PERUVIAN CLAVICHORDS

P.1. PERU: Lima, Museo Nacional de la Cultura Peruana, No. 65/28

Photo: Alejandro Rodríguez

Type 3
Source of information: Alfons Huber & Ana Savarain de Graf: ‘A Clavichord from Peru in the Period of the
Imperial Vice-Royalty’ in De Clavicordio IV, Magnano 2000; Alejandro Rodríguez, personal communication, with photo.
Anon., 19C?
C/E–c³. Multiple fretted. Scale c²=197 mm (as reconstructed by Alfons Huber).
Compartments to left and right of keys. Light naturals (beech), dark sharps.
Keylevers normally cranked.
No. of bridges: 3, straight and perpendicular to long sides. No. of hold-downs: 2.
No front-board, and probably never was one.
Dimensions: 1080 × 330 × 111 mm (approx.). Undecorated.
Hitch-pins in zig-zag pattern.
A drawing of this instrument is available from Alfons Huber.

 

P.2. BELGIUM: Brussels, Musée des Instruments de Musique, MIM 3385

Photo: Peter Bavington

Type 3
Sources of information: Beryl Kenyon de Pascual, unpublished talk, see M.1; Jean Tournay, unpublished catalogue
of the keyboard instruments in the collection; handwritten inventory kept at the museum; Peter Bavington: report on an examination of the instrument, with photos, 2 August 2004.
Anon., 19C or 20C; given to the museum by Andrés Orchassal Sas 1928 or 1929.
C/E–f³. Multiple fretted. Scale c²=255 mm.
Compartments to left and right of keys. Light naturals (yellow hardwood), dark stained sharps. Keylevers normally cranked.
No. of bridges: 3, straight and perpendicular to long sides. No. of hold-downs: 2.
No front-board, and probably never was one.
Dimensions: 1080 × 315 × 110. Undecorated.
Hitch-pins in zig-zag pattern (see photo below).

Photo: Peter Bavington

 

P.3. PERU: Punchao, Huanuco province

Photo: Alejandro Rodríguez

Type 3
Source of information: Alejandro Rodríguez, personal communications and photo.
Unsigned, 18C?, possibly made by Lorenzo Ycho, the builder of the organ in the colonial village church of Punchao.
42 notes, probably C/E–a². Fretted: from examination of the rack in the photo, the fretting seems to start e–f–f# / g–g#–a / b♭–b–c¹–c#¹ / d–e♭–e ;
thereafter the fretting is difficult to deduce from the rack. 49 tuning pins.
Compartments to left and right of keys. Only one key (C/E) remains, light-coloured covering, curved surface in front of two scribed lines.
Dimensions 1049 × 353 × 131 mm. Undecorated.
Bottom board of cedro, elsewhere alder.
High-level ‘floating’ hitch-pin rail to the left, apparently bearing hitch-pins for 63 strings: too many for the number
of tuning pins. Possibly some kind of subsequent modification?

 

P.4. PERU: Cuzco, private ownership.

Photo: Enrique Pilco Paz

Type 3
Sources of information: Norberto Broggini (private communication, September 2009); Enrique Pilco Paz: ‘Maestros
de capilla, mestizaje musical y catolicismo en los andes del sur’ in Revista Andina No. 40 (2005); also a similar article in Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos which
can be read on-line, and private communications (November 2009).
A pencil inscription on the instrument reads:
F.V/ Ub. 6°–1°–1915
C/E–f³. White naturals (bone?), dark-coloured sharps. Probably multiple-fretted from note e
Bridges are missing, but there are two hold-downs attached to the soundboard.
Compartments to left and right of keys. Unlike the other Peruvian clavichords, this instrument has a front-board.
Dimensions approx. 1000 × 350 × 100 mm. Undecorated.
Hitch-pins in zig-zag pattern.
The instrument was the property of Manuel Pillco Cuba (1903–1992), harpist and pyrotechnicist from Cuzco.