The clavecin and harpsichord seem to have supplanted the psaltery some time in the Sixteenth Century. The gravicembalo or clavicembalo was, as we have seen, a conspicuous member of Monteverde’s Orchestra (see page [143]). It remained in the Symphony Orchestra until the days of Haydn, who got rid of it.
Originating in Italy, it spread northward into France, Germany, the Netherlands, and England.
The earliest mention of the harpsichord is under the name clavicymbolum and occurs in the rules of the Minnesingers in 1404. The earliest mention in English is in 1502, when it is called clavicymball.
The oldest harpsichord in the South Kensington Museum, of London, is a Venetian clavicembalo, signed and dated Joanes Antonius Baffo, Venetus, 1574. It has a compass of four and a half octaves from C to F. “Raising the top and looking inside, we observe the harp-like disposition of the strings, as in a modern grand piano, which led Galilei,[91] the father of the astronomer, Galileo, to infer the direct derivation of the harpsichord from the harp. In front, immediately over the keys, is the wrestplank, with the tuning-pins inserted, round which are wound the nearer ends of the strings—in this instrument two to each note—the further ends being attached to hitchpins, driven into the soundboard itself, and following the angle of the bent side of the case to the narrow end, where the longest strings are stretched. There is a straight bridge along the edge of the wrestplank and a curved bridge upon the soundboard. The strings pass over these bridges between which they vibrate, and the impulse of their vibrations is communicated by the curved bridge to the soundboard. The plectra, or jacks, with the exception that they carry points of leather instead of quills, are the same as in later instruments. This Venetian harpsichord has a separate case from which it could be withdrawn for performance, a contrivance usual in Italy, the outer case being frequently adorned with painting. Lastly, the natural keys are white and the sharps black, the rule in Italian keyed instruments, the German practice having been the reverse.”[92]
CONCERT WITH HARPSICHORD
Eighteenth Century
This was the kind of instrument—the gravicembalo—that had a place in the Monteverde’s Orchestra (see page [143]), and that Domenico Scarlatti is playing in the illustration facing page [182].
Just what the Amati family of Cremona was to the violin, the Ruckers family of Antwerp was to the harpsichord. The Ruckers made the most perfect and the most artistic of harpsichords. Altogether there were about forty Ruckers.
Of this family there were four members living and working between 1591 and 1651, or later, who achieved great reputation. Their instruments are known by their signatures and by the monograms forming the ornamental rosette, or sound-hole, in the soundboard—a survival from the psaltery. The great improvement of the harpsichord is attributed to Hans, the eldest, who by adding to the two unison strings of each note a third of shorter length and finer wire, tuned an octave higher, increased the power and brilliancy of the tone. To employ this addition at will alone, or with one or both the unison strings, he contrived, after the example of the organ, a second keyboard, and stops to be moved by the hand, for the control of the registers, or slides, of jacks acting upon the strings. By these expedients all the legitimate variety ever given to the harpsichord was secured. The Ruckers harpsichord given by Messrs. Broadwood to the South Kensington Museum, signed and dated “Andreas Ruckers me fecit Antverpiae 1651,” said to have been left by Handel to Christopher Smith, shows these additions to the construction, and was, in the writer’s remembrance, before the soundboard gave way, of deliciously soft and delicately reedy timbre. The tension being comparatively small, these harpsichords lasted much longer than our modern pianofortes.