Catalogue Connection: 25134

Curious about everything and armed with true freedom of thought, the elder Mersenne  (1588-1648), a religious of the Minimes order, opened his mind to the most diverse subjects: theology, astronomy, mathematics , physics, music, organology, acoustics. In 1658, in his Histoire de la roulette, Pascal wrote that he “had a particular talent for forming beautiful questions.”

Author of several theoretical works, including his famous Harmonie universelle (1636), Mersenne, consulted for the most part in his Parisian convent, did not practice any instrument but maintained close relations with a number of musicians: it is around mainly French or Franco-Flemish composers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that Charlston has built this program.

Written for harpsichord or organ, at a time when the choice of instrumental destination was less finicky than today, these pieces by Racquet, Chambonnières, Anglebert, Louis Couperin  etc. are perfectly suited to the clavichord, far less frequented in France than in Germany. Recordings dedicated to the French repertoire on this instrument remain rare. In this, Charlston offers us something new. He plays a model by the British maker Peter Bavington, inspired by the precepts of Mersenne.

Its discreet and expressive sound requires, unlike the harpsichord, a gentle control of the depth of the fingerboard and the attack, which allows vibrato. Charlston completely masters the charm of this intimate tone, close to the lute. And his interpretation combines melancholy, spontaneity and elegance, according to the mood of the movements, with a quality of touch essential in such music. Something to delight lovers of historical instruments.

(translation from the French by Stephen Sutton)

Clavichords are notoriously difficult to play well. The player must be in absolute control of touch, first to produce and sustain a good rounded tone, and then to have it be perfectly balanced, and not have it go sharp in pitch by squeezing too hard. The motions are very small, with scarce resistance. Any unevenness of technique shows up quite clearly, as does any indecision. It is especially difficult in fast ornamentation, with a temptation to get louder. Terence Charlston’s performance is miraculous, with everything perfectly in place; yet it does not sound cautious. This is top-level work.

There are no extant French clavichords of this vintage, so Peter Bavington worked from a 1636 drawing by Marin Mersenne to build one. Charlston chose (and, in some cases, arranged) this brilliant program to show what would have been played on it in the 16th and 17th centuries. The result is one of the best clavichord albums I have ever heard.

According to the booklet, Charlston had prepared a lot more music than would fit onto a single disc; may we hope for a second or third volume? The sound, historical essays, photography, and the booklet production are deluxe in every way. There is nothing more to say. If you have any interest in the history of keyboard music, or just want to hear more than an hour of charming and unfamiliar tunes, buy this.

This is a very important disc, one which deserves to be taken very seriously indeed by the growing audience of music of this period. This music is hardly ever encountered, even in recital, but surely demonstrates beyond argument the evolving school of French music of the period. The performances are beyond criticism, as is the clear and natural recording quality.

During the renaissance and the baroque era the clavichord was the most widely disseminated keyboard instrument. Its being widely used in Germany is especially well documented. This explains why most recordings on clavichord include almost exclusively music by German composers. As far as I can remember I have never heard any French music on a clavichord. That makes this disc unique in the most literal sense of the word. That certainly goes for the instrument Terence Charlston plays: a reconstruction of an instrument which is only known through a description by the French music theorist Marin Mersenne in his Harmonie Universelle .

In his liner-notes Terence Charlston explains why so little attention has been given to the role of the clavichord in French keyboard music. The first is that no instruments of “inconvertible French origin” have survived. This explains why for this recording he could not make use of a copy of an original instrument. The second reason is that hardly any original keyboard music has survived from the 16th century, the period during which the clavichord was most popular in France. He then demonstrates from the sources that the clavichord was widely used and remained in use until the late 18th century. Armand-Louis Couperin, for instance, owned a clavichord at the time of the Revolution. Many official inventories also include references to clavichords. This makes one wonder why not a single original instrument has survived, a question which is not discussed in the booklet.

This being the case the description of a clavichord by Mersenne is especially interesting. For a long time this was considered a product of the author’s fantasy rather than a description of an instrument which might actually have existed. It was the harpsichordist Maria Boxall who in 2001 in an article argued “that it is, in fact, both precise and detailed, and the engraving shows the instrument’s true proportions in an early form of isometric projection.” It inspired Peter Bavington, a London-based builder and restorer of historical keyboard instruments and a long-time specialist in clavichords, to try to reconstruct a clavichord according to Mersenne’s description. In the booklet he describes the problems he had to solve and the questions which needed to be answered. The result is the instrument Charlston plays in this recording. It is quite different from the clavichords which are usually played in concerts and on disc and which are mostly copies of German instruments. “It has a distinctive and attractive sound, similar in many ways to the lute or guitar, and is an elegant vehicle for all styles of keyboard music current at the turn of the sixteenth century and later”, Charlston states.

