Archicembalo

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The archicembalo is a keyboard instrument with 36 keys per octave on two manuals, which was invented in 1555 by the Italian music theorist and composer Nicola Vicentino , theoretically described and later built in two copies. The principle of sound generation corresponds to the harpsichord .

History of the Archicembalus

Archicembalo keyboard

For his Archicembalo, Vicentino was inspired by the ancient Enharmonik with a split semitone . He wanted to revive the chromatic and enharmonic tones of antiquity and to realize them on this instrument and combined this idea with the solution of a problem of the musical practice of the time: he extended the mean- tone tuning common in the Renaissance to the ability to transpose . Mid-tone keyboard instruments (harpsichord, virginal , clavichord , organ, etc.) with the usual keyboard only realize part of the mid-tone circle of fifths : There are only the semitones C sharp, Eb, F sharp, G sharp and B. These are the normal ones and in Renaissance music am frequently used semitones. The semitones Des, Dis, Ges, As and His differ in 1/4-point mean-tone so strongly from the normal semitones mentioned that no enharmonic confusion is possible. They are tones of their own.

Vicentino solved this problem by adding additional keys between the usual keys, namely one key between chromatic semitones and two keys between diatonic semitones, so that a complicated two-manual keyboard with multiple divided upper keys with a total of 36 keys per octave was created. But the Archicembalo realized only a sound system with 31 tones per octave, because Vicentino voted it in the then usual mood of fifths, namely with 30 mean-fifths of geses to aisis , and received the balance of Quinte aisis-geses an almost pure (by 1 cent to large) fifth and thus a closed circle of fifths in an uneven 31-step temperature .

Euler's notation, extended for mid-tone tuning

Mid-tone tuning playable from C flat major, G flat major etc. to B major, F sharp major and C sharp major

In Euler's sound network , the prefix “low point” and “apostrophe” indicate a decrease or increase by a syntonic comma. The change in the fifths by quarter points is typical of the quarter point mean tone tuning. This change is marked with preceding points. Four preceding points therefore correspond to a preceding comma.

pure fifths ... as it b f c G d a H f sharp ...
mean fifths ... 'as °°° it °° b ° f c .G ..d ... a ,H ., fis ...

Here , x (deep point x) and 'x (apostrophe x) means: x decreased or increased by a syntonic comma.

.x (low point x) or ° x (high point x): x decreased or increased by a quarter point.

The mid-tone keyboard with twelve keys then contains the following tones:

Tone designation °°° it °° b ° f c .G ..d ... a , e .,H .., f sharp ..., cis ,, g sharp
in cents 310.26 1006.84 503.42 0 696.58 193.16 889.74 386.31 1082.89 579.47 76.05 772.63

Example of size calculation : From c you reach .., f sharp over 6 fifths reduced by 3 octaves and 1 comma and two quarter commas.

.., f sharp = 6 quads-3 octaves-1.5 commas = 1200⋅ (6log 2 (3/2) -3log 2 (2) -1.5log 2 (81/80)) cents = 579.47 cents

the upper keyboard of the Archicembalo by Nicola Vicentino

The Archicembalo had two keyboards:

  • The lower keyboard made by their shared keys Meantone in all keys the circle of fifths from D flat major to C sharp major playable.
  • The upper keyboard had the goal of reviving the chromatic and enharmonic tone families of antiquity.

On the upper keyboard you can see that the “white keys” and the lower row of split keys are around the small diesis (41.06 cents), or about a “quarter tone”, and the upper row of split keys around a quarter a syntonic comma (5.38 cents) from the lower keyboard.

Clavemusicum omnitonum

Clavemusicum omnitonum (Vito Trasuntino, 1606) - Bologna, Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica, no.1766

Vitus de Trasuntinis (Vido di Trasuntino) built the Clavemusicum omnitonum , a harpsichord from C to C '' 'with 31 keys per octave, as a commissioned work in Venice in 1606 . The instrument includes a four-sided tuner, labeled TRECTA CORDO, which indicates an unequal division. It should enable diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic playing, but the usual mid-range with the semitones C #, Eb, F #, G # is available as the basis on the front row of the upper keys. The Clavemusicum omnitonum is now in the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica in Bologna. Other original instruments are not included.

Even Michael Praetorius in 1618 mentioned a similar Clavicymbalum perfectum . Lemme Rossi in 1666 and Christiaan Huygens in 1691 also described a uniform 31-step temperature with logarithms, without building instruments.

Nineteen-step harpsichord

Keyboard of a 19-step harpsichord from Le istituzioni harmoniche (edition 1573) by Gioseffo Zarlino

There have been other attempts to construct enharmonic instruments. Vicentino's contemporary Gioseffo Zarlino , for example, described a transposable 19-step instrument in 1558.

In his main work Syntagma musicum, Michael Praetorius described a cimbalo cromatico that has 19 tones per octave: In addition to the five divided upper keys, there are additional narrow upper keys for the ice and his.

The Neapolitan composers Giovanni Maria Trabaci and Ascanio Mayone wrote compositions for harpsichord cromatico , as well as Gioanpietro del Buono , Adriano Banchieri , and the Englishman John Bull .

