I love 16' harpsichords. I have made 17 harpsichords with 16' stops, some of them being pedal harpsichords and the rest being manual instruments. This particular 16' harpsichord, which still needs to be decorated on the outside, is otherwise completely finished from a musical point of view. I love playing it. It is my favorite harpsichord of all that I have made. Click here for this earlier Sound Sample...before I got my recording studio Click here to compare the sound of the instrument using my new recording equipment.

This particular instrument is equipped with two manuals, an FF-f''' compass, 2 x Buff stops with handstops in the keywell(one on the 16' and the other on the upper 8'), Ebony naturals, bone topped sharps, boxwood arcades, hand stops for the lower 8', 4', and the 16' registers, wooden jacks, delrin plectra, leather covered registers, Double Frame Platform Stand with 8 turned and carved legs, 18th century style music desk, and a full soundboard painting in the 18th century German style. Click here for another older Sound Sample

My current plans for decorating this instrument involve using a style of decoration which I have yet to see on a harpsichord, one which befits the grandeur and magnificence of the tone of this instrument. I am currently researching this style and will post photos of the decoration in progress as soon as I am finished with my research and have started the decoration. I make no promises about when that will happen.

Meanwhile, here are a bunch of very recent sound samples made using this instrument, which give a better imagination of how the whole instrument works musically, at least on recording. It is hard to capture the grandeur of this instrument on recording...because the recording can't match the presence and volume of the instrument without blowing out your sound system's speakers. Yet, the recordings do actually capture the sweetness and glowing nature of the sound. One normally doesn't think of a really powerful sound as having a sweet glowing quality, but this instrument actually sounds this way. When playing on the 8' stops alone, both the 4' and the 16' are undamped giving an "amore effect" (sympathetic vibrating strings...as in viola d'amore) Click here for a new Sound Sample of the lower manual 8'. Click here for a new Sound Sample of the upper manual 8' Click here for this Sound Sample of the rear 8' against the forward 8'. Click here for a Sound Sample of two 8' registers together on this harpsichord Click here to listen to the 8', 8' + 4' ensemble Click here to hear the full plenum again I wish to thank Elizabeth Farr and Eckhart Kuper (Goldbergs) for making these recordings available on this page.