He has included some pieces from the few sources of original keyboard music that are available. In addition to that he plays pieces that were played by keyboard players of the period: they often turned to music for other scorings and adapted them for their instrument. Charlston divided the programme into three sections. The first is devoted to the 16th century. It opens with a motet by Antoine de Févin, and this is followed by a mixture of dances, chansons and pieces which were probably conceived for the lute. It is not surprising that many of these pieces are anonymous.

The second section includes music from the early 17th century. The main original keyboard work – in fact, written for the organ – is the Fantaisie by Charles Racquet. He was a member of a family of organists and was himself organist of Notre Dame in Paris. Unfortunately this fantasy is the only piece from his pen which has come down to us. We owe this to Mersenne who requested that the piece be included in his Harmonie Universelle . As this piece shows the influence of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and his ‘school’ Charlston included the Toccata in C by the master from Amsterdam. Gérard Scronx was from the southern Netherlands. There is no indication that he had any formal connections with Sweelinck or any of his pupils, but the Echo is dominated by one of the most notable features of Sweelinck’s style, the use of echo technique.

The later 17th century is the subject of the last section. This is the time the foundation of the French harpsichord school was laid. The man generally considered the father of that school is Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. He is represented by an unfinished sarabande which is preceded by the prélude from the Suite in d minor by his pupil Jean-Henry D’Anglebert. Louis Couperin was one of the main composers of keyboard music from the mid-17th century. He was not only a harpsichordist but also acted as organist, and this explains the fairly large corpus of organ music which has come down to us. The Duo forms part of that corpus. Nicolas Gigault left a pretty large amount of organ music but has been given little attention. The programme ends with a nice little Noël by Nicolas Lebègue, a specimen of a genre which would become very popular in the following century.

One issue needs to be mentioned. Terence Charlston points out that “the sound is greatly affected by the five bridges, each of which has a distinctive sound with the difference between bridges most pronounced where one ends and another begins”. There are some pieces where this difference in sound – which Charlston compares with the vocal ranges of treble, alto, tenor and bass – can be very clearly noticed. One is the motet by Févin which opens the programme: some phrases are repeated at a lower pitch which immediately makes clear the difference. Another is Tu crois, ô Beau Soleil by Pierre de La Barre where the melody runs up and down the keyboard and thus displays the different colours of the clavichord.

This is a unique recording in that for the first time we hear a clavichord in French keyboard music. It is also a groundbreaking recording, not only because of the first attempt to reconstruct a French clavichord as described by Mersenne but also because of the possible impact on the approach to French harpsichord music in general. As Charlston writes: “The different dynamic and acoustical space of the clavichord, which change the player’s sense of timing and gesture, can be transferred back to the harpsichord. Informed by this experience, harpsichord performance of the same gains a greater awareness of touch and perhaps less reliance on the sheer sonority and power of its plucked sound.”

Terence Charlston deserves much praise for his initiative in making this recording and Peter Bavington for his reconstruction of the Mersenne clavichord. The programme is well put together, including many pieces which are unknown and are played according to the performance habits of the time. Charlston once again proves to be a very stylish and sensitive interpreter. His performances here are simply superb. I should not forget to acknowledge the efforts of the technical staff which has managed to make the clavichord sound very natural. Ample reasons to label this disc Recording of the Month.

December 2015 Recording of the Month

Terence Charlston’s new CD of 16th and 17th century French keyboard music combines delight and illumination to an uncommon degree. Both the music and the instrument are “reconstructions” to greater or lesser extent, intended to a fill a large gap in the historical record. Although there is ample documentary evidence of clavichords built or owned in France, no indisputably French clavichords have survived from this period.

A most important contemporary document was provided by the well-known polymath Marin Mersenne (1588-1648). In his “Harmonie Universelle” of 1636 (and Latin abridgement “Harmonicorum Libri XII”), Mersenne provides a lengthy description and a detailed drawing of a “manichordion”: his instrument has a keyboard of four octaves, chromatic C-c”‘, with strings parallel to the long side of the case, and five separate soundboard bridges at right angles to the strings, of different heights, decreasing from bass to treble. Other distinctive features include an angled bridge to the left of the tangents, and a deep case, resulting in unusually long tangents.

