Harpsichords by Keith Hill Click here for a sound Sample After 36 years of making musical instruments professionally, I still have not acquired any special taste for a particular design or style of harpsichord making. As long as an instrument sounds fantastic and inspires a wealth of musical ideas, it pleases me. However, in the last few years, I have found some designs more enjoyable to make than others. My reasons for making these selections are: That the originals are relatively free of mechanical and aesthetic defects and are of exceedingly high musical quality. And that certain designs, the originals of which are not playing or the sound of which has been destroyed during restoration, nevertheless, produce compelling and interesting musical results. Double Manual Harpsichords

German Harpsichord - after Michael Mietke, ca.1710, located in Berlin. This is one of the most fascinating instruments to play, being even more colorful in sound than the Zell harpsichords. Playing it feels more like playing a clavichord than any harpsichord I have played. The sound is so flexible that you might have the impression you are molding clay with your fingers instead of depressing keys. Yet it is also tart and resonant. As with the Hubert clavichord, you get the sensation of biting into a string, as a bowed string player might do, when you shape gestures with your fingers. It is especially wonderful for improvising. > Click here for a Sound Sample of the Mietke Click here for a Sound Sample of the Mietke Click here for a Sound Sample of the Mietke Click here for a Sound Sample of the Mietke Flemish Harpsichord - after the 1640 Jan Ruckers in Munster. See photo at the top of this page. The original began as a transposing double with 4 sets of jacks. At some point it was modified to be an expressive double. This instrument, like the Couchet described below, with three 8' registers offers a plethora of possibilities. These Flemish instruments are my favorites to make because they both produce the strongest, fullest, most brilliant, resonant, colorful, intense and inspiring sounds imaginable. The main differences between them are in the size and the disposition of the jacks in the gap.

Flemish Harpsichord - after the 1624 Hans Ruckers in Colmar. Click here for a Sound Sample of the Colmar Ruckers Essentially the same concept as the instrument above, the original likely began as a single, got enlarged at a later date, and then had a second manual added even later. At some point it was transformed from an instrument with three sets of jacks to one with four. What an instrument! It is my favorite antique harpsichord. The sound is so voluptuous it ravishes the ears. Because this original is larger than the 1640 Ruckers, it lends itself better to enlargement (adding four notes in the bass).

French Harpsichord - after the 1735 Blanchet in Paris. Leaner and drier than the later French harpsichords, it is intensely resonant and rhetorical in nature--like a great French Cabaret singer. Click here for a Sound Sample French Harpsichord - after the 1769 Taskin now in Edinburgh. Contrary to the myth of ultra-refinement which most modern copies of this particular instrument tell, the original is robust, earthy, focused, colorful, round, voluptuous, and direct in its sound. This is how I insist my copy of this instrument should sound. I especially like the fact that the original manages to avoid the trade off between vigor of tone and size of keyboard compass. German Harpsichord - after the 1734, J.A. Hass residing in Brussels. Click here for a Sound Sample Click here for another Sound Sample of the Plenum You can hear more sound samples of this instrument on my Virtual Gallery webpage.

This is a 16' harpsichord. Now that German style harpsichords are becoming more acceptable to those who go with the fashion, I hope that the 16' harpsichord will once again take its rightful place among the normal offerings available from harpsichord builders. The most fun I have ever had playing the harpsichord has been playing a 16' harpsichord--especially when there are knee levers or pedals to engage the 16' and the 4'. The crescendo effects possible are spectacular when tastefully executed. Nothing can match a really grand sounding 16' instrument, because nothing is as glorious, as powerful, as embracing, as majestic, or as magnificent.