The harpsichord can be looked upon as the “grandfather of the piano”. It originated when a key mechanism was added to medieval cymbals (a plucked instrument much like the dulcimer). The plectra that pluck the string were originally made of bird quills (raven, hawk or eagle) which were set onto jacks attached to the ends of key levers. The first mention of the harpsichord comes from 1397 – a lawyer from Padua noted that a man named Herman Poll claims to have invented an instrument which he called a clavicembalum. The Germans called it flügel (meaning “wing”), the reason for this being the shape of the harpsichord case, which has both a structural and acoustic function. In baroque times, when most European music required a special kind of accompaniment called basso continuo, the harpsichord was the instrument most often employed to play it. Moreover, as it grew more and more popular, a vast amount of solo literature for the hapsichord was composed. Interestingly enough, the harpsichord had always caused controversy. Its adversaries criticized its lack of dynamic shading abilities and though it somewhat mechanical. Harpsichord lovers emphasized its clarity of sound and inner depth. The eighteenth century, especially its second half, witnessed a decline of interest in the harpsichord, caused by the growing fondness of the piano. However, according to the great Polish publicist, writer and critic Jerzy Waldorff, French aristocrats from the court of Louis XVI chose to dance their last menuets to the sounds of the harpsichord… right before marching off to be guillotined.
The virginal is a type of a harpsichord fitted with a rectangular case. Thanks to its smaller size it was perfectly suited for music-making in the home. The British Queen Elizabeth I played it, and – according to one the court musicians – “played quite well, for a queen”. Historically, the term “virginal” in reference to an instrument was first used in 1460 by Paulus Pauliinus of Prague. It appears in his treatise which is available in the Jagiellonian Library, here in Kraków. Thanks to bookkeeping records from the first half of the sixteenth century kept in Wawel archives, we can be sure that the virginal truly was among the instruments played at court during Sigismund I’s reign.