Mersenne’s description was long considered by organologists to be untrustworthy as a record of an actual contemporary French clavichord. The consensus was that the in­strument is more likely Italian than French, and more likely 16th than 17th century. Most importantly, the drawing was considered to be not to scale, hence useless for precise study or reconstruction, and possibly imaginary.

This last objection was decisively refuted by Maria Boxall in 2001; she showed that the drawing is indeed to scale, using a form of isometric projection, and that it therefore provides exact proportions.

Peter Bavington took up the challenge in 2010, and began construction of a clavichord according to Mersenne’s description. The result was exhibited at the 10th International Clavichord Symposium in Magnano, Italy in September, 2011. Bavington’s report describes his step by step deduction of dimensions and proportions, and provides original French and Latin text from Mersenne, with translations into English.

Bavington concluded that that the instrument described by Mersenne, although perhaps a late example of an earlier design (Mersenne makes note of more recent single bridge designs), and possibly showing some Italian influence, was nevertheless a real and satisfactory musical instrument directly known to Mersenne, and a suitable vehicle for a broad range of French keyboard music of the period.

The plausibility of this conclusion is decisively reinforced by Terence Charlston’s new recording. Charlston presents a survey of music from the early 16th to the late 17th century, from dances to motet transcriptions, from preludes to complex polyphony. Charles Raquet’s monumental Fantasie anchors the selection, and provides a link to other examples from Flemish sources. The latest pieces are drawn from the organ and harpsichord repertoire.

In Charlston’s capable hands, Mersenne’s clavichord shows itself to be a versatile instrument, a fitting vehicle for the transmission of earlier lute repertoire and playing style to later French keyboard music. Charlston’s playing is sure and vivacious throughout; the recorded sound is detailed and warm. The liner notes are unusually generous, including extensive essays by Charlston on the music and by Bavington on the instrument, each with copious references.

Highly recommended!

The focus of this interesting CD is an instrument, rather than a composer, and the instrument itself is a replica. Unfortunately there is no known surviving example of an original French clavichord, so for this recording Terence Charlston plays a reconstruction by Peter Bavington of a clavichord described in detail in Harmonie universelle (1637) by Marin Mersenne (1588-1648). The music chosen for the CD reflects what is likely to have been played in France during Mersenne’s lifetime. While most of the 21 tracks are French, there are also pieces from the Netherlands, England and Italy.

Seven volumes of keyboard music were published in Paris by Pierre Attaingnant in about 1530. After this, there was a gap of almost 100 years before the appearance of two volumes of organ music by Jehan Titelouze (1623 and 1626) and a series of Livres d’orgue commencing in 1664 with a volume by Gabriel Nivers. Music for stringed keyboard instruments fared no better, with two small volumes of pieces by Chambonnières (1670) followed by suites by Lebègue (1677 and 1687), and a collection of suites by D’Anglebert (1689), combined with transcriptions from Lully. Although a large amount of material survives in manuscript, much has clearly been lost.

This CD is divided into three sections; it opens with eight tracks of little-known music from the sixteenth century. They include two longer pieces from Attaingnant’s keyboard prints and several arrangements from music for other instruments or voices by Pierre Blondeau, Guillaume Costeley and Nicolas Gombert. These are successful arrangements made by Charlston in accordance with contemporary practice. Pieces originally for keyboard include one in two voices, La Bounette , from the Thomas Mulliner Book ( c . 1565) and two exuberant Gagliardas from Antonio Gardane’s collection, Intabolatura nova di balli (1551), published in Venice.

The second section, entitled ‘The early 17th century’, opens with five short pieces from a manuscript now in Aberdeen, including an interesting Canaries in equal notes. These are followed by the most substantial work on the CD, the monumental organ Fantaisie by Charles Racquet (1597-1664), composed at Mersenne’s request, ‘to show what could be done at the organ’ ( pour montrer ce que se peuct faire à l’orgue ). This unique contrapuntal work is considered to be one of the finest fugues of the period, and a stiff examination of the performer’s credentials – here passed with flying colours.

Three selections from the Netherlands include a further demanding Toccata by Sweelinck, four preludes from a group of ten psalm-tone intonations, and an Echo Fantasia by Gérard Scronx, the possible author of a large manuscript compiled in Liège; in this work, the echoes sound most effective on the clavichord. Five short pieces from a Paris manuscript, a song setting from Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle and a Prelude and Volte by the lutenist Mercure offer further variety from this period.

