Quaint Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814)
declares, in his "History of Music," that no performer of his day could
play them without at least a month's practice.
The clavier gave promise of its destined career in the Elizabethan age.
Shakespeare immortalized it, and William Byrd (1546-1623) became the
first clavier master. He and Dr. John Bull (1563-1628), says Oscar Bie,
in his great work on "The Clavier and Its Masters," "represent the two
types which run through the entire history of the clavier. Byrd was the
more intimate, delicate, spiritual intellect; Bull the untamed genius,
the brilliant executant, the less exquisitely refined artist. It is
significant that these two types stand together on the threshold of
clavier art." Bull had gained his degree at Oxford, the founding of
whose chair of music is popularly attributed to Alfred the Great.
As early as the year 1400 claviers had appeared whose strings were
plucked by quills attached to jacks at the end of the key levers. To
this group belonged the virginal, or virginals, the clavicembalo, the
harpsichord, or clavecin, and the spinet.
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