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Wikipedia on Harpsichord

A harpsichord is any of a family of European keyboard instruments, including the large instrument currently called a harpsichord, but also the smaller virginals, the muselar or muselaar virginals and the spinet. All these instruments generate sound by plucking a string rather than striking one, as in a piano or clavichord. More »
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Harpsichord
A harpsichord is any of a family of European keyboard instruments, including the large instrument currently called a harpsichord, but also the smaller virginals, the muselar or muselaar virginals and the spinet. All these instruments generate sound by plucking a string rather than striking one, as in a piano or clavichord. More »
Frank Hubbard
Frank Twombly Hubbard was an American harpsichord maker, a pioneer in the revival of historical methods of harpsichord building. More »
Wanda Landowska
Wanda Landowska , harpsichordist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of that instrument in the early 20th century. She was the first person to record Bach's Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord . Landowska was born in Warsaw, where her father was a lawyer, and her mother a linguist who translated Mark Twain into Polish. She began playing piano at the age of four, and studied at the Warsaw Conservatory with Jan Kleczynski and... More »
François Couperin
François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. François Couperin was known as "''Couperin le Grand''" to distinguish him from the other members of the musically talented Couperin family. More »
Pascal Taskin
Pascal Joseph Taskin was a French harpsichord and piano maker. Born in Theux, near Liège, he lived most of his life in Paris. More »
Goldberg Variations
The ''Goldberg Variations'', BWV 988, original title Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen published as Clavierübung, bestehend in einer Aria..., are a set of 30 variations for harpsichord with two manuals by Johann Sebastian Bach. First published in 1741 as a ''Clavier-Übung'' , the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form. After a statement of the aria at the beginning of the piece, there are thirty variations, followed by a repetition of the aria. More »
Bartolomeo Cristofori
Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco was an Italian maker of musical instruments, generally regarded as the inventor of the piano. More »
Ruckers
The Ruckers family were Flemish harpsichord and virginal makers based in Antwerp in the 16th and 17th century whose influence stretched well into the 18th and to the harpsichord revival of the 20th. The Ruckers family contributed immeasurably to the harpsichord's technical development, pioneering the addition of a second manual; the quality of their instruments is such that the name of Ruckers is as important to early keyboard instruments as that of Stradivarius is to the violin family. More »
Louis Couperin
Louis Couperin was a French Baroque composer who made significant contributions to the development of Baroque keyboard music. A skillful harpsichordist, organist, and gambist, he was one of the founders of the French harpsichord school and invented the genre of unmeasured prelude for harpsichord. He and his nephew, François ''le Grand,'' were the most renowned members of the Couperin family. More »
Concert champêtre
''Concert champêtre'' is a harpsichord concerto by Francis Poulenc, which also exists in a version for piano solo with very slight changes in the solo part. It was written in 1927-28 for the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska who said she "adored" playing it as it made her "insouciant and gay!" Landowska was responsible for the composition of several other new pieces of music for the instrument, notably Manuel de Falla's harpsichord concerto and his ''El retablo de Maese Pedro'' . More »
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