The final section comprises five pieces from the later seventeenth century, opening with a commanding performance of the controlled drama of the unmeasured prelude in D minor from D’Anglebert’s Pièces de clavecin , followed by a sedate Sarabande in A minor by Chambonnières. The CD ends with three organ pieces: the rhythmically varied Duo by Louis Couperin, a plaintive Récit à trois by Nicolas Gigault and a lively setting of the charming Noel Laissez paistre vos by Nicolas Lebègue, from his Troisième livre of 1685.

Throughout the recordings, Charlston’s careful attention to details of articulation and ornamentation is impressive, and the range of dynamics he draws from the instrument should convince the most sceptical of the potential of the clavichord – under the right hands – to be employed in a wide variety of different genres. Charlston even includes pieces specifically composed to demonstrate the different tone colours of the organ. The clavichord is tuned in a quarter-comma meantone at a1=392khz, a semitone below the pitch at which seventeenth-century pieces are usually played; this produces a different listening experience from many recordings and live performances.

The accompanying booklet contains a facsimile of the clavichord reproduced in Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle, a detailed account of the history of the clavichord in France, and comments on the pieces played on the CD. There is a most interesting account of the instrument on which the recording was made and the challenges which Peter Bavington faced when building it. This CD is an excellent introduction to this repertoire, much of which is still largely unexplored and unrecorded; it will appeal not only to the specialist performer but also to those non-players who are keen to expand their knowledge of less familiar repertoire.

Terence Charlston is a performer, teacher and academic researcher, specialising in early keyboard instruments who founded the Department of Historical Performance at the Royal Academy of Music in 1995. His latest recording for Divine Art Records is entitled Mersenne’s Clavichord . Not one example of an original French clavichord survives, therefore the instrument played on this historically important recording is a new construction following the specifications published by Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) in the 17th century. It is, therefore, the only example of how early French keyboard music may have actually sounded.

It was Peter Bavington who decided, in 2010, to attempt a reconstruction of a clavichord depicted and described by Marin Mersenne. Mersenne’s precise and detailed description and accompanying engraving of a manicordion was published in the 1630s. The design is strikingly different from that of most surviving clavichords that date from much later. By comparison, Mersenne’s clavichord was much larger than a typical late seventeenth or eighteenth-century instrument. Terence Charlston demonstrates this fine instrument with a recital of French works from the 16th and 17th centuries as well as a toccata by Sweelinck whose music was prevalent in France at the time. Many of the pieces are especially arranged for clavichord by Charlston.

Terence Charlston divides his recital into three eras starting with The Sixteenth Century and Antoine de Févin’s (c. 1470-1511/12) Sancta Trinitas. What a wonderfully distinctive sound this clavichord makes. Charlston brings some lovely phrasing and clarity to the musical lines as well as an intimacy, aided very much by the ideal recording. Harmonies are lovely as this fine piece makes its way forward to a lovely simple coda with a sudden chord to end.

An anonymous Prelude sur chacun ton finds Charlston allowing space for this attractive piece to unfold naturally, bringing such fine musicality. Longtemps y a que je vis en espoire is another anonymous work with some lovely, quite delicious timbres drawn by Charleston from this instrument. La Magdalena is possibly by lutenist Pierre Blondeau (fl. 1st half of the 16th century) . Charlston brings terrific, buoyant and fine textured playing to this irresistible piece. He adds some lovely individual touches through its varying tempi and rhythms. Placed together are an anonymous Prelude followed by a Fantasie by Guillaume Costeley (1530/31-1606) and Nicolas Gombert’s (c. 1495-c. 1560) Hors Envyeux . This fine musician brings a lovely flow to these highly attractive pieces with such a variety of textures.

There is a lovely La Bounette , again by an anonymous hand, with Charlston bringing a remarkable agility together with fine phrasing and clarity in another fine melody. Gamba Gagliarda – Moneghina Gagliarda is attributed to Antoine Gardane (1509-1569) and allows this artist to conjure up some fine harmonies with a subtle rhythmic pulse. Also placed together are Pierre Megnier’s Prelude and organist Jacques Cellier’s ( f. 1580-1590. died c.1620) Pavane where lovely light textures are allied to a variety of fine timbres in the Prelude with some terrific intricate passages in the Pavane.

We then move to The Early Seventeenth Century for the next part of this recital with five pieces, a finely pointed up Canaries, a lively Borree with fine, subtle tonal variations , a rhythmic Volte appellee la Marcielleze, a beautifully laid out Pavane de Aranda and a lovely Fantasie sur l’air de ma Bergerer Fantasie to conclude, full of fine textures and sonorities. Charles Racquet (1597-1664) was organist at Notre Dame Cathedral. His Fantaisie moves forward with a measured pace winding its way through some lovely moments in this fine outpouring of invention. Tu Crois, O Beau Soleil brings some really lovely textures and sonorities, Charlston providing such a fine touch, revealing many subtleties. In Mercure d’Orléans’ (fl c1590. died: c.1619) Praeludium Charlston reveals some very fine sonorities right across the keyboard with a lively Volte brilliantly played to conclude.

