Welcome to my second vlog. Very special to hopefully meet even more people this way, than last time. And I thought, let's talk today about the harpsichord, the instrument which is closest to my heart. As well as the organ, of course, but we'll talk about that another time. And I thought to tell you something about the history of the harpsichord. And then I will let you hear some instruments that we own. I will improvise a little. I will be going from one instrument to the other. And might even be ending up talking about the piano, the 'black monster' as I like to call it. We'll see! The earliest harpsichord that we know of, that is the earliest image that exists of a harpsichord, is from 1425. The image is from the Dom Church in Minden, Germany. And it's being kept in the Bode Museum in Berlin, at the museum Island. A beautiful altarpiece, where one can also find a clavichord. 1425: this means the harpsichord already existed. When the first harpsichord appeared, we don't know exactly. But that would have been somewhere in the 14th century. The oldest excisting harpsichord dates from 1511, an Italian harpsichord. The oldest book in which a harpsichord is mentioned, is a Traité from Henri Arnault de Zwolle. A manuscript from about 1440, that is being kept in the National Library in Paris. Well, what is a harpsichord? Let's walk over to my harpsichord, the harpsichord I most frequenty use. And as you may expect, all our harpsichords are built by Willem Kroesbergen. They are all copies. Look, this is an instrument with 2 keyboards. Maybe first I'd better show you how it works. Because many people don't know this. When I hit a key, you have to look over here, Then you will see a little pin plucking the string. And then you probably think: why is there a second row, which I can't hear? Well, you can hear this too! That's a four-foot. And we have another row. And the two can be combined. You see all of them moving. When I want to play, I have to close it, otherwise the jacks will be flying around. When I play the upper keyboard. And the four-foot. And you can also hear the lower keyboard seperately. Upper keyboard. Together. Four-foot. You can hear how long the instrument echoes. This is a copy of a Ruckers, which I will later explain. First to Italy. This is an example of a typical Italian instrument. It's shorter, usually with two registers: two times eight-foot You can immediately hear the difference in sound. Again, you can hear that you can actually play dynamics. Maybe it's good to have a look over here. Because it has a very strange octave. To limit space and to obtain more sound from the harpsichord, They left out the undertone, so you hear... And again, there are two registers. The other one. Together. This is a copy of a Giusti, a beautiful instrument. Of which the original can still be found in Italy. There are many more different types of Italian harpsichords. During the 17th century the instruments became much longer. And the shortened octave, this strange octave I just played, disappears in time. Like I said, the oldest harpsichord is Italian, and dates from 1511. The most modern historical harpsichord was built around 1840. So the harpsichord has never really disappeared, like many people claim. The story that Wandanowska has 'revived' the harpsichord, because it had completely dissapeared at the end of the 18th century, is simply not true. The harpsichord was still being played in many places. For example, in the 19th century in the English country houses, you often heard a pianist first playing a piece on the harpsichord, and afterwards playing the piano. But anyway, the oldest harpsichord is from 1511 and the youngest from 1840-1850. It was used in a church, where it sounded nice and loud. In England there were different types of harpsichords, but in Italy, with its many different city-states, you could find an enormous variety in instruments, each slightly different, with its own particular sound. I have read a book, which mentions over 200 different Italian types of harpsichords. All a bit like this one. All with two eight-foot, sometimes with one eight-foot. Sometimes with two eight-foot and a four-foot And sporadically, at the end of the 17th century, a 16-foot, for the very rich de' Medici. Sometimes with two keyboards, which was very exceptional. Italian harpsichords usually had one keyboard. Instruments were created very plain, like this one, without decoration. But it could also be richly decorated. In many museums examples can be seen. Some where even decorated with gemstones. Sometimes more money was spent on the decoration than on the harpsichord itself. Anybody who wants to know more about harpsichords or its history, there are a few books: Frank Hubbard, Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making. Published in 1965 at Harvard, USA. A more up-to-date book: Boalch, Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord 1440-1841. There is a third edition of this book, from 1995. An English book: Russell, The Harpsichord and Clavichord, published in 1959. All important and still very valuable books. Some in information in the older books may not be completely accurate anymore, but they still contain a lot of relevant and interesting information. When I go to Flanders, then we see this instrument, a virginal. We know this instrument from paintings: Terborgh, Vermeer. In the Netherlands they appear in many paintings. This one is a copy after Ruckers, and it's called a 'Muzelaar'. It has its keyboard on the right, 'Muzelaar', because the sound is very sweet. There are also versions with the keyboard on the left. Like the picture in this book. It has the same decorations, with seahorses. A very small keyboard and a short octave. A Muzelaar sounded much sweeter than a Skerp. A Skerp has the keyboard on the left-hand side. It was created to sound much louder and more intense. The Muzelaar sounds like this: Those who have listened carefully, may have heard the specific tuning of both these instruments. Which tuning would that be? You can hear the perfect thirds, very beautiful. But you can also play really out of tune. That's what we call the 'wolf'. It sounds like the tuner did a really bad job, but that's not the case. If you stack perfect thirds on top of each other, it just doesn't fit. For the tuner this is a problem. At the end of the 17th century this