CLAVICHORD, or Clarichord (Fr. manicorde; Ger. Clavichord; Ital. manicordo; Span. manicordio[1]), a medieval stringed keyboard instrument, a forerunner of the pianoforte (q.v.), its strings being set in vibration by a blow from a brass tangent instead of a hammer as in the modern instrument. The clavichord, derived from the dulcimer by the addition of a keyboard, consisted of a rectangular case, with or without legs, often very elaborately ornamented with paintings and gilding. The earliest instruments were small and portable, being placed upon a table or stand. The strings, of finely drawn brass, steel or iron wire, were stretched almost parallel with the keyboard over the narrow belly or soundboard resting on the soundboard bridges, often three in number, and wound as in the piano round wrest or tuning pins set in a block at the right-hand side of the soundboard and attached at the other end to hitch pins. The bridges served to direct the course of the strings and to conduct the sound waves to the soundboard. The scaling, or division of the strings determining their vibrating length, was effected by the position of the tangents. These tangents, small wedge-shaped blades of brass, beaten out at the top, were inserted in the end of the arm of the keys. As the latter were depressed by the fingers the tangents rose to strike the strings and stop them at the proper length from the belly-bridge. Thus the string was set in vibration between the point of impact and the belly-bridge just as long as the key was pressed down. The key being released, the vibrations were instantly stopped by a list of cloth acting as damper and interwoven among the strings behind the line of the tangents.
There were two kinds of clavichords—the fretted or gebunden and the fret-free or bund-frei. The term “fretted” was applied to those clavichords which, instead of being provided with a string or set of strings in unison for each note, had one set of strings acting for three or four notes, the arms of the keys being twisted in order to bring the contact of the tangent into the acoustically correct position under the string. The “fret-free” were chromatically-scaled instruments. The first bund-frei clavichord is attributed to Daniel Faber of Crailsheim in Saxony about 1720. This important change in construction increased the size of the instrument, each pair of unison strings requiring a key and tangent of its own, and led to the introduction of the system of tuning by equal temperament upheld by J.S. Bach. Clavichords were made with pedals.[2]
The tone of the clavichord, extremely sweet and delicate, was characterized by a tremulous hesitancy, which formed its great charm while rendering it suitable only for the private music room or study. Between 1883 and 1893 renewed attention was drawn to the instrument by A.J. Hipkins’s lectures and recitals on keyboard instruments in London, Oxford and Cambridge; and Arnold Dolmetsch reintroduced the art of making clavichords in 1894.
(K. S.)
[1] The words clavicorde, clavicordo and clavicordio, respectively French, Italian and Spanish, were applied to a different type of instrument, the spinet (q.v.).
[2] See Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht und auszgezogen (Basel, 1511) (facsimile reprint Berlin, 1882, edited by R. Eitner); J. Verschuere Reynvaan, Musijkaal Kunst-Woordenboek (Amsterdam, 1795) (a very scarce book, of which the British Museum does not possess a copy); Jacob Adlung, Musica Mechanica Organoedi (Berlin, 1768), vol. ii. pp. 158-9; A.J. Hipkins, The History of the Pianoforte (London, 1896), pp. 61 and 62.
CLAVICYTHERIUM, a name usually applied to an upright spinet (q.v.), the soundboard and strings of which were vertical instead of horizontal, being thus perpendicular to the keyboard; but it would seem that the clavicytherium proper is distinct from the upright spinet in that its strings are placed horizontally. In the early clavicytherium there was, as in the spinet, only one string (of gut) to each key, set in vibration by means of a small quill or leather plectrum mounted on a jack which acted as in the spinet and harpsichord (q.v.). The clavicytherium or keyed cythera or cetra, names which in the 14th and 15th centuries had been applied somewhat indiscriminately to instruments having strings stretched over a soundboard and plucked by fingers or plectrum, was probably of Italian[1] or possibly of south German origin. Sebastian Virdung,[2] writing early in the 16th century, describes the clavicytherium as a new invention, having gut strings, and gives an illustration of it. (See [Pianoforte].) A certain amount of uncertainty exists as to its exact construction, due to the extreme rarity of unrestored specimens extant, and to the almost total absence of trustworthy practical information.
In a unique specimen with two keyboards dating from the 16th or 17th century, which is in the collection of Baron Alexandre Kraus,[3] what appear to be vibrating strings stretched over a soundboard perpendicular to the keyboard are in reality the wires forming part of the mechanism of the action. The arrangement of this mechanism is the distinctive feature of the clavicytherium, for the wires, unlike the strings of the upright spinet, increase in length from left to right, so that the upright harp-shaped back has its higher side over the treble of the keyboard instead of over the bass. The vibrating strings of the clavicytherium in the Kraus Museum are stretched horizontally over two kinds of psalteries fixed one over the other. The first, serving for the lower register, is of the well-known trapezoid shape and lies over the keyboards; it has 30 wire strings in pairs of unisons corresponding to the 15 lowest keys. The second psaltery resembles the kanoun of the Arabs, and has 36 strings in courses of 3 unisons corresponding to the next 12 keys, and 88 very thin strings in courses of 4, completing the 49 keys; the compass thus has a range of four octaves from C to C. The quills of the jacks belonging to the two keyboards are of different length and thickness. The jacks, which work as in the spinet, are attached to the perpendicular wires, disposed in two parallel rows, one for each keyboard.