Four Preludes by anonymous composers are placed together, a beautifully paced slow Prelude bringing out many fine textures, a gentle Prelude that is beautifully shaped, a rhythmically pointed Prelude that nevertheless reveals itself slowly and gently and a slightly livelier rhythmically poised Prelude.

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s (1562-1621) Toccata in C Major is very fine with much variety throughout its length, Charlston finding some terrific timbres from his instrument. Five pieces are gathered together next; three anonymous works – a rhythmic Bergamasca, a lively Gavotte, most attractive with some terrific playing and a lovely light textured Courante, ‘La Chabotte’ together with a leisurely Hereaux Séjour e Partenisse by Antoine Boësset (1586-1643) bringing lovely light sonorities and a crisp Bransle, ‘Les Frondeurs’ by Germain Pinel ( c. 1600-1661). To end the Early Seventeenth Century period there is a wonderfully done Echo in F Major by a certain Gérard Scronx , apparently a scribe at a monastery in Liege. Charlston brings such care and exquisite control with an echo of the theme played softer and quieter. This is a rather memorable piece, beautifully developed.

The Later Seventeenth Century opens with Jean-Henri D’Anglebert’s (1635-1691) Prelude from his Pièces de clavecin, Suite No. 3 in D Minor a slowly unfolding piece that is wonderfully phrased, achieving some quite lovely timbres. French composer and harpsichordist Jacques Champion or Jacques Champion Chambonnieres (1601/02-1672) was also known as Sieur de Chambonnieres or Mr Chambonnieres (his family name being Champion). His Sarabande in A minor is finely paced, a lovely work that slowly reveals its attractions with Charlston revealing lovely little details.

A lively Duo by Louis Couperin (c. 1626-1661) follows, weaving two musical lines with this fine keyboard player finding a lovely clarity and flow. There is a slow, gently paced Recit à trois by Nicholas Gigault (c. 1627-1707) where Charleston allows the music and, indeed, this instrument to reveal some lovely timbres. Finally there is Nicolas-Antoine Lebègue’s (c. 1631-1702) Laissez paistre vos Bestes , a lively, rhythmically sprung work with Charlston bringing some terrific timbres from his instrument showing just how he can find a variety of sounds.

This is a remarkably entrancing disc. Charlston extracts so many fine sounds, lovely sonorities and ear catching timbres from this remarkable instrument.

This is a terrific survey of French music of the 16 th and 17 th century refracted through an instrument of many fascinating and attractive qualities. The recording is ideal; the microphones set perfectly with much detail and intimacy. There are excellent detailed notes by Terence Charlston as well as a beautifully produced and illustrated booklet full of facsimiles of the music and photos of the instrument.

It is terrific that Divine Art continues to bring us such treasures as this.

In 1991, Francis Knights published an article that shed considerable light on the undervalued role of the clavichord in the early history of French keyboard music. With the cat out of the bag, one might have expected many performances of French clavichord music to follow, but this was not the case. The assumption that the clavichord had always been a German preoccupation surely played a role, but is might well be that players were not sure what a French clavichord music have looked like. Many writers noted that Mersenne’s depiction of a clavichord in his Traité des instruments a chordes (Paris, 1637) was an important witness to the existence of the instruments in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century France, but its poor perspective made deriving definite conclusions about the instrument difficult, if not impossible.

As Peter Bavington points out in his copious and informative notes for this disc, it was Maria Boxall who, in 2001, noted that Mersenne’s drawing was in fact not a perspective, but rather an isometric drawing, allowing one to attempt quite a faithful reconstruction in modern times. This is exactly what Bavington has done and the result can be heard on this recording.

Mersenne’s clavichord, with its five bridges and pentagonal shape, resembles some early Italian instruments, but differs in a number of ways, including a strikingly deep case (and concomitantly long tangents). The sound of Bavington’s instrument is lute-like, with marked differences in the various registers, the whole blending into a color spectrum that provides great clarity and definition to the music presented on this recording.

Terence Charlston also provides excellent notes, walking us through the careful process of choosing the repertoire, much of it tailor-made to the clavichord at hand. For example, Charles Racquet’s Fantaisie – one of many highlights on the disc – was chosen because a manuscript copy of the work is found in Mersenne’s personal copy of the treatise.

