Clavichord for Beginners

7. Exploring the Past: Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries

68 chaPter seven Exploring the Past: Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries The clavichord has an amazingly rich heritage from the centuries before Johann Sebastian Bach. This chapter offers glimpses of that time, involving the instrument and its music, its patrons, composers, and performers. May they inspire you to explore on your own the wealth of early material so readily available today.1 Although the clavichord’s origins remain a mystery, by the fifteenth century it was popular among the educated throughout Europe. Young students began music lessons on the clavichord, and both nobility and monastics were enthusiasts. Artworks show angels and monks playing portable clavichords. Examples are in Bernard Brauchli’s The Clavichord, a book you may wish to read. Burgundian Lands Henri Arnaut de Zwolle (c. 1400–1466) The clavichord shown in figure 7.1 was built according to a diagram and description from the c. 1440 manuscript by Henri Arnaut de Zwolle.2 This astrologer, physician, and organist served Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. His court attracted and brought fame to some of the finest artists and musicians of the fifteenth century. The clavichord pictured is so light that it can be carried under one arm. Short keys cover a span of three octaves. Since it has at most ten pairs of strings of equal length, the instrument is heavily fretted, with up to five tangents touching the same set of strings.3 Compelling pieces for this early clavichord exist in fifteenth-century collections of keyboard music. Among them is the so-called Buxheimer Orgelbuch (c. 1460), unearthed from a German monastery over a century ago.4 The title Orgelbuch, however, is a misnomer. Keyboard tablatures were rarely confined to a specific instrument. In fact, it is rare to find any music written expressly for the clavichord. Yet many keyboard works are suitable for this instrument. The Buxheimer Orgelbuch contains keyboard versions of vocal music by famed Guillaume Dufay, who taught Charles the Bold, the next duke of Burgundy. It seems 69 Exploring the Past his third wife owned a devotional book of illuminated miniatures that includes a man playing the clavichord as he kneels before the Lamb of God. After Charles died in battle in 1477, his daughter Mary of Burgundy guarded her inherited lands by marrying Maximilian of the Habsburg Dynasty. Her artistic world included daily clavichord lessons from a Flemish master organist. Still young, she was fatally injured while falcon hunting with her husband. FIgure 7.1 Joan Benson with a clavichord after Arnaut de Zwolle, built by John Altstatt, California, 1973 70 Clavichord for Beginners Maximilian now controlled large portions of Burgundy, including Flanders (involving today’s Belgium and Holland). Much later he became king of the Germans and Holy Roman emperor. The Habsburg Dynasty Maximilian I (1459–1519) As an important ruler, Maximilian I enjoyed promoting his own glory through the arts. His inflated autobiography contains a woodcut depicting him as a young king surrounded by court musicians and their instruments, among them a clavichord. Hans Buchner (1483–1538) Maximilian I’s eminent court composer-organist, Paul Hofhaimer (1459–1537), had a pupil, Hans Buchner, who apparently replaced him when he was away. Later Buchner served as cathedral organist in Constance, Germany. Typically, he would have played the clavichord as well. In his treatise Fundamentum (c. 1525), Buchner offers very early fingerings that differ widely from those in use today.5 Buchner believed that “if [the fingers] are in their places, they cause a marvelous grace and delight.”6 Although he hesitated to give set fingerings, he advised using only the three middle fingers for patterns of eighth notes, as found in example 7.1.7 Try playing these patterns. They suggest a slightly detached touch particularly suitable for the extensively fretted clavichords of his day. Rather than twisting or overlapping your middle fingers, shift your entire hand and arm horizontally in the direction the notes are moving. Keep your wrist flexible and your thumb, when inactive , lower than the short keys. In his treatise Buchner included a fingered keyboard tablature on the hymn “Quem terra, pontus, aethera colunt, adorant” (Whom earth, sea, and sky honor and adore) (example 7.2).8 This medieval hymn praising the Virgin Mary appears initially as a cantus firmus (fixed melody) in the bass. Example 7.2 ends with the initial note of the cantus firmus in the treble, accentuated by a mordent. exAMPLe 7...