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I guess you dont have to know anything about harpischord history to play the harpischord and make a video lol

I have only just come across this channel a few minutes ago. Many thanks for a truly fascinating talk about such a problematic subject. I always took as gospel that baroque music was pitched a semitone lower regardless of the location. I now also understand why a couple of recordings I have of some of Bach's organ music sound a whole tone higher.

Thank you. That was so fascinating. I’ve loved Piano ever since I was a kid but kinda like harpsichord too. Such a lovely sound. Had never realise until now that the strings were plucked. 😮😊

7:08 Sorry , but " grand ravalement " do not mean "great restoration " . Grand ravalement means going down further on the keyboard. In French , upstream is amont and downstream is aval . So , by going lower on their French instruments - meaning more bass keys than Flemish instruments, French consider they would go further downstream than their northern neighbors . To transform instruments this way , of course, it is a transformation of the instrument . Restoration mean to bring the instrument back to its original condition like bringing an oil painting to its original colors. Restoration is one thing and ravalement is another one .

I had no idea all this exists ! I thought all tuning means one and the same thing

Thank you!

Great Video. Thank you, this is such an interesting topic.

This is wonderfully helpful, thank you!

Thankyou for such a straight forward and concise explanation. It is indeed quite rewarding and fun to experience the idiosyncrasies and spectrum of tonal colors that "historical" pitch levels offer, and from the standpoint of idiomatic instrumental writing, quite enlightening as well. But while all this appeals to us early music nerds, I think we have lost sight of almost certain likelihood that performers and composers managed however way was most practical within their circumstances.

Fantastic explanation! Question: does the G# mean there is no agreable fminor chord (containing the very sharp "a flats")?

Fantastic! Thank you for such a clear and concise presentation. I'm sure you've expanded a lot of minds with this. Looking forward to seeing/hearing more!

VERY interesting! Thank you so much for this video! You discovered me the Toccata by Rossi and was extremely intense and surprising!

TY very interesting. Most of treatise deal about BC on keyboards. Indeed, the 3 and 5 intervals, by exemple, fall naturally under the fingers on a keyboard. On the Lute or Theorbo it's an other story : provided we're tuned in 4th intervals, in many cases you cannot play the fundamental AND the 3rd, both on the same string ! So we've to anticipate some "renversements" (sorry, don't get the english word for it), and same with 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th, according to the chord. Very tricky to do that in real time, at the tempo ;-) (I personally cheat : I write my BC realizations on a paper before the rehearsal !)

I'm very impressed with your teaching

A mí el La a 415 me suena más a Barroco francés, con la suntuosidad y pelucas de la época 😮

What about virginals and clavichords. Did they differ from country to country... Very cool .. I guess I commented too quickly....

The "international standard" A 440 is the one established by the britons and the nazist germans in the conference with only those two representative?

I just tried the last diminished chord and it worked charms! Great tip!

Great video! Just what I was looking for to help me better understand the harpsichord. Thanks!

Watched the whole video, AND LOVED IT! As an early music lover since 5th grade, that yellow songbook is what it is to classical singers as the Suzuki Violin School is to violin students! Had to pay a visit to Mark Polesky’s site, Suzuki Violin Pieces in Their Own Forms, because everything music theory-wise and style-wise you explained in the video about those songs has a lot of parallels with Shinichi Suzuki’s arrangements of Baroque music excerpts.

There is, supposedly, some evidence that Della Ciaja actually wrote the six 1727 sonatas as demonstration pieces for Bartolomeo Cristofori's fortepiano. See PDF of Jacqueline Ogeil's PhD dissertation on Domenico Scarlatti, pp. 61ff. I know of three recordings of them on harpsichord; it would be great if they could be recorded on a replica Cristofori.

I love the excerpts from Rossi's Toccata Settima you played on the Harpsichord. Quite adventuresome for early 17th century, but sounds so wonderful in meantone temperament. It's a rare treat to hear pure major thirds on a keyboard instrument.

Excellent video. Offensive slightly.

How do double accidentals factor into all this stuff? The WTC is full of double accidentals (ie, the Fx in the C# fugue). Is the pitch difference between Fx and G the same as the pitch difference between F# and Gb? And how would that be expressed on a baroque instrument?