changed. Werckmeister said: the thirds are nice, but it's better to have perfect quints. All out of tune. And the wolf-quint Really out of tune! If you divide it better, you get a Werckmeister-tuning. Now we can have a look at a Flemish instrument with a double keyboard. If we move out of this room and into to my wife's study. She's not at home, so we are allowed to. Ruckers and also Couchet built instruments, small virginals, with one keyboard and two stops, eight- and four-foot. When they would build a double keyboard harpsichord it was a somewhat strange instrument. The same strings were used for the lower and upper keyboard, which is different from what we just heard, but there was a difference of a quarter, so one could transpose. That's why it's called a 'transposing double'. The real double-manual harpsichord was invented by Couchet. This is one, built after Couchet. Around 1640 we first hear about the 2-manual harpsichord, as we know today, invented by Couchet. It's mentioned by Pierre Trichet in his Traité des instruments de musique, a manuscript in Paris. And a Couchet sounds like this. Upper keyboard. Just the lower keyboard. Much stronger. Many people think you have to touch the harpsichord softly. "It's an aristocratic insrument, on which one plays softly." But it's documented, that in Italy for example, by Charles Burney, during his travels, that harpsichords were played so loudly, that you would hear more wood than sound. Well, that's not the case here. But you can also play with dynamics. Of course, you can never play the wide range of dynamics as on the piano, but that's not necessary. The connoisseur will hear subtle differences, and that's what makes the instrument special. In Flanders there was another instrument called a mother-and-child virginal. It's like the virginal which we already saw, but in the belly of the instrument, here for example, a very small instrument was hidden. Let's have a look over there. This is an instrument which can be found at the Instruments Museum in Brussels. You can see two keyboards, and over here another very small keyboard. This is the child, here it's secured to the instrument. This was once a transposing double, which has been remodelled. Many instruments in museums have a history of remodelling, reparation or improvements. Nowadays we say: such a pity. But this is possibly the most curious instrument, with two keyboards and the small one over there. Because usually with the Muzelaar, the child was over here, and you would take it out. Then you remove the jacks. Let me take it off. And then you put the child up here, so they can be played together. Here you can see the jacks and the dampers. A virginal is a very fragile instrument. I don't own a mother-child virginal myself, but I do have a very small virginal, which I received as a gift, when my youngest daughter Marieke was born. Look, here it is. In earlier days these tiny instruments were made as toys. For example as a sewing-box, with a pincushion on top. But you can actually play it. It goes out of tune immediately. Very small, but it has all the details. You can open it, if you have nails... which I don't. Here you can see very small jacks. It was made by a former student of mine, who became a good harpsichord maker. He gave it to me as a present when Marieke was born. You already saw my large Flemish harpsichord. What happened with Ruckers a lot is that a small instrument would be enlarged, and made even bigger later on. The keyboard became larger, like with the original instrument of which this one is a copy. The French were famous, because they preferred to make a harpsichord on the remains of an original Ruckers. That was their dream, and of course Ruckers was a name which sold very well. So now we are arriving at the French harpsichords. Many 18th century French harpsichords have been preserved, and they look like this. Some of them even more beautifully decorated. A Couchet for example, you could buy with a painting by Rubens on it. The price would then be doubled, but it was worth it. Very few 17th century French harpsichords have been preserved. But more Flemish harpsichords have remained. These Flemish harpsichords were imitated in Amsterdam and Middelburg. This is very interesting. In Germany, many organ builders also made harpsichords. Think of the Vater-organ in the Old Church in Amsterdam. Vater was also a very skilled harpsichord maker. His instruments still exist, for example in Nürnberg. England had a real industry of harpsichord making, especially in the second half of the 18th century. At some point one maker owned a whole factory with different specilizations. This actually already started with Ruckers. More people with different specializations working together in one factory, So they could produce instruments faster. I could go on like that. We assume that harpsichords were still being built around 1800. In lesser numbers though, because by that time the piano took over. Vienna and London were important centers for the development of the piano. Also Germany, Augsburg, brought forth famous piano builders. The piano eventually conquered the harpsichord, because of its much bigger sound. But when you play the concert for piano and harpsichord by C.Ph.E. Bach on a historical piano forte and a harpsichord, the harpsichord sounds actually louder. This is very interesting, but a piano has a larger range, from very soft to much louder than the harpsichord. But with the harpsichord you can change stops and keyboards. And it requires more creativity of the performer, who shouldn't be afraid to play the instrument. Then we arrive at the Steinway, which sounded, in my opinion, much better in 1900 than nowadays. Nowadays it's just built to sound abnormally loud, in order to fill the large concert halls. Earlier I disrespectfully called it the 'black monster', because harpsichordists always have a love-hate relationship with the piano. And especially today, when so often Bach, and even Sweelinck and Rameau are being played on the piano. Why are we, harpsichordists, not able to defend our own instrument? Playing a fugue on a harpsichord is logical, the sound is clear. On the piano it sounds exaggerated. The piano is fit to play a melody with accompaniment. Let the amount of pianists who play our repertoire, be a mirror to us harpsichordists. And let us show them we can do better. Let's do it.