Keyboard Instruments in Early Modern England Keyboard Instruments in Early Modern England Author Matthew Davies Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Matthew Davies, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

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The modern-day piano’s ancestors in early modern England looked quite different. Popular keyboard instruments of the day included the harpsichord, virginal, and clavichord. Each of these keyboard instruments sounds distinctive, and of them, the harpsichord is the most widely played in the 21st century.

Harpsichords

The harpsichord was the primary keyboard instrument in early modern Europe. Similar to a modern piano, the harpsichord is a stringed instrument in a large wooden case that produces sound by a plucking mechanism that is triggered once a key is pressed on the keyboard. Its shape, size, and sound varied depending on which region of Europe where the instrument was built. The register of an early modern harpsichord ranges from one octave up to three octaves up.

In England, a common harpsichord shape would be square with a two to three octave register. Unlike the standard 88 key piano today, harpsichords had a wide range of registers, shapes, sizes, and tones depending on the area, time, and customs of the builder. The sound created from the plucking mechanism gave a much higher and brighter sound compared to the sound from the hammers on a piano.

The harpsichord began to lose popularity around the end of the 19th century as the piano made its way into mainstream music. Since the development of the piano, the harpsichord has become a callback sound to the Renaissance and is seldom heard in modern compositions.

Virginals

Virginals were traditionally played by women in wealthier households for entertainment of guests. They were part of the suite of gentile accomplishments that young ladies were supposed to acquire, including needlework, dancing, and household management. In Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, King Leontes’s jealousy leads him to see the way his childhood friend, Polixenes, touches his wife’s hand as being like a musician touching the keyboard, at the same time making clear his obsession with what he believes to be her lack of chastity. He mutters, Still virginalling on her palm? (1.2.125), showing that audiences would have been familiar with the instrument and its role in feminine accomplishments.

While in the same family as the harpsichord, virginals have two distinct differences. One is the shape and look of the virginal. While harpsichords take on the look of a piano, with a large case and permanent legs, virginals look more like a box or a cabinet than a musical instrument. If it wasn’t for the keyboard, the cabinets of virginals could easily be mistaken for furniture. The cabinets were moveable and placed atop tables or other stands when played.

The second difference is the direction of the strings. Unlike harpsichords, virginal strings run parallel to the keyboard.

Clavichords

The clavichord creates sound by metal tongues called tangents striking the strings inside the cabinet. Unlike the virginals and harpsichord, a clavichord keyboard is touch sensitive, meaning the more force the player applies, the louder the sound. This style of keyboard is the most similar to the piano used today.

Unlike the piano, the clavichord does not have one string for each note. Multiple notes use on the same string, so holding a particular note mutes another note if not played properly. This made the clavichord not only one of the more difficult keyboard instruments to play, but also had limitations in creating chords because multiple notes could not be pressed at the same time.

The clavichord is also a quieter instrument, less useful in large gatherings. However, it was widely used from the 1500s onward in Europe to teach young people music. The tone of the clavichord sounds like a mixture of a piano and a harpsichord, with the brightness of a harpsichord balanced against the resonance of a piano.

Keyboards Today

The harpsichord, virginals, and clavichord all played an important role in the development of modern-day piano or even in the digital MIDI keyboard. The keyboard itself still carries out the same function today as it did in the 15th century, triggering a tone. Whether that trigger be a hammer, metal tangent, plucking mechanism, or digital binary, the keyboard serves the same function, to create music.

Key Print Sources Rowland, David. Early Keyboard Instruments: A Practical Guide. Cambridge University, 2001.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. Keyboard Instruments. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/literature/music/keyboard.html. Montagu, Jeremy. Clavichord. The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford University Press, 2011. Oxford Reference. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-1449?rskey=sQoF7d&result=1.