Charlston’s playing throughout is sensitive to the music as well as to the instrument, drawing maximum expressive power from each on every track. Listeners might be directed to start their exploration of this disc by listening first to track 4; the ‘La Magdalena,’ which is here attributed to Pierre Blondeau, allow for a thorough tour of the various registers and wide dynamic range if the instrument.

Besides the excellent notes from the builder and the player, the disc includes a number of photographs of the instrument, as well as photos of some of the early editions of the music, and the title page of Mersenne’s treatise, which includes a portrait of Mersenne. The recorded sound is clear and lifelike – indeed, the entire production is a model for recordings of this kind.

Like the shadowy but not insignificant history of the French clavichord, Bavington’s and Charlston’s accomplishment with this recording does not deserve to be overlooked. This disc is not only beautiful, it is important.

In the Renaissance-Baroque family of musical keyboards, the clavichord was always considered, in a sense, the “poor relation”; the instrument is overshadowed by the harpsichord and the spinet, because of its more velvety and less resonant timbre, to the point that many musicians in those days used to play it at night, including Bach, who was not ashamed to consider it his favorite instrument. Yet there is also a literature devoted to this instrument in a few countries more than others, as in the France of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, where scores for lute often were transposed to this keyboard just because of the similarity of their sound, so intimate and expressive.

This new CD really wants to emphasize these characteristics through the sound of a clavichord reconstructed by a skilful craftsman, Briton Peter Bavington, named after Marin Mersenne, who lived between 1588 and 1648: a theologian, French philosopher and mathematician, who spent many studies concerning the mystery and charm of the musical sound – studies that converged in his monumental encyclopedia dedicated to music, “Harmonie Universelle”, of which the fourth part was dedicated to a “Traité des Instruments to Chordes”, which also described at a figurative level, exactly on page 107, a clavichord, an instrument that Mersenne praised for its sweet and delicate sound.

Based on that description, Peter Bavington has made a splendid specimen which was then used by the harpsichordist Terence Charlston to record a compilation of compositions dedicated to this instrument or adapting scores for lute to be performed on the keyboard, creating a unique and quite charming collection of works by anonymous authors, through pieces of Nicolas Gombert, Charles Racquet, Gérard Scronx, up to Jean Henry D’Anglebert, Jacques Champion, Louis Couperin, Nicolas Gigault and Nicolas Lebègue. Listening to their compositions one can not remain indifferent to the enveloping sound of this instrument that must be heard in absolute silence, even during the evening and at night, or making sure to turn up the volume of your listening. Passionate and at the same time reflective in his playing, Terence Charlston expresses in this recording a total act of love towards this so delicate and particular keyboard.

In 1637 Marin Mersenne published his Harmonie universelle, which described the clavichord as an important keyboard instrument alongside its larger and more sonorous cousins, the harpsichord, spinet, and organ. Unfortunately, he chose a name, clavichordium, that was in everyday generic use, and his colleague and contemporary Pierre Trichet, in his Traite des Instruments a chords, was not entirely helpful a couple of years later when he consigned it as merely a training device for these other keyboards. Mersenne, however, did include a detailed description of the clavichord (also called a manichordion), along with a sort of exploded constructional diagram (replete with range), indicating that he knew full well that it was rather more common than the lack of surviving examples might have suggested. In this disc keyboardist Terence Charlston has teamed up with Peter Bavington to reconstruct Mersenne’s instrument, and moreover to gather a program of works that are historically sequential from the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to show what sort of common repertory might have been on the docket for performers on this soft-spoken chamber instrument.

This is more than just an historical documentation, for the various works are drawn from a wide variety of sources, as the excellent booklet notes by Charlston show (along with pictures of a couple of the scores). The result is a slow meandering of over a century and a half of music that is rarely, if ever, on a program. Finally, the instrument is pitched at 392 Hz with a quarter-comma meantone tem­perament, meaning that one has an idea of both the soundscape and resonance of the music of that time. Many of the works have been chosen from sets of pieces, some for lute and many arrangements of vocal pieces, particularly in the first section devoted to the 16th century. It is here we find the chanson Longtemps y a que je vis, anonymously composed but almost lute-like with strumming chords and a meandering line originally sung. The pair of galliards, one attributed to Antoine Gardane about 1550 or thereabouts, are lively dances with a fuller harmony, both sounding like they ought to introduce a Shakespearean play. Many of these short and rather tuneful Renaissance pieces come from the circle of Pierre Attaignant, a well-known publisher of tablature and consort music.

