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HARMONICHORD , an ingenious kind of upright piano, in which the strings were set in vibration not by theSee also: blow of the See also: hammer but by indirectly transmitted See also: friction
.
The harmonichord, one of the many attempts to fuse piano and See also: violin, was invented by Johann Gottfried and Johann See also: Friedrich Kaufmann (See also: father and son) in See also: Saxony at the beginning of the 19th century, when the craze for new and ingenious musical See also: instruments was at its height
.
The See also: case was of the variety known as See also: giraffe
.
The space under the keyboard was enclosed, a knee-hold being See also: left in which were two pedals used to set in rotation a large wooden cylinder fixed just behind the keyboard over the levers, and covered with a See also: roll-top similar to those of See also: modern office desks
.
The cylinder (in some specimens covered with See also: chamois See also: leather) tapered towards the See also: treble-end
.
When a See also: key was depressed, a little
See also: tongue of See also: wood, one end of which stopped the See also: string, was pressed against the revolving cylinder, and the vibrations produced by friction were transmitted to the string and reinforced as in piano and violin by the soundboard
.
The adjustment of the parts and the velocity of the cylinder required delicacy and See also: great nicety, for if the little wooden tongues rested too lightly upon the cylinder or the strings, harmonics were produced, and the note jumped to the octave or twelfth
.
Some-times when chords were played the touch became so heavy that two performers were required, as in the early See also: medieval See also: organistrum, the prototype of the harmonichord
.
Carl Maria von Weber must have had some opinion of the possibilities of the harmonichord, which in See also: tone resembled the See also: glass See also: harmonica, since he composed for it a concerto with orchestral accompaniment
.
(K
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