PMI HISTORIC KEYBOARDS
for NemeSys GigaStudio™ and NI Kontakt
CREDITS
Produced by Michiel Post
Sample editing: Michiel Post
ABOUT THE HARPSICHORD AND THE VIRGINAL
GENERAL
Harpsichord (Italian cembalo; French clavecin): stringed keyboard instrument in
which the strings are plucked to produce sound. It was developed in Europe in the
14th or 15th century and was widely used from the 16th to the early 19th century,
when it was superseded by the piano. In the 20th century the harpsichord was revived for performance of music of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, as well as for
new compositions. The incisive sound quality of the plucked metal strings adds
clarity to melodic lines. The harpsichord is particularly effective in performing contrapuntal music—that is, music that consists of two or more melodies played at the
same time, such as that of the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
CONSTRUCTION AND MECHANISM
The harpsichord usually has a wing-shaped body, or case, like a grand piano; however, its proportions are narrower and longer, and the case and its inner bracing are
normally lighter. Harpsichords have also been built in other shapes.
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These include the virginal (or virginals), a small oblong instrument; the spinet, a
small polygonal harpsichord; and the less common clavicytherium, an upright harpsichord. From the 16th to 19th century the terms spinet and virginal were often
used interchangeably, and in England during that era any harpsichord was called a
virginal. Harpsichords of any shape have the same plucking mechanism. For each
string a small piece of material, or plectrum, is set in a thin slip of wood, or “jack,”
which rests internally on the far end of the key. When the front of the key is depressed, the far end rises, and the plectrum plucks the string. The jack is pivoted so
that, when the key returns to rest position, the plectrum slides by without striking
the string. Since the volume and tone of the sound produced by the plucking
mechanism remain constant regardless of the forcefulness of the keystroke, various
methods have been developed to alter the harpsichord's sound. Many harpsichords
have two strings for each key, with a row of jacks for each set of strings. Stops, or
registers, allow the player to move unwanted sets of jacks slightly out of reach of
the strings, thus making possible different volumes and combinations of tone colors. One set of strings may sound an octave above normal pitch. Some 18th-century
German harpsichords had a set of strings sounding an octave below normal pitch.
Harpsichords often have two keyboards, or manuals, which can usually be coupled
or used separately, allowing further variations of tone color and volume. A typical
two-manual harpsichord of the 18th century had strings at normal and octave-high
pitch playable on the lower manual, strings at normal pitch controlled by the upper
manual, and a coupling mechanism.
EARLY HISTORY
The earliest school of harpsichord building developed in Italy in the 16th and 17th
centuries. Italian harpsichords differed from others in that they normally were made
of extremely thin wood and then placed in a stronger outer case of the same shape.
A second important school of building developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in
Flanders, centered around the influential Ruckers family of builders. These schools
gave way in the 18th century to distinctive styles of building that developed in
France (the Blachet family), Germany (the Hass family), and England (Jacob Kirkman).
Harpsichords of the different national schools varied in details of their proportions
and construction, resulting in slight, although
3 characteristic differences in tone
color.
MODERN DEVELOPMENTS
In the 20th century, two broad approaches to harpsichord building emerged. The
first utilized recent principles of construction, such as are found in present-day
pianos. Stimulated by the Polish harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, this style was
exemplified by the French piano firms of Pleyel and Érard. Their harpsichords relied
on heavy strings under high tension in a heavily braced case. Many 20th-century
harpsichord works were written for such instruments. Other builders sought to relearn historical principles of proportion and construction in an effort to duplicate the
sound of historical instruments. Stimulated by the German-English builder Arnold
Dolmetsch and exemplified by Martin Skowroneck, a German, this school relied on
light stringing in a highly resonant case. American builders in this style include
William Hyman, Frank Hubbard, and William Dowd.
American instrument maker John Challis employed a different, more modern approach to construction of the instrument. Though he based the decorative scheme
of his designs on Dolmetsch's works, Challis experimented with new techniques and
materials, such as metal and plastic, to produce harpsichords that were better adapted to the extreme climate changes in North America and maintained a rich tone
quality.
