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. Virginal.

Clavi­cimbalum. 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 clavicimbalum, this is rectified, and the drawing, reversed on account of the keyboard, can be accepted as roughly representing the instrument so called (fig. 6). There would be