Hi,

I am curious whether there is evidence that 15th-century clavichords had listing cloth or in fact possibly did not use damping, inconceivable as this might seem. Presumably, in the absence of any damping system the player of an early clavichord could damp selected strings with the left hand, while playing with the right, and allowing secondary resonances to persist where they were   wanted. However, the Minden clavichord player ("Goldene Tafel" reredos, ca.1425, now in the Bode Museum in Berlin) is playing with  the lid closed, so could not have damped by hand. (The perspective of the Urbino intarsia does not let one see any listing cloth, but it is generally assumed it was there.)


Why this question? In the earliest clavichords, all of whose strings were the same length and pitch and fretted along Pythagorean lines without foreshortening, the (normally damped) segment of the string to the left of the tangent would produce a complementary "inverse" pitch that might be interesting for, say, players of 15th-century monodic music (which is my specific interest in it, for German song melodies, some of which are strikingly off kilter).


Does anyone have an earliest known date for the documented use (or visual depiction) of listing cloth, rails or other system, and has anybody tried playing tunes on their Arnaut von Zwolle clavichord without listing cloth, using hand damping, light damping or none at all? I know that several list members have built and/or played such instruments. I would also be grateful for general impressions of them as I don't have access to an instrument myself.

Michael Shields, Galway


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