The clavicymbalum (or clavisymbalum, clavisimbalum, etc.) is an early keyboard instrument and ancestor of the harpsichord. The instrument is described as a psaltery to which keys, but no dampers, have been attached, allowing the keys rather than the fingers to pluck the strings, which then ring until their sound fades out. [1]
One of its earliest attestations is a 1323 work by Johannes de Muris, where it describes a monochordium as an instrument "with a keyboard of two octaves, of triangular form, with one of the three sides curved."[ citation needed]
The work of Henri-Arnault de Zwolle (between 1438 and 1446) describes the clavicymbalum as one of the "three types" of keyboard instruments, along with the dulce melos (an early piano) and the clavicordium ( clavichord). [2]
References
- ^ Edward L. Kottick (2003). A History of the Harpsichord. Indiana University Press. pp. 20–. ISBN 0-253-34166-3.
- ^ Roland Jackson (23 October 2013). Performance Practice: A Dictionary-Guide for Musicians: A Dictionary-Guide for Musicians. Taylor & Francis. pp. 94–. ISBN 978-1-136-76769-2.
Further reading
- G. Le Cerf et E.R. Labande, Les traités d'Henri-Arnault de Zwolle et de divers anonymes, Paris, 1932
- Martin-K. Kaufmann, "Le clavier à balancier du clavisimbalum XVe: un moment exceptionnel de l'évolution des instruments à clavier", in La Facture de clavecin du XVe au XVIIIe, Actes du colloque international de Louvain, 1976, Musicologica neolovaniensia. Studia 1, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1980, pp. 9-57.
- The Clavisimbalum of Henri Arnaut de Zwolle. Carl Rennoldson, Harpsi.com
- Thomas Steiner (2004). Instruments À Claviers, Expressivité Et Flexibilité Sonore: Actes Des Rencontres Internationales Harmoniques. Peter Lang. pp. 89–. ISBN 978-3-03910-244-0.
- Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1730). Historische Nachricht von den nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern. Nürnberg: Peter Conrad Monath. p. 341. (Original from: the University of Michigan; Digitized: 6 Mar 2012; Length: 314 pages)