Viola da Gamba

If you love the sound of a cello and a great male voice, listen to this piece! Music doesn't get any more expressive, elegant, and majestic than this. These videos are such a pleasure to watch because I love to see how the musicians interact with each other during the pieces.

The bowed instrument is not a cello, but a viola da gamba, which is like a cello with more strings and it has frets. It also has gut strings instead of steel strings, so the sound is softer and "sweeter." I've read that the viola da gamba is an ideal instrument for an adult to begin playing, because the technique isn't too demanding and it's tuned similarly to a guitar.

Harpsichord!

I haven't posted any harpsichord videos lately, so tonight I have a little piece for you by the German Baroque composer J.S. Bach. It's a dance piece from the French Suites. The harpsichord is an original, too, meaning that it was built several hundred years ago and is not a modern copy.

Beautiful harpsichord

I usually post videos of Baroque music played on harpsichord. Here is a video of a modern improvisation played on a very beautiful German harpsichord.

Cristofori Piano

One thing I love so much about harpsichords as opposed to pianos is the harpsichord's light, delicate touch with a crisp, bright sound. The piano seems like a heavy beast in comparison. The harpsichord is like an olympic sprinter, while the piano is like an olympic weightlifter. Just watching someone playing the piano makes me hurt. They hit the keys so hard, and their whole bodies writhe. Harpsichord players don't need to use their back muscles to press down keys. Hell, they barely need to use their arm muscles. The harpsichord touch is so delicate that one only needs to use wrist and finger muscles. One time a piano player played my harpsichord, and after a few minutes several of the parts started coming loose because he was banging on the keys so hard. I've read that when J.S. Bach played the harpsichord his hand movements were so graceful, delicate, and fluid that observers could hardly tell that he was moving.

What does this have to do with the Cristofori piano? The piano was invented by a harpsichord maker named Bartolomeo Cristofori. Subsequently, the first pianos looked like harpsichords. They were light weight (no iron frames), and had a light, crisp touch like the harpsichord. I found a video of a man playing a piano after Cristofori and thought it was absolutely beautiful. Let me share it: