The Clavichord
Copyright ©1998–2006 CBH
Of all the keyboard instruments, the clavichord is perhaps the oldest, and
certainly the most expressive.
| “…solitary, melancholic, unspeakably delightful
instrument… He who has an aversion to revelry, fury and tumult and
whose heart delights in sweet sensations, will pass by the harpsichord and
fortepiano, and choose the clavichord.” |
| — Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart,
1785. |
Its
mechanism is simple in the extreme: The strings which run across the
instrument from hitchpin to tuning pin are struck by tiny blades
of brass called tangents. These are fixed near the far end of each key.
At rest, each tangent lies only a few mm below the strings. When the musician
plays a note, the key pivots like a tiny see-saw on its balance pin.
The back part of the key rises, and the tangent taps the string, both exciting
it into vibration and determining its speaking length at the same moment. If
the player then exerts a little more pressure, the pitch can be varied somewhat
while the note is still sounding. The other end of the speaking string length
is always fixed by the bridge, which passes the tiny vibration of the
string to the soundboard for amplification so we can hear it. As soon
as the key is released, the vibrations travel backwards along the strings to
the left, where they are promptly stopped by the listing cloth—this
material woven between the pairs of strings also affects the stiffness of touch,
but has nothing to do with muting the tone of the instrument.
Triple-fretted Clavichord,
Carey Beebe Sydney 1990
45 notes: C/E-c''' boxwood & grenadilla keyboard
Honduran mahogany case, frame & panel lid
Private Ownership, Kingscliff NSW
Most clavichords are strung in pairs with yellow brass material, the thickness
of the wire varying from bass to treble. The smallest clavichords have fewer
pairs of strings than keys, resulting in an easy-to-tune, smaller and (because
of the lesser tension) often louder instrument. Similar to guitars and lutes,
this arrangement is called “fretting”, and a clavichord could said
to be either double- or triple-fretted, according to whether the
strings are shared in twos or threes throughout most of the compass. The light
weight and small size of fretted clavichords enable them to be taken anywhere.
Many of the surviving original small clavichords lack legs, so perhaps they
were table-top instruments, or meant to be played on one’s knees in a
stage coach or in bed. (One wag once remarked that the clavichord was the only
musical instrument that a person in one half of a double bed could play without
disturbing the person in the other half—and he might well have been right!)
| “Every keyboardist should own a good harpsichord
and a good clavichord to enable him to play all things interchangeably.
A good clavichordist makes an accomplished harpsichordist, but not so the
reverse. The clavichord is needed for the study of good performance, and
the harpsichord to develop proper finger strength.” |
| — Carl Philipp Emanual Bach, 1753. |
Double-fretted Clavichord,
Carey Beebe Sydney 1987
51 notes: C-d''' boxwood & walnut keyboard
French walnut case
Private ownership, Canberra ACT
It is because the strings are struck at their most inefficient part that the
clavichord is so sweet and gentle—it has been compared to playing the
guitar by using the back of a knife on the fingerboard, and not plucking the
strings with the right hand at all. The dynamic range, though, is quite extreme—all
the way from ppp to perhaps mp— but what is remarkable is
the variation of pitch possible by exerting pressure on the key after it has
been played. Bebung was the term given by the Germans to this vibrato
effect, although it was probably meant to be used with discretion like an ornament,
and not an indiscriminate wallowing around on every single note. It is the degree
of control allowed by this immediacy of touch, which is so lacking in all other
keyboard instruments: In the clavichord, the finger is always in direct connection
through the key and tangent to the sounding string.
You can make a clavichord much louder, if you really want to: Instead
of striking the string right at the termination of its speaking length, a stronger
blow can be delivered by fixing both ends of the string, and striking it somewhere
in its middle. Such an instrument was invented once, and in fact it was responsible
for changing the course of Western music history. We know it as the Pianoforte or
just Piano for short—which is a silly name for such a loud instrument:
It would be much more sensible for something which can be successfully pitted
against a 110-piece modern symphony orchestra to be commonly known as the Forte!
This uprising of the piano can probably be attributed to the fact that it
attempted to combine the best features of two very different keyboard instruments:
Some of the expressiveness of the clavichord, at the rather more sociable volume
level of the harpsichord, enabling serious use with other instruments. But that
is another story.
 |
Unfretted Clavichord,
Carey Beebe Sydney 1991
61 notes: FF-f''' grenadilla naturals, bone-slipped sharps
Honduran mahogany case, frame & panel lid
Private ownership, Lancaster, United Kingdom
|
Larger clavichords have individual pairs of strings for each note, and
offer the greatest harmonic freedom: These are called Unfretted clavichords
and are noble instruments which work well for the spirited music of Bach’s
sons, and for much early piano music. With 61 notes (five octaves), for example,
you cover all of Mozart, and believe it or not, all of Beethoven’s
keyboard music to 1801. |
| The clavichord lived on in Europe long after production of harpsichord
ceased. There is even a strange aberration in the Museu de la Música
in Barcelona—a clavichord finished quite crudely in pine by José Grabalos
of Tarazona, but with a full six octaves. Now that’s too many notes! |
|
