Italian Harpsichord 1540 - Edition Beurmann

mp3 Demo - A. Padovano - Recercare del Duodecimo Tuono

mp3 Demo - Andrea Gabrieli - Madrigale detto Con Lei Fosso

mp3 Demo - Antonio Gardano - Passa Mezzo 3

mp3 Demo - Girolamo Cavazzoni - Missa Christe Omnia

mp3 Demo - Marc Antonio Cavazzoni - Rivervar

Performed by Steffen Fahl

The performances contain additional reverb.

The Italian Harpsichord 1540 library features an instrument built by an unknown maker around 1540. The instrument resides at the Museum für Kunst & Grewerbe in Hamburg. It is one of the earliest Italian harpsichords preserved. The typical light construction of Italian harpsichords makes for a resonant body. The keyboard was restored to its original state, now being in great playable condition.

Italian harpsichord from around 1540 (image © Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe Hamburg)

It was sampled with 8 round robin notes per key (to avoid the "machine gun"-like sounds when repeating samples). This makes trills and fast playing sound musical and smooth.

Italian Harpsichord – keyboard (image © Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe Hamburg)

The key release sounds are also very important for the acoustic impression of the instrument. They were recorded with 4 round robin samples per key.

The sample library consists of 576 single recordings.

Presets are included for Native Instruments™ Kontakt® (full version required) in its original meantone temperament at 402 Hz, as well as presets at 440 Hz, both for meantone and equal temperament. Additionally, the library contains an essay provided by Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe Hamburg, describing the history of the instrument.

The samples were recorded at the Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe Hamburg. For the recording, we employed microphones and preamps by the German manufacturer DS-audioservice™. The instrument was originally recorded at 192 kHz/24 bits resolution, downsampled to your resolution of choice.

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