THE QUIETEST GUEST OF ALL

Mahan Esfahani says the clavichord makes up for its lack of grandeur with extraordinary expressiveness

Crown your career with the clavichord. You cannot, I admit, play concertos with big ensembles, since it does not roar and thunder like the pianoforte; neither can you, surrounded by a large audience, sound above their shouts of bravo and make their cheers seem like the babbling of a brook … On a clavichord — soft and responsive to every breath of the soul — you shall find the sound-board of your heart. C.F.D. Schubart, Musikalische Rhapsodien (1786) WITH ROOTS REACHING DEEP INTO the recesses of musical memory, past the exotic origins of the lute and the rustic buzz of the shawm and crumhorn, perhaps even beyond the ancient taverns whence came the fiddle, the clavichord nonetheless had its heyday rather late compared to most instruments. In the three or…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2023

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