ABSTRACT
Although virginals were the predominant form of jack-action instrument during the time of the virginalists, when ‘virginal’ was a generic English term for jack-action instruments, harpsichords were also present. Some of these were imported, but their short-octave compasses were problematic for English composers, who often wrote for the chromatic basses of the native-made instruments. English harpsichords were generally similar in design and construction to those of the pre-Ruckers northern European schools. Their pitches evidently conformed to the system of ‘quire’ pitch, about 480 Hz, and its common transpositions, e.g., a fourth above or fifth below. Harpsichords became increasingly common by the 1610s or so, presumably because of their increased use in accompaniment.
