Clavicymbalum

Hanns Haydens Geigen-clavicymbel (top)[1]

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.[2]

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."

The work of Henri-Arnault de Zwolle describes the clavicymablum as one of the "three types" of keyboard instruments, along with the dulce melos (an early piano) and the clavicordium (clavichord).[3]

References

  1. Doppelmayr 1730.
  2. Edward L. Kottick (2003). A History of the Harpsichord. Indiana University Press. pp. 20–. ISBN 0-253-34166-3.
  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

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