Meet The Instruments #2: Virginal

Chris Green gives a brief introduction to the virginal.
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[@rostinrostai]

My Neighbor knew I was a pianist and asked me if I wanted to come over and play her Virginal. I had to google it. Not what I expected, but a good time nonetheless.

[@GreenMatthews]

Certainly an unfortunate thing to misunderstand :-)

[@presidentstaatshoofd473]

My neighbour asked me to come over and play too. We had lots of fun.

[@jecssiel7071]

Reminds me of sounds found in the OTS of Zelda games

[@tardigrades3184]

On the lower notes, it looks like the jack is closer to the pivot point of the key lever compared to higher notes. Does this affect the feel of the key when you press it?

[@paulhostler7863]

The lower notes have heavier strings and need more pressure to pluck so the difference in pivot point will adjust for this to some extent.

[@arno-luyendijk4798]

I am very prejudiced, and I don't mind: I just LOVE the sound of these plucked clavier instruments like the virginal, the harpsichord, the spinetta and the clavichord. My neighbour and accidentally my uncle made harpsichords when I was just 4. I LOVED hearing him play on the instrument when I went to sleep. It developed my love for music next to my father's lp collection.

[@kumaridesilva3992]

I agree, there's something about the sound that is more ethereal than a pianoforte

[@gunnarthorsen]

How does one "accidentally" make a harpsichord? :)

[@milky94]

@@gunnarthorsen I just hate when I trip and accidentally create harpsichords in the process, I got a room full of them

[@usegatto]

Just a note, the clavichord is not plucked.

[@arno-luyendijk4798]

@@usegatto ok, then how do you call it if several hooks pluck the strings inside the instrument?

[@presidentstaatshoofd473]

Wow, with hairy arms like yours you could be a doctor or even a dentist.

[@GreenMatthews]

Er, thanks…?

[@presidentstaatshoofd473]

@@GreenMatthews welcome and nicely played :)

[@Moonrakers1]

Very nice introduction, Chris - and well played! I'm a Friend of the Bate Collection (museum) in Oxford. When I had a quick play of their virginal I noticed that there is inevitably a slight delay between the depression of keyboard and the sound emerging. This is because of the plucking mechanism you describe. It means you have to adjust your brain a little!

[@GreenMatthews]

Quite! As a pianist, the biggest learning curve for me was that on a virginal "playing dynamically" equals "playing out of time..." :)

[@cygil1]

Oh, that's so not worth the trouble. May as well use a harpsichord.

[@StopFear]

These old pianos look like open caskets

[@davidherringgo]

I love the tone of a virginal very soothing.

[@tompommerel2136]

Not wanting to be pedantic, I would say that the term VIRGINAL refers more to a rectangular keyboard instrument as often shown in Vermeer's paintings than what you show. My understanding is that you have a (BENT-SIDE) SPINET. Like many others, I believe in using the established terms.

[@arqmarcomaia]

Not a bentside Spinet but a Pentagonal (or Poligonal) Virginal. I am working in (repairing) an old instrument similar to it.

[@danawinsor1380]

Uh oh, we're getting into the complex world of instrumental nomenclature. The instrument the gentleman is playing in the video is an Italian virginal, whereas one finds the rectangular virginal more often in English paintings of the era (16th/early 17th century). The word "virginal" was sometimes notated as "virginals" which is singular, but it's the same word as the plural of virginal (go figure!). To make things more complicated, the Dutch virginal one sees in the paintings of Vermeer was called the "muselar." The spinet, usually called the "bentside spinet" for obvious reasons, was similar to the virginal except it had a wider range. The harpsichord (shaped like a narrow grand piano) had different names such as "clavecin" (French), "cembalo" (also clavicenbalo & gravicembalo) (Italian), and clavicymbel, kielflügel, and flügel (German).

[@danawinsor1380]

@@arqmarcomaia Do you have a Website where people can see the instrument you're working on?

[@arqmarcomaia]

@@danawinsor1380 Hi!! Unfortunately I don’t have… but I try to photograph all the process… in fact the instrument was made by Wolfgang Katen in 1970 (Montreal) and I’m in touch with the author who is helping me to make all the new parts and repairs with remote assistance. I just made a new soundboard (original was lost) and next step is to make a new register…. Hard work!

