The sound of wonderful English historical instruments of the Benton Fletcher Collection in the Fenton House in London.
With little time available, I literally placed the camera wherever I could, sat down at some of the instruments and quickly shot the clips with the only intention of giving you a taste of these beautiful sounds.

Missed the Italian instruments? Here they are: [ Ссылка ]

Each instrument sounds different and feels different under the fingers. Jumping from one to the other can be a challenge! Not all were available for playing at this specific event, so I decided to share with you (as a bonus 🙂) an 'old' clip of myself playing a Kirckman Harpsichord recorded with what I think was an iPad (beginning of video) and also playing another Kirckman recorded with an iPhone (end of video). The mics of my Zoom Q8 capture a much better 'near to real sound', but I think the the i-devices did a decent job back then (especially the i-Pad).

1- Harpsichord (single manual), Jacob Kirckman, London, 1752 - J.S. Bach 'Prelude in C major' (part)
2- a 'pair of Virginals' by Robert Hatley, London, 1664 - Purcell, 'Prelude in C Major' - Giovanni Battista Draghi* (1640-1708) 'Prelude in E minor' - Purcell 'Prelude in G Major'
*not to be confused with Giovanni Battista Draghi detto 'Pergolesi' (1710-1736)
**Paderewski (bust on right) seems perplexed... while Couperin (on the wall) is quite happy 🙃

3- Spinet, unattributed, England, first half 18th century - Purcell, 'Prelude in C Major' - Purcell 'Prelude in G Major' *
4- Harpsichord (double manual), Jacob Kirckman, London, 1762 - J.S. Bach 'Prelude in C major' (part)
*note the natural reverb effect due to the spinet being in a corner, just fantastic to make its sound bloom!

I would like to say thank you to the staff of Fenton House (National Trust) and especially to Ben Marks, the curator of the collection (his website: [ Ссылка ])

More about the collection here: [ Ссылка ]
To see pictures of the instruments, scroll down on this page (note that one of the Italian virginals appears as 'Baffo' which is a previous attribution):
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#harpsichord #virginal #spinetta #spinet #historicalkeyboards #englishharpsichord #london

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