Clavichord after South German Hexagonal 16. cent., 2 choirs, double or tripple fretted, C - c
The fretted South German hexagonal, anonymous, about 1600
Clavichords are subdivided into fretted and unfretted instruments. Fretted clavichords are instruments which were built from renaissance until baroque period - there is one string or string choir 2 or 3 keys. The key levers were arranged in the way that the distance between the tangents corresponds to the proportions of a semitone. That's why the keys of these instruments are not parallel but appropriated croped. This limits the compass to four octaves usually. Clavichords and other keyboard instruments (e.g. organs) were built with up to 6 octaves during the Spanish high baroque and classical period.
The South German hexagonal (the case is an irregular hexagonal) is a table instrument without stand which is tripple fretted, e.g. the tones bb - b - c are on one string and cannot be touched at the same time as a small or a big second. The fretting of strings has different benefits: because you need less strings for a certain quantity of keys, the soundboard is less strained and can swing easier. Also a meantone temperament is easier to tune because if c is tuned the notes b and bb are also already tuned. If the third c - e is correct, f and #f are also correct. Then the pure third according to d - #f is easy to find with the neighbours #c and #d and so on. In contrast to fretted clavichords the unfretted ones from the high baroque have one string or string choir for each tone and a larger compass.
The rebuilding of this hexagonal has small modifications: the compass has been extendes from C/E - c''' to full four octaves, the tone fretting has been reduced from tripple to double (bass octave is unfretted) and the temperament has been adapted from a South German meantone temperament ("Esterreicher von Anieres"). The case is made in maple and waxed, the keyboard is covered with plum / ebony and the rose which is missing on the original instrument is an Italian cut from parchement.
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