I have a question: I remember seeing a photograph of Wanda Landowska's instrument with about 8 pedals. What's the story there?

Very interesting! I learned a lot. Thank you :-)

ruclips.net/video/BgEVLJ-GaDA/видео.html

I restored it the Harpsichord not retired, sorry, here is another sample.. ruclips.net/video/4j6WPUmNcWo/видео.html

I found at AUction Lurches Italian Harpsichord and retired it and tuned it, here is a video sample of me playing on it.. ruclips.net/video/fdPLcya2qOA/видео.html

dont know if someone else ask this but, are the higher key heavier? for the difference in lenght

I have a problem with Vallotti Tuning and other tunings. Vallotti was first a musician, then a priest, then chief of the big church in Padua. He published his tuning 1778, a few years before he died. So I expect it was an Organ tuning and it was tuned in Padua. An Organ Builder came for tuning. He was paid and the receipt was archived and is still available. I do not know someone, who has seen this receipt. That means, it was not in use for organ. For Harpsichord then? There is no source for tuning a harpsichord in Vallotti at that time. First source is of the 20th century. If this is all right, you harpsichordists use an organ tuning, which was not used and find it very interesting. ;-) Silbermann was an organ builder and managed to tune an organ in his Silbermann tuning. Probably he had to tune the Organ in a normal way, tuned in Silbermann first, did not inform the parish and informed Bach to come and test. Bach came and found several mistakes. The tuning was useless. Now some harpsichordists are glad to play a useless Organ tuning. ;-) Buxtehude met Werckmeister. They conspired to tune Buxtehudes Organ in Werckmeister III. Again, there is no cource that it was tuned. The perish decided to give the order to a local master. We don't know, what he tuned. A friend of mine played an Organ with Werckmeister III. The A-major was useless. A-major is the dominant of d-minor. D-minor is probably the most common key in Barock organ music. This tuning used on an Organ is doubtful. Now we have harpsichordists tuning their harpsichord in this doubtful Organ tuning and like it very much. ;-) 1802 Zang wrote about organ tunings in common. He suggested to stop writing new tunings, just temper the Organ and take the sound as it is. First source for tempered tuning on an organ is from France. They tuned, listened the result and soon tuned the Organ again. Zang was sick and tired from hundred years of inventing tunings for the Organ and not tuning one of them. That is, how it looks. Das Wohltemperirte Clavir and his tuning. Harpsichordist fly on this theme like flies on marmalade. Bach wrote this to make very good organists out of good organists. Translate the cover sheet. First pupils were his sons. A very good organist passed the Organistenprüfung from Mattheson. Afterwards he had one of the few very good jobs for Organists. This was not meant for performance. We have no source, that is was performed at that time. We have sources, that Bach composed to rich in content for many audience, even concerning his normal Organ works. Performing Das Wohltemperirte Clavir was impossible for this reason. Nowadays our good harpsichordists work a lot until they perform it. ;-) How Bach tuned his harpsichord to play Das Wohltemperirte Clavir? There were no audience, who could like a special spice in every key. So he tuned tempered, by ear and did one tuning in 15 minutes, as a student writes. This is possible with tempered. Tune the 12 intervals, 7 times pure fifts, five times fifths you can slightly hear, the interval is to small. A a small fifth follows a pure fifth. This is tempered by ear. Our harpsichordist try different tunings, Vallotti, Neidhard, Kirnberger and like it very much. Tuning lasts a lot more than 15 minutes. So something must be wrong here. Can't you just do the job instead of fooling around? ;-) Das Wohltemperirte Clavir is the holy gral for the harpsichordists but they don't know it. Did you know, that somewhere in the middle of it there is a peregrinus? It is completly out of time. You make a harmonic analysis with major and minor and this is very complicated. Just call it Peregrinus and everything is clear. Next thing you don't know are the hidden corals. There is at least 13 of it in the Book I. You all like to play it, but up to now, nobody knows it ;-)))

Dear Alice, you have a problem with the definition of Baroque. It is 1600 to 1750. Why? Because man has 10 fingers. So they took these numbers. Music has always been a part of society. Sometimes society changed abruptly and so did music. One big change was the last of October 1517. Martin Luther stood with a hammer at Wittemberg church. The following big change has even the name "Revolution". French Revolution, 1789, the head of Louis XVI fell on the ground. We also have a date with precision. If you did so, you would not have a problem to call Vallotti Temperament from 1778 "Baroque" and you would see Baroque Music with a better foundation and in a new way.