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The French Double-manual
We made the choice for this instrument because the mid-18th century French style
harpsichord represents the most successful "general" purpose instrument. The instrument is suitable to all of the harpsichord literature of the baroque..A doublemanual instrument of elegant proportion and detail having a range of five octaves,
FF-f''' (61 notes). There are three ranks of jacks and three choirs of strings, 2 x 8', 1
x 4', with a buff stop which can be installed on either the back 8' choir or the uppermanual 8'. The recording of this instrument was done in a nice room, wich adds to
the characteristic sound of the harpsichord.
The Flemish Double-manual
A fine example of the full blown antique Flemish harpsichord. Very popular for the
full repertoire, with a flexible, clear resonant tone, making it an ideal concert instrument. Double manual, FF-f3 chromatic, 2 x 8' + 1 x 4', shove coupler, buff to lower
8'.
The Virginal
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The Presets
GIGA
Most patches speak for themselves.
All instruments in banks 1,2 and 3 use
the modulation wheel to control the
amount of the release samples. Turning the wheel all the way up will have
no release samples.
The keyswitched instruments use the
keys A0-C#1 to change states.
Free articulation updates will be available from www.postpiano.com
To set up a double manual instrument
in Giga, simply load an “upper manual”
instrument in midi channel 1, and a
“lower manual” instrument in midi
channel 2.
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The Presets
KONTAKT
More presets will be available for registered
7 users from www.postpiano.com
INSTALLATION
Simply copy the content of the CD-ROM to your hard drive.
* MAC users attention!
The files are all burned on a PC. If you insert the CD-ROM in your Mac, file names may appear to be crippled (in the so-called 8.3 format) or files may be
inaccessible.
The Joliet Volume Access extension is designed to solve these problems. Basically, this System Extension enhances the way your Macintosh computer can
read CD-ROM’s/DVD media from other platforms, mainly Windows.
So please go to: www.tempel.org/joliet and download the Joliet Volume Access
(shareware).
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The Sampled Fortepiano
Making a beautiful instrument more available
Howland Auchincloss about the Fortepiano:
Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1732) invented the piano during the period
1680-1720, but its acceptance, especially in his native Italy, was very slow,
and it is said that he was very disappointed. However, in Germany and Austria
very active development took place, and by 1770 there was an instrument, now
universally referred to as the "fortepiano," sometimes as the "Viennese
fortepiano," which was enthusiastically accepted in the general area of
Austria and southern Germany. By far the most important aspect of the subject
today is that Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven wrote many compositions for the
fortepiano, and some of these compositions were for their students and
therefore vary greatly in technical difficulty. Almost surely, anybody who
has taken piano lessons for a few years or more has worked on one of these
works, but, almost always they were playing a modern piano, not a fortepiano.
In the period 1770-1790 the steel frame had not yet been devised, and the
metallurgy of string manufacture was different than in the mid-19th century.
These factors combined to make string tension much reduced. In order to avoid
excessive force on the string, the weight of the hammers was much less. The
end result of these limitations and of the builders' adjustments to them was,
somewhat surprisingly, that the action of most fortepianos was very light.
The tone was clear and even penetrating, but the sustain was much less To
like the fortepiano today, even if one's pleasure is limited to listening to
recordings, is to take a step backwards in time. After about 1800 the
fortepiano was gradually replaced almost as completely as it had replaced the
harpsichord. Essentially, although the term "fortepiano" was still sometimes
used, the actual instrument came more and more to resemble the modern piano. By 1860 the American Steinway Piano is said to have had virtually all of the
essential features of the modern piano. 9
It is not a great exaggeration to say
the fortepiano disappeared in the same way that the harpsichord and the
lute disappeared. Even more unfortunately, the revival of interest in "early
.
music" at the turn of the 20th century did not include the fortepiano.
