Clavichord

Overview

The clavichord is a soft-voiced rectangular keyboard instrument in which each key drives a small brass blade — a tangent — upward to strike a stretched string from below. The tangent both sounds the string and defines its vibrating length, so it acts a little like the finger on a guitar fingerboard. The result is an instrument quieter than almost any other in common use, with a tone described in early sources as intimate, breath-like and capable of an unusually direct response to the player’s touch.

The Hornbostel-Sachs system places the clavichord at 314.122 — a simple chordophone with a keyboard, sounded by tangents — and Wikidata classifies it as both a struck-string instrument and a keyboard instrument, two categories that overlap nowhere else in the standard keyboard family.

Origin & History

DBpedia records the development of the clavichord in the early 14th century. It grew out of the medieval monochord, an experimental teaching device with a single string and a movable bridge used to demonstrate intervals. By adding a row of weighted keys with metal tangents at the back ends, instrument makers turned the monochord into a polyphonic keyboard usable for practical music-making, and by the 1400s the clavichord was a familiar object in convents, court chambers and the studies of musicians.

For the next four centuries the clavichord held a steady place in European keyboard culture. It was the cheapest of the keyboard instruments to build, easy to keep in tune, and small enough to sit on a side table or to be moved between rooms. In Lutheran Germany especially it became the standard practice and teaching keyboard. Johann Sebastian Bach is reported to have preferred the clavichord for daily work, and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel published his great 1753 keyboard treatise on the true manner of playing — Versuch in the original German title — with the clavichord as the central reference instrument.

The instrument fell almost entirely out of professional use during the 19th century as the powerful iron-framed piano took over the keyboard repertoire. A revival began in the early 20th century with Arnold Dolmetsch in England and continued through the wider early-music movement after the Second World War, so that the clavichord today has a small but well-established place in conservatories, recording catalogues and amateur keyboard culture.

Construction & Materials

A clavichord is essentially a long shallow wooden box, typically about a metre and a half wide and 40 centimetres deep, with a row of keys along one long side and a sound board running the length of the case. Brass strings — usually arranged in pairs (courses) — are stretched diagonally across the box, tied at one end to a hitch-pin rail and tuned at the other on a wrest plank. A small upright brass blade, the tangent, is fixed at the back end of each key.

When the player presses a key, the tangent rises and strikes the string from below. While the key stays depressed the tangent itself functions as a movable bridge: the vibrating portion is the length of string between the tangent and the right-hand bridge. Releasing the key allows a strip of cloth woven through the strings near the hitch pins to damp the sound.

Two construction types are common. In the fretted clavichord, several keys share one pair of strings, with each tangent striking that pair at a different point along its length. In the unfretted clavichord — the later 18th-century luxury type — every key controls its own dedicated pair of strings. Unfretted instruments are larger, more expensive, and allow full polyphonic freedom; fretted clavichords are more compact and were the everyday teaching instrument well into the 1700s.

How It’s Played

Playing technique on the clavichord is closer to that of a fretted string instrument than to that of the piano. Because the tangent stays pressed against the string while the key remains depressed, sideways pressure from the fingertip can shift string tension and therefore alter pitch. A controlled vertical vibrato — known as Bebung — produced by gently rocking the finger on the key is unique among keyboard instruments and is one of the central expressive devices of clavichord playing. A second specifically clavichordistic effect, Tragen der Töne (carrying the notes), uses sustained pressure to keep the tone alive after the initial impact.

Dynamic range is narrow but unusually fine. The instrument cannot fill a hall, but a player working a few feet away can produce shadings as small as a barely audible pianissimo or as full a forte as the strings will bear without buzzing.

Cultural Significance

For most of its history the clavichord was the keyboard instrument of intimate music-making — practice, study, devotional playing in the home. C.P.E. Bach’s high regard for it, recorded in his 1753 treatise, made it inseparable from the German empfindsamer Stil, the sensitive style of mid-18th-century keyboard music in which subtle dynamic and emotional nuance carried more weight than virtuoso brilliance. Mozart owned a small travelling clavichord on which he is said to have composed parts of Die Zauberflöte and the Requiem; the instrument is preserved in his Salzburg birthplace.

The 20th-century revival places the clavichord firmly in the historically informed performance world. Modern builders such as Keith Hill, Owen Daly and Andreas Hermert produce both copies of historical instruments and modern designs, and a small but loyal recording catalogue of music by Frescobaldi, Froberger, the Bachs, Haydn, and contemporary composers exists.

Notable Examples & Recordings

• Christopher Hogwood, Secret Bach (Hyperion) — a survey of clavichord works by J. S. Bach and the next generation of his family.
• Miklós Spányi, C. P. E. Bach: Solo Keyboard Music — multi-volume series performed largely on clavichord.
• Pieter-Jan Belder, clavichord recordings of Frescobaldi and Froberger.
• The Brussels Musical Instruments Museum, the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands Park in England, and the Museum für Musikinstrumente in Leipzig hold significant historical clavichords.

Related Instruments

• Harpsichord – the louder plucked-string keyboard sibling for ensemble and concert work.
• Fortepiano – the late-18th-century instrument that began to displace the clavichord in serious keyboard study.
• Spinet – another small domestic plucked-string keyboard.
• Virginal – the rectangular plucked-string keyboard popular in 16th- and 17th-century England and the Low Countries.
• Hammered dulcimer – the older non-keyboard struck-string ancestor of the wider family.

Where to Hear It

Live clavichord performance is concentrated in early-music festivals and historical-keyboard concert series. The Boston Early Music Festival, the Utrecht Early Music Festival and the British Clavichord Society’s events in London are among the most active venues. Recordings appear on labels including Hyperion, BIS, Naxos, Glossa and Brilliant Classics. Major museum collections in Brussels, Leipzig, Edinburgh, and at the Cobbe Collection in Surrey allow visitors to see — and at certain events to hear — historical instruments in person.

• Wikipedia: Clavichord
• Wikidata: Clavichord (Q191823)
• DBpedia: Clavichord
• Wikimedia Commons: Clavichords

Learning Resources

A modern clavichord kit (Zuckermann Harpsichords being the longest-established kit supplier) starts at around 2,500 USD; a finished single-strung instrument from a working maker typically runs from 6,000 USD. Method approaches are well documented in C.P.E. Bach’s 1753 Versuch (in William J. Mitchell’s English translation), Bernard Brauchli’s monograph on the instrument from Cambridge UP, and Joan Benson’s Clavichord for Beginners. The British Clavichord Society and the German Clavichord Society publish journals, hold meetings, and maintain registers of teachers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a clavichord and a harpsichord?
The clavichord is struck — a small brass tangent hits the string from underneath — whereas the harpsichord is plucked by a quill or plastic plectrum. The clavichord is much quieter, capable of dynamic shading and vibrato; the harpsichord is louder and has an essentially fixed dynamic at each register.

Did Bach play the clavichord?
Yes. J. S. Bach is documented as preferring the clavichord for daily playing and teaching, and his son C. P. E. treated it as the central instrument of his 1753 keyboard treatise.

What is Bebung?
Bebung is a controlled vibrato produced by rocking the finger on a held-down key, which slightly changes the tension of the string. It is unique to the clavichord among keyboard instruments.

Why is the clavichord so quiet?
Because the tangent strikes the string from very close range with only the energy of the key pressed by a finger, and there is no separate bridge or amplification step. The instrument was designed for intimate domestic listening, not for halls.

Are new clavichords still being made?
Yes. A small group of specialist makers in Europe and North America build both fretted and unfretted instruments to historical or modern designs, and assembly kits are also available for amateur builders.