Long before keyboards were used to help humans interact with electronic devices, they were being used to harness the power of wind and strings to create sound. So effective was this way of making music, and so long was its history and development, that some of the arguably greatest works ever to be composed were conceived for (or upon) keyboard instruments. Nowadays, the magnificence of the post-1600 canonic works—such as Bach’s Preludes and Fugues, Beethoven’s Sonatas, or Chopin’s Preludes—tend to overshadow what comes before, but there was a rich history of repertoire and wide range of instruments predating what we are familiar with today. In this programme, Corina Marti explores a wealth of early European keyboard music and provides a magical glimpse into a highly virtuosic world, playing upon a metal-strung medieval clavisimbalum and an early Baroque Italian harpsichord inspired by the 17th century.

Corina Marti, harpsichord and clavisimbalum