Sweelinck - Toccaten Fantasien Variationen - Peter Ella, clavichord

 

Release Date: 01/24/2006 Label: Hungaroton Number of discs: 1 Composer: Jan P. Sweelinck Performer: Péter Ella cd info/ buy

Review:

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck represents the highest development of the Dutch keyboard school, and indeed represented one of the highest pinnacles attained in keyboard contrapuntal complexity and refinement before J.S. Bach. However, he was a skilled composer for voices as well. Some of Sweelinck's innovations were of profound musical importance, including the fugue - he was the first to write an organ fugue which began simply, with one subject, successively adding texture and complexity until a final climax and resolution, an idea which was perfected at the end of the Baroque era by Bach. Stylistically Sweelinck's music also brings together the richness, complexity and spatial sense of the Gabrielis, with whom he was familiar from his time in Venice, and the ornamentation and intimate forms of the English keyboard composers. In formal development, especially in the use of countersubject, stretto, and organ point (pedal point), his music was far beyond the works of Girolamo Frescobaldi - its nearest predecessor - and looks ahead to J.S. Bach.

 

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Bach JS - Inventions, Sinfonias, Duets - Jaroslav Tuma, clavichord

 

Release Date: August 5, 2000 Label: Arta (Cze) Number of discs: 1 Composer:  JS Bach Performer: Jaroslav Tuma cd info/ buy

Review:

This is the complete set of JS Bach's 2-, 3- and 4-part inventions. I recommended it highly for every clavichordist. Tüma plays sensitively and with insight. Some of the tempi are quite different than one would use with a harpsichord or organ, and show off the very different sound and capabilities of the clavichord. Many of these works sound so much better on clavichord than on the other keyboards of Bach's time that I conclude those specific works must have been composed primarily for clavichord. The instrument used here is a 1789 Schiedmayer tuned in Kirnberger III. This 5-octave instrument represents the height of development of the unfretted clavichord, and its very distinctive sound is much in evidence on this fine recording.

 

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Christopher Hogwood, clavichord - The secret Bach, Handel and Mozart

 

Release Date: 2004-2006 Label: Harmonia Mundi / Metronome Number of discs: 3 Composer: Bach, Handel, Mozart  Performer: Christopher Hogwood cd info/ buy

Review:

The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces sound by striking brass or iron strings with small metal blades called tangents. Vibrations are transmitted through the bridge(s) to the soundboard. The name is derived from the Latin word clavis, meaning "key" (associated with more common clavus, meaning "nail, rod, etc.") and chorda (from Greek χορδή) meaning "string, especially of a musical instrument". The clavichord was invented in the early fourteenth century.In 1504, the German poem "Der Minne Regeln" mentions the terms clavicimbalum (a term used mainly for the harpsichord) and clavichordium, designating them as the best instruments to accompany melodies. One of the earliest references to the clavichord in England occurs in the privy-purse expenses of Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII, in an entry dated August 1502: "Item. The same day, Hugh Denys for money by him delivered to a stranger that gave the queen a payre of clavycordes. In crowns form his reward iiii libres". It was very popular from the 16th century to the 18th century, but mainly flourished in German-speaking lands, Scandinavia, and the Iberian Peninsula in the latter part of this period. It had fallen out of use by 1850. In the late 1890s, Arnold Dolmetsch revived clavichord construction and Violet Gordon-Woodhouse, among others, helped to popularize the instrument. Although most of the instruments built before the 1730s were small (four octaves, four feet long), the latest instruments were built up to seven feet long with a six octave range.

 

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