h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Aww, I really think the harpsicord deserves better treatment than this! Since the beginning of the so called early music movement, the harpsicord has become a more and more important instrument. In fact, it is essensial in most baroque music. Some later composers also used the harpsicord, for instance Britten in his 'Phedra'.
Elin

I agree, records of early harpsichords date back to the 1400's in Flanders. This instrument was the kingpin of early baroque and later keyboard music for over 300 years !!
Even if we count the Christofori piano action(1720) as the first piano, although the first pianos were not really available for general use until the late 1790's (Stein, Striecher etc), the piano has only been in existance for 200 years.

More than two paragraphs worth surely considering JS Bach composed most of his work on one ?

As for a "cult" following, try typing in Early Music in a search engine! The harpsichord is still a valid and popular instrument today.

Sounds like you'd be qualified to write a better Harpsicord entry! Any plans?

I'd love to.

Have you noticed that there is no entry for piano either ?

No, really? How strange! The entry on cellos (my instrument) is quite good. I'd have thought there would be more pianists than cellists out there.

I just want to add that the harpsicord is an instrument very different from the piano. There are some beautiful pieces written for harpsicord but they do not necessarily translate well to the piano. The two instruments have different sounds and as a result they are used in very different ways. The piano is not necessarily a better instrument than the harpsicord.

Its interesting the difference it makes playing, say early Bach or Vivaldi, on a harpsichord. Likewise, the Vienesse action piano offers a different take on Mozart's piano works. Beethoven, however was always seeking the piano with the biggest sound and possibly influenced the move towards the larger and richer instruments of today. I think that a return to more authentic instruments can only highlight nuances in music that can be lost by playing everything on a modern instrument.

It is also quite interesting how harpsichord players work with different tunings. Some of the ways to tune gives the sound an edge I have not heard on other instruments.

Yes, tuning! I guess there could be an entire entry just about that... what's it called in English, anyway; tempering? I mean, as in 'The well-tempered clavier', for instance.

Tempering is the process of altering the tuning slightly out of true to fit in with a particular tuning e.g. Equal Temperament.

Its true that various tunings were adopted to create different nuances whilst playing. I think from memory there were mainly two or three different tunings in common use. Also most pieces would be composed in a certain key specifically to take advantage of those tunings and to avoid 'wolf notes'.

Most harpsichords would be tuned by the people that played them and on a much more regular basis than the piano, twice a week for example. This is again dependant upon the amount that the instrument is played and the temperature/humidity variation in the room that the instrument is played.

You should definitely write an entry or two! I have a friend who is a harpsichordist, and she seems to have to tune the instrument all the time - whenever it's been moved across the room, someone has opened a door, or someone has been playing it! She's been talking about four different temperaments, but mainly she uses two: one for early baroque music and one for late.

Yeah they can be a bit like that
Dont forget that this instrument was designed for use in houses with no central heating!
When you make one now you always put is in the room that its going to be used in , leave it for a week or two, then return to regulate and tune it. Modern heating just dries them out.

This entry has now been rewritten. I think you'll find it now is reasonably representative of this fine instrument.

I am horrified. I didn't catch this in peer review; is it too late now? Presumably.

This is a rant, not a balanced entry! You use the word "tinny" not once but twice; have you been to a Malcolm Proud recital?

It's all right to dislike he sound of the harpsichord (my father-in-law Joe Groocock did) but why write the entry if you're a detractor?

"The harpsichord is no longer a mainstream instrument" is a curious statement. Is Handel's Messiah not mainstream repertoire? The Four Seasons? A few years ago the Guardian ran an article about John Eliot Gardiner, in which the point was made that period-instrument performance is now the manistream for the early repertoire: a glance at annual Gramophone and similar awards confirms this. Modern-instrument interpretations are the embattled minority.

What a curious article! "If you can hear a sort of buzzy sound in the background of a recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, that's the harpsichord." You are referring to the fifth Brandenburg? The one that is essentially a harpsichord concerto?

Jesus wept.

I am also sorry you didn't catch it in Peer Review. This was a re-write of a hopelessly inadequate entry on Harpsichords, written by the Old Writing Team in 1999, thankfully now relegated to the dustbin. It had about 3 sentences in it and basically said that the harpsichord was a torture instrument.

I thought I had done quite a good job of a realistic description of the harpsichord. I've nothing against them, and don't consider 'tinny' to be an insult. If I had the space, I'd buy my wife a harpsichord, as I think she'd enjoy playing one.

Sorry if this causes you so much pain. Can you suggest anything to improve it?

It is too late to do anything about this particular round of updates, but I can easily put it back into the Update Forum, and it'll be published again in a few weeks (without the Front Page announcement). Or you could take a copy of it and update yourself to a form that keeps us both happy. Nothing in the Guide is set in stone.

Yes. It has the air of something from the bottom of the deep freeze.

I'm away to Kerry next week, far from all keyboards. Maybe in August.

Tinny. Can't see it as positive or neutral. Sorry.

Let's work on this together when you get back.

OK, I'll post you a message.

I've just joined H2G2 and one of my early searches was for Bach. I then came across the entry for Harpsichord and could hardly believe my eyes.
Fancy starting with a quotation from someone who was clearly a hater of the refined sound of this splendid instrument. Although I think he may have been referring to the iron framed, concert harpsichords tuned in equal temperament that were more commonplace some years ago.

But "shrill and tinny, buzzy", hardly a complementary point of view?
Maybe "thin compared to a modern piano" instead of tinny. The word shrill to me suggests high pitched loudness that has the capacity to hurt one's hearing or, at least, make one wince. Most harpsichords do not have this characteristic. Indeed, one of the reasons they were supplanted by the forte-piano was their very lack of volume, hence the need to strike the string rather than to pluck it. The, much later, concert harpsichord was designed to try to overcome the drawbacks of the older, wooden framed, instruments and to let them be heard when playing within a modern orchestra.
Have you read what Wikipedia has to say I wonder? Try this reference:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpsichord .
As with previous posters maybe some reference to the various alternate temperaments that these instruments are tuned to would be in order. Quarter comma meantone, Werckmeister, Valotti & Young are three that come quickly to mind. May I refer you to another web page on tuning in wikipedia:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_tuning .

An amateur musician.