Is the virginal not a harpsichord?

I echo the sentiments of the other commenters on how informative this video is. I especially appreciated how the camera shots of the interior were remarkably clear and beautiful. Well done!

This is beautiful!

"Ornaments can be added, according to the good taste." They all write so. This must be very important. Good taste of whom and what is good taste? If you ask the philosophers, hardly one talks about it. The few bring some aphorisms and that was it. Can it be defined?

I am just a silly Viola Player. This is true! One day I could accompany a recorder. I sat at an harpsichord and just played single notes in the left hand. It was not artificial, but it worked. Sometimes I was sure and pressed some keys with the right hand. This is the reason, why mankind could not imagine music different to BC. 4 voices are taught, but this was not reality. I made music with good ones, which took up to 6 voices. It was louder. The beginner could play piano, the professional piano and forte and anything between.

In the Baroque, they had the one word tempered with two meanings. They had a tuning machine, which was a monochord. They calculated and marked the tempered positions for the bridge. Then they took the tempered tones. There is an existing harpsichord with a built in monochord. The other method was tempering by ear. A pythagoräan 5th was a too large interval. They looked for a too small, but defined interval. This is the 5th, you can hear, it is too small. Then they tuned these intervals one after the other. Maybe they needed more from the one kind. The result was a tuning, that worked like tempered. This sounded better than the tempered tuning from the monochord. This tuning did not have to be written down, because it was so easy as I write it. For this reason you will not find it in the archives, but you can find peaces in a lot of keys.

Organs can not be temperated. Imagine, you have a C. The 4th overtone is an harmonic e. Simultaneously you hear a tempered e. This does not sound nice. Up to now there is no good organ tuning. The best is from Klaiss, but it is his secret.

Brava!...

2:10 *perfect pitch havers have entered the chat*

He Harpsichord sounds so pure in contrast with the piano

Many thanks. Well explained and fascinating to me as a pedal steel player. A pedal steel guitar is basically a 10 string unfretted (slide) guitar with pedals and levers that enable the slurring of, (and within) chords. You can imagine the shrill arguments and head scratching over how to temper the tuning. Even though we can temper on the fly through miniscule movements of the slide bar, the pedals and knee levers are largely fixed interval for mechanical reasons. What frequently happens is that the instrument gets tuned pure thirds so sounds great in the "cowboy keys", but when people try to take the instrument into other more chromatic genres it sounds odd. So we all come up with different tuning sweetening schemes . It's one of the factors that has largely kept pedal steel sadly almost locked in a country music ghetto even though it's an incredibly versatile instrument.

Thank you for the informative lesson Alice. I'm interested to learn more about different types of harpsichords, where I might find one and what to look for when purchasing one. Thanks. Tiffany.

9, the vast majority of his music for key instruments, is written for single manual instrument. (which makes me think it is for clavichord). After having been fascinated by JBS for most of my life, I have the impression that for him music was his primary language. By which I mean that he did not have to realize, or hear music in order to know how it sounds. There simply is more to his music than any other music, that I know and understand. It is a joke to think about him as another Baroque composer. Of course he was a baroque composer, but that is not the most important aspect. Just so I don´t sound like a JSB fanatic, I over the last few years actually have grown some dislike of the person. He was a genius for sure, and never meet any that even came close to him and his abilities, but he did not appear to have any interest in the best thinkers of his time, that challenged the Church, and were developing the modern sciences ... this was simply lacking in his universe.

A obituary was published two years after he dies written by one of his sons and a close friend/ student of bach. It’s not hugely well known but I enjoyed reading it. Name is Bachs nekrolog which is another name for obituary

Thanks for your explanation. I've been meaning to find out for years. Accessible to a great many people I'm sure.

So what is Baroque if not 415?

2:24 Sometimes the editors would alter the Original Manuscripts

Excellent job and I thank you for it