Now playing: Harpsichord of Columbus’ era sounds again
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A harpsichord that entertained the elites of Italy in the mid1500s has been restored by a South Dakota museum and soon will bring its sound to 21st-century ears.
The National Music Museum in Vermilion, which acquired the instrument in 2009, worked with Chilean-born musician Catalina Vicens, who specializes in historical keyboards and percussion instruments, to produce the harpsichord’s first full-length recording.
The crowd-funded project resulted in a 20-track disc of compositions that Vicens said would have been performed in Naples when the instrument was in its youth.
“It’s kind of magical because it is an extraordinarily old instrument, and the restoration that was needed was not extreme, so we can see the instrument’s stage is very close to the stage it was 500 years ago,” said Vicens, who lives in Switzerland.
Ha r psic hord s were popular for centuries until they were overtaken by the piano, which they resemble. Museum officials believe the Neapolitan harpsichord that Vicens played was built in 1530, or just 38 years after Columbus sailed on his first voyage to the New World.
The museum purchased it from its previous owner in Argentina six years ago. An in-house conservator minimally restored it, including cleaning it and installing a new set of jacks — the pieces that pluck the strings — to make it what the museum believes is the oldest known playable harpsichord.
Vicens raised more than $13,000 to cover the cost of the recording project, including travel to and from South Dakota, professional engineering, as well as the booklet design and printing of the CD, which will be released in January on the label Carpe Diem Records, distributed by Naxos.
All tracks will be available on iTunes that same month, and the CD will be on sale at the museum.
“It’s a long process, lots of revisions,” said Vicens. “It’s not music that everyone listens to every day, so it’s important to put the work in front of everyone. We want it to go into a wider market, so the booklet is going to be in English, in German and in French.”