Renaissance Clavichord II, The [coll] – [Titanic]

Cousin Mary   8/29/2014   12-inch, Classical

This album features Bernard Brauchli playing clavichord compositions written in the 1500’s and early 1600’s. He performs on a period instrument – the Tosi Clavichord – which was built in 1568. Doing this review, I learned that clavichords of this era use fretting – more than one note shares a string. This saves space, but means that some note combinations are impossible.

These tunes are readily identifiable as coming from the Renaissance, but the sound of the clavichord is interesting – sounding guitar-like at times, with a bit of twang. Fun to compare to modern electronics in a way.