The second part moves forward in time to the first half of the 17th century. Here, keyboard music is beginning to become distinguished as a genre, though still attached to both dances and vocal works. The keyboard version of Pierre de la Barre’s song Tu crois, beau soleil is boxier, with some interesting internal countermelodies that still allow its lute origins to come through. On the other hand, the C-Major Toccata by organist Jan Sweelinck is a clear multi-voiced contrapuntal fantasy that is quite idiomatic, with running scales in the left hand that expands out in the right into a complex piece. The final section moves even further forward into the later century, when the keyboard was coming into its own. There is a lovely A-Minor Sarabande by Jacques de Chambonnieres (that is, Jacques Champion) replete with some carefully notated ornaments to the simple line, while a “Recit a troi” by Nicholas Gigault is a fantasy in which the voices wander about each other in a slow tread. The transcription of a song Laissez paistre vos Bestes by Nicolas Lebegue, with its lively folk-like tune and fuller harmony, demonstrates just how far this sort of imitative music has come over the time-span on this disc.

Concerning the sound of the recording, it should be cautioned that the instrument sounds a bit muted, which is a function of the constructional elements as well as the low pitch. In places, it would not be out of place to even note how much like a lute it sounds (and hence the dual repertory). Charlston’s playing is skillful and interesting, with discrete and appropriate ornamentation and a knack for never obscuring the melody, no matter what sort of counterpoint is going on. He also creates an intimate atmosphere that suits the popular nature of the works so well that one can easily imagine being in the parlor of a well-to-do French household of the late Renaissance or early Baroque period. While the refined but muted sound of the clavichord may not be everyone’s cup of tea, the reconstruction of the Mersenne instrument in and of itself is worthy of this recording, for it shows another facet of the development of the keyboard during this era and is an anodyne to the more robust harpsichord.

It was during my studies at the Witwatersrand University that I first encountered the early recordings of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Kuijkens and Gustav Leonhardt, and since then my credo has been that a piece of music sounds at its most convincing when matched with an instrument-type known to the composer, coupled with the appropriate playing aesthetics. Since the 1970s performance practice has changed considerably and not only in the field of period music; the influences on modern orchestras with regard to use of vibrato, natural horns etc. are noticeable and very welcome. It is now not unusual to hear Brahms or Debussy played on pianos from their time. Not all developments have been so positive, however; the modern piano has re-emerged as the chosen vehicle for early keyboard music, certainly if recordings and above all radio broadcasts are anything to go by. Here in Switzerland it is rare indeed to hear a harpsichord, aside from its use as a continuo instrument; if there is a piano recording available, it will be favoured, even for such idiomatic harpsichord repertoire as Couperin and Rameau. A CD featuring music of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France played on a reconstructed Mersenne clavichord is therefore all the more welcome.

This CD by Terence Charlston is more than just a recording: it reflects a research project in a field which has been to date largely neglected. The paradigm was that the clavichord was relatively unknown in France. In the article accompanying the CD (I write ‘article’ advisedly, as it exceeds by far what one would expect in a booklet text) Charlston sketches the history of the clavichord in France from the earliest times, which were at least the fifteenth century. No French clavichord has come down to us, but by means of literary sources and inventories he plots the path of the clavichord through French musical history. Marin Mersenne’s encyclopaedia Harmonie Universelle (1637), with its detailed description and engraved illustration, represents the most significant landmark along this path, although many commentators have dismissed it, on the grounds that the description is vague, the illustration does not conform to modern ideas of perspective, appearing distorted and out of scale, and the instrument shown does not resemble closely any surviving clavichord. What it does have in common with surviving sixteenth-century clavichords from other parts of Europe are multiple bridges, five in all, but it is a larger instrument than, for example, the Pisaurensis of 1543. Unlike contemporary clavichords, which mostly had a short octave in the bass, the Mersenne instrument has a full four-octave compass, C–c 3 . An article by Maria Boxall in the Galpin Society Journal of 2001 demonstrated that the apparently ‘vague and inconsistent’ account by Mersenne was, in fact, both precise and detailed, and this inspired the clavichord maker Peter Bavington to attempt a reconstruction. The result, an impressive one, is used on this recording. It is strung in iron and brass, with twisted strings in the extreme bass, and is tuned in quarter-comma-meantone at a pitch of a = 392Hz. A small compromise was made in that low C # was sacrificed and strung and tuned to AA.