Instruments with 14 to 17 notes per octave

Much more common than the described “perfect” instruments were harpsichords and virginals with only a few broken upper keys from the end of the 16th century to around 1650. The simplest and most practical solution was to add only the most important and most frequently used semitones, i.e. the tones A-flat (on the G sharp keys) and D flat (on the E-flat keys). But there were also instruments with additional keys for the semitones D flat (on C sharp), G flat (on F sharp), and possibly A sharp (on B flat). Such simpler solutions could sometimes be applied to organs as well.

A late example and a completely different principle of an enharmonic instrument is said to have been the organ built for Georg Friedrich Handel by Justinian Morse (1691–1752) in the Foundling Hospital (London). It had a division of the octave into 16 tones according to a system published in 1749 by the mathematician Robert Smith (1689–1768), “... with a switching mechanism for separate pipes of the tones C sharp / D flat, D flat / E flat, G sharp / A flat and A sharp / b ..., so that either Bb or sharp keys could be heard either in pure or almost pure form on one and the same keys ”.

Harmony fortepiano and more modern developments

Harmony fortepiano, Johann Jakob Könnicke, Vienna 1796. KHM Vienna (SAM 610 2)

The Linz Cathedral Kapellmeister Johann Georg Roser developed a so-called "harmony fortepiano" which Mozart is said to have played on a visit to Linz in 1784. A second instrument was built in 1796 by Johann Jakob Könnicke in Vienna; it is now in the music collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Haydn and Beethoven are said to have tried it. The harmony fortepiano has six rows of white keys, the third from the top represents a diatonic C major scale in a third tuning, the rows above and below are each a semitone higher or lower. The keyboard is very different from a normal keyboard instrument, and its handling is so complicated and impractical that the harmony fortepiano has not been a success.

Enharmonic instruments of recent times have a completely different purpose, for example by Shōhei Tanaka (田中 Ende 平) at the end of the 19th century or by Martin Vogel in 1975: They want to realize the pure tuning as precisely as possible on keyboard instruments. The Stichting Huygens Fokker, Centrum voor microtonale muziek in Amsterdam describes microtonal instruments, including 31-step instruments.

See also

literature

  • Rudolf Hopfner: "Harmonie-Hammerflügel", in: Masterpieces from the collection of old musical instruments, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna , Skira editore Milano, Vienna 2004, pp. 118–119.
  • Edward L. Kottick: "Harpsichords with more than twelve notes to the Octave", in: A History of the Harpsichord. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (Indiana) 2003, pp. 88-89, & p. 487 (footnotes). (engl.)
  • Siegbert Rampe: “Handel's theater organs and his organ concerts” , in: Ars Organi, 57th year, issue 2 , June 2009, Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde, pp. 90–97, accessed on July 19, 2017 (PDF).
  • Rippe, Volker: Nicola Vicentino - his tone system and his instruments in: Die Musikforschung 34 (1981), pp. 393-413.
  • Christopher Stembridge, "Music for the Cimbalo cromatico and other Split-Keyed Instruments in Seventeenth-Century Italy", in: Performance Practice Review 5, no. 1 1992, pp. 5-43.
  • Christopher Stembridge, "The Cimbalo cromatico and other italian Keyboard Instruments with nineteen or more divisions to the Octave ...", in: Performance Practice Review 6, no. 1 1993, pp. 33-59.
  • Denzil Wraight & Christopher Stembridge, "Italian Split-Keyed Instruments with fewer than Nineteen Divisions to the Octave", in: Performance Practice Review 7, no. 2 1994, pp. 150-181.

swell

  1. http://www.museibologna.it/musica/percorsi/53097/offset/0/id/56682
  2. ^ Michael Praetorius: Syntagma musicum . Vol. 2: De Organographia (1619). Reprint: Bärenreiter, Kassel 2001, ISBN 3-7618-1527-1 , pp. 63–66. There is a reconstruction in the Organeum in Weener .
  3. Edward L. Kottick: A History of the Harpsichord. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (Indiana) 2003, p. 89.
  4. Bull's "chromatic" Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La; in: The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (revised Dover Edition), 2 vols., ed. by JA Fuller Maitland u. W. Barclay Squire, corrected et al. ed. Blanche Winogron, New York: Dover Publications, 1979/1980, Vol. 1, p. 183 (No. LI).
  5. Edward L. Kottick: A History of the Harpsichord. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (Indiana) 2003, p. 88. Kottick refers to: Christopher Stembridge; Music for the "Cimbalo cromatico" and other split-keyed instruments in Seventeenth-Century Italy. In: Performance Practice Review, 5, no. 1, 1992, pp. 5-43. And: Denzil Wraight, Christopher Stembridge: Italian Split-Keyed Instruments with fewer than Nineteen Divisions to the Octave. In: Performance Practice Review, 7, no. 2. 1994, pp. 150-181.
  6. Only the prospectus in St. Andrew Holborn, London exists today of the instrument. See: Siegbert Rampe: “Handel's theater organs and his organ concerts” , in: Ars Organi , 57th year, issue 2, June 2009, Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde, pp. 96 & 97 (accessed on July 19, 2017 (PDF)).
  7. Siegbert Rampe: “Handel's theater organs and his organ concerts” , in: Ars Organi , 57th year, issue 2, June 2009, Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde, p. 97 (accessed on July 19, 2017 (PDF)).
  8. ^ Rudolf Hopfner: "Harmonie-Hammerflügel", in: Masterpieces from the collection of old musical instruments, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien , Skira editore Milano, Vienna 2004, pp. 118–119.
  9. http://www.huygens-fokker.org/instrumenten/instrumentenhuygensfokker.html

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