[@ralphmarshall1000]

I thought a virginal was a harpsichord that hadn’t been played yet.

[@danawinsor1380]

😁😂😆😛😸😹👧🧒

[@songbirdscreations-MargaretS]

Thank you for this video. My father built a harpsichord when I was a kid. I took lessons on it for a while. He has a virginal now, which I would love to have some day!

[@AloeAntinousAquila55]

fantastic…!! thanks greatly 💖✨🐬

[@ing.luisantoniocorzoramos4494]

Sorry but this is not Virginal is more one Spinetta. The sound of Virginal is different.

[@comtaar2245]

À bentside spinet, indeed.

[@danawinsor1380]

This is where it gets complicated. The word "spinetto" was a synonym for the Italian virginal, although I agree that it has a different sound than the virginal. The word used in English was "virginal" or "virginals."

[@portulak13]

Tnank you for this video and for the Prelude ) Actually, I heard that virginals were quite small and could be set on table. Is it true?

[@GreenMatthews]

That's exactly what they were for. They were small indoor instruments that were used particularly for ladies to play.

[@paulhostler7863]

@@GreenMatthews Hence the name from virgin.

[@danawinsor1380]

@@GreenMatthews But how did they know they were virgins?

[@jimbo2629]

Nice virginal, lovely tone. Prelude 1 book 1 the basis of all music

[@danawinsor1380]

I honestly think that prelude in C major is one of the most beautiful pieces Bach wrote.

[@swamp1138]

Was the song chosen because of its music or because of American Psycho?

[@danawinsor1380]

Obviously American Psycho.

[@MrMalvolio29]

I am an amateur pianist--I play merely for pleasure, and can of course read music and am familiar with a good deal of music theory as well as musicological approaches to historicising music forms, composition, as well as their transformations or, if you will, their “EVOLUTIONS.” I’m qualifying this post bc, THOUGH I ABSOLUTELY LOVE RENAISSANCE, BAROQUE, CLASSICAL, and ROMANTIC music…..I NEED TO SAY SOMETHING THAT--in musical circles, at least--IT SEEMS ENTIRELY **ANATHEMA** TO SAY: and that is that I ABSOLUTELY DIE OF BOREDOM EACH TIME I AM COMPELLED BY ONE OF MY MUSIC PROFESSOR FRIENDS TO **LISTEN TO “JS BACH’S GENIUS. ** There: I’ve said it. And I feel much better. Before you automatically jump to the conclusion that I’m an ignorant Philistine, I should say I’m a well-published professor of Renaissance and Baroque Poetry, and my partner of many yrs is a respected musicologist…Intellectually, I “appreciate” Bach, and know quite well just *why* he’s the “composer’s composer” and so historically and structurally important in the development of musical form. Nonetheless, when writing an article for publication and needing some music to raise and quell my passions--as Dryden put it--I’d *infinitely* prefer to listen to Palestrina; Tallis; Dowland; Blow; Byrd; Purcell, Lully; Monteverdi; Victoria; Rameau; Charpentier; Haydn; Mozart; Chopin; Beethoven; Field; Chopin; Dvorak; or Mendelssohn LOOOONG before I’d EVER actually *choose* to listen to the musical algebra that Bach has always felt like to me….. And, indeed: I *do* consider the pianoforte to be not simply a “transformation” of the clavichord; harpsichord; clavicytherium; ottavino; and virginal, BUT AN EXPRESSIVE IMPROVEMENT ON THOSE NOEMATICALLY LIMITED AND LIMITING KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS….. Whew….now it’s out: I’m a complete musical heathen in the eyes of many. Yet each time I find an idolatry in life, I find some iconoclasm is called for. I’m sorry.

[@runner0075]

it sounds quite like a box of nails in a washing machine. Neverthless someone can appreciate that sort of peculiar sound.

[@GreenMatthews]

The conductor Thomas Beecham once described the sound of a harpsichord as “two skeletons copulating in a tin bath..” No accounting for taste I suppose 😆

[@runner0075]

@@GreenMatthews you could easily agree I was much more polite and puritan, indeed the core concept was pretty much the same.

[@danawinsor1380]

@@GreenMatthews Another conductor, I think it was Charles Munch, said when asked what he thought of the harpsichord playing (in a Boston Symphony performance), "It was great, you couldn't hear a single note!" (I'm paraphrasing.)