Some Early Style Clavichords And The Music They Were Made To Play

Jerry Korsmit, clavichord

The piece is a Magnificat on the Sixth Mode by Conrad Paumann d. 1473, one of the earliest known composers for specifically instrumental keyboard music.  He was a blind organist and lute player - said to have invented the German lute tablature.  He also composed the first treatise on how to ornament and improvise keyboard music, I wrote a paper about it when I was in college, who knows where it is now.

The instrument is made after the drawing and description in the treatise by Arnaut de Zwolle, only the one in the manuscript is a somewhat larger instrument with fewer strings so more of the keys shared a pair of strings.

Here are a group of pieces, the first is Paumann's setting of Mit Ganzen Willen, then an anonymous piece from the Buxheimerbuch Organ Book and a piece by a slightly younger composer, Hans Kotter.

Ernst Stolz, clavichord

Here is Bernard Brauchli playing a Pavana Italiana by the great Spanish keyboard composer Antionio di Cabezon

They're a far cry from the much larger, unfretted instruments of J.S. and C. P. E. Bach's generations, not to mention the even bigger instruments that continued to be made and played into the 19th century.

Here is a concert given by an excellent player, Bruno Forst  on clavichords and virginal that shows the difference in older and later clavichords.

I'm pretty sure the instruments were amplified in the hall, the microphone is close.   He gives some explanations in Spanish.