Finding suitable repertoire for the instrument was a research project in itself. Little was printed, or has survived, between the seven volumes by Pierre Attaignant in 1531 and the later seventeenth- and eighteenth-century prints and manuscripts. As Charlston points out, however, keyboard music at this time was not clavichord-specific, and lute repertoire, itself fundamental in the evolution of later French harpsichord music, translates well to the clavichord. As would have been common amongst contemporary players, Charlston has made a number of his own arrangements, both from keyboard and lute repertoire and from vocal chansons. In addition to pieces from French sources, he has also explored imported French music in other sources. Included, for example, is La Bounette from the Mulliner Book (mid-sixteenth century). Here Charlston has filled out the basic two-part structure with additional parts, which gives the piece increased stature. The ‘Aberdeen Manuscript’, a little-known source of French keyboard music, provided a suite of five dances. One piece, ‘ Tu crois, ô Beau Soleil ‘, is printed in Mersenne’s Harmonie Universelle together with hints on playing divisions by Pierre de la Barre. For the recording Charlston follows the air with a single improvised variation based on de la Barre’s indications. The Harmonie Universelle was also the source for the longest piece in the programme, namely Charles Racquet’s four-part Fantasie , which is taken from a handwritten score included in the author’s personal copy.

The CD programme is divided into three sections; the sixteenth century, the early seventeenth century and the later seventeenth century. Particularly effective, from the last section, is the D minor Prélude by Jean Henry d’Anglebert. The programme thus covers an impressive 200 years of French keyboard music, for which the fretting on the clavichord, diatonic, presents no barrier.

The sound of the clavichord is impressive. The five separate bridges in effect create distinct registers on the instrument, as one moves from one bridge to another. This is particularly effective, for example, in the sequential passages in the second track, the anonymous Prélude sur chacun ton . It also gives clarity and added character to contrapuntal parts. The bass is warm and rich, giving the impression of a greater range than the instrument actually has. This is particularly noticeable in the fourth track, La Magdalena . The clavichord would appear to have a wide dynamic range, effectively demonstrated in Gérard Scronx’s Echo in F , although the player should share credit for this.

On some clavichord recordings one has the uneasy feeling that the player is not at one with the instrument. An instrument is borrowed or hired for the recording, possibly three weeks beforehand, because it seemed a nice idea, but when one listens to the recording, one’s impression is that the player is more at home with another member of the keyboard family. The instrument’s expressive possibilities are not utilized to the full (this is particularly evident when one happens to know the clavichord in question well!). This is certainly not the case with this recording. Charlston makes full use of the musical possibilities offered by the clavichord. In La Magdalena he alternates the lower and upper registers of the instrument; the effect is of two contrasting manuals on an organ. He works well with the natural sound of the clavichord (often neglected). Particularly in the later pieces he makes sensitive use of Tragung (what would the French word be?). The lute-like qualities of the clavichord come to the fore in the Sarabande by Chambonnières and one hears how the player is working with the natural decay of individual notes. This is clavichord playing as it should be.

I have already commented on the booklet text, which includes a section by Peter Bavington on the instrument. The booklet is well illustrated with facsimile pages from Mersenne’s book, including the engraving and some musical texts. Charlston’s arrangement of La Bounette can be compared with the two-part original in the Mulliner Book. My only regret is that the text is only in English; a French, possibly a German, translation would have been welcome, but I appreciate that this would have rendered the booklet, 24 pages as it stands, unwieldy.

A highly recommended landmark recording.

I never paid attention to the argument that (say) Beethoven should be played on a modern piano because he would have composed for one had it existed. Well, it didn’t; and he wrote for what he had. So I was most interested in hearing a CD from Divine Art, titled “Mersenne’s Clavichord.”

Here Terence Charlston plays French keyboard music from the 16th and 17th centuries by composers whose names are familiar only to specialists: Antoine de Fevin, Jacques Cellier, and Nicholas Lebeque—not to mention the ubiquitous Anon.—among several others.

While few of the 21 selections could be considered masterpieces, they do represent the popular tastes of the times (when there was little if any distinction between “popular” and “classical” music) in which the upper classes demanded more and more elegant music for their entertainment.

But the important thing about this disc is that the instrument used is a reconstruction of a clavichord as it was described by one Marin Mersenne in 1637. (The temperament, for those who care, is quarter-comma mean-tone. (Google that for yourself, please.) This pleases me because what I hear on this CD is as close I am going to get to hearing what they heard back then.

The booklet is packed with information about the instrument, the composers, and the selections. I can picture music departments wanting a copy of this very interesting collection.