Major credit for the return of the fortepiano to the concert stage and to
recordings belongs to a relatively small group of scholars, performers,
builders and restorers in Europe and in America dating from the 1970s.
Malcolm Bilson, now at Cornell University, was the driving force in Norht
America. However, the price of a new fortepiano reconstruction is high, the
instrument requires frequent tuning, and the number of keys is considerably
less than is the case for the modern piano. It is therefore not satisfactory
as a general-purpose piano. As a result, it is still difficult for most
pianists, amateur or professional, to gain personal experience with the very
special qualities of this instrument which was so popular in Vienna more than
200 years ago.
With the present disk there is now available a sampled fortepiano,
and we no longer can say that the acoustic instrument is indispensable to the
ability of a pianist attempting to create the sound of a Haydn sonata on the
fortepiano. Certainly, the acoustic instrument will be seen as essential for
the concert hall. The fortepiano used for the present disk is also a Walter piano,
but in this case the instrument is a restored original. The sampling and editing
were done in 2001, almost 4 years later. The later efforts benefit at a minimum
from improved technology and also, probably, from the availability of a better
instrument, but rather than look at the two disks as competitive with
each other, I would urge that they are complementary, because the fortepiano
was not a standardized instrument. Together with the Harpsichords and
Virginal they get the softsampler owner off to a good start with 18th century
keyboard instruments.
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A frequent initial reaction to the sound of the fortepiano is that it is
less beautiful than that of a fine modern concert grand piano. I believe that
such a reaction will usually be changed if the player listens to good
recordings. The clear sound and relatively short sustain of the fortepiano
tends to favour the special elements of style in the music of Haydn and
Mozart. The sound is different but not inferior.
Another complaint often voiced is that a sampled piano is not (and
probably cannot be) the sonic equal of the acoustic instrument as it was at
the time of sampling. This is part of the general dictum that live music is
better than recorded music. One answer to this complaint is that the sampled
fortepiano is good enough to be an alternative to the modern piano, which is
simply an "incorrect" instrument for playing music written long before it was
available. Each player will make his or her judgment about what kind of
"piano library" they want to have. Malcolm Bilson has told me that there are
many fine pianos of both 18th and 19th centuries which deserve attention, and
we can be optimistic that a library started now will grow in the years to
come.
There is one aspect of the fortepiano for which there is at present no
simple way of copying at present. This is the very light action of the
fortepiano previously mentioned, which facilitates extremely rapid playing. I
have yet to find a digital keyboard which has an action
comparable to a
fortepiano. Therefore, if a
friend was buying a MIDI controller, I would
advise them to select one with
a light action if their main
enthusiasm was
18th century music.
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Technique
We recorded the instrument in full 24 bit digital audio quality using
the world best microphones, convertors and recorders. We payed incredible attention to every detail during editing. The recording was
done using Bruel & Kjaer 4000-series cardioid & omni-directional
microphones going straight into ProTools 24 bit, keeping both close
and ambient microphones on seperate tracks.
The classic harpsichord sound benefits in terms of realism from the
note for note sampling. We captured all typical characteristics in terms
of string resonance and release sound. We added the release sample
layer to achieve true realism!
Copyright & License Information
PMI HISTORIC KEYBOARDS was created by Michiel Post.
Copyright C 2001 -2003 by PostMusicalInstruments Rijnstraat 4,
1078 RA AMSTERDAM, Netherlands.
LICENSE
The enclosed sound samples are licenced, not sold, to you for use in
your own music, film, television or multi-media production. Post Musical Instruments reserve any other rights not experessly granted to
you. You own the Compact Discs on which the PAM sound samples are
sold, but PMI retains ownership of all the sound samples.
Unlawful copyimg, lending, trading, duplication, reselling, hiring, uploading or downloading to a database, server or network or any other
form of distribution of the samples in this product is stricktly forbidden.
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©copyright Post Musical Instruments
2003
Rijnstraat 4 - 1078 RA - Amsterdam - The Netherlands
www.postpiano.com e-mail: [email protected]