Luogo e data di registrazione		Schloß Bad Krozingen, Baden-Württemberg (Germania) - 1979
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Paul Dery
	Edizione LP		TELEFUNKEN - 6.42074 AP - (1 LP - durata 53' 33") - (p) 1979 - Analogico
	Originale LP		TOCCATA - FSM 53 641 - (1 LP - durata 50' 33") - (p) 1979 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		FSM Adagio - FCD 91 641 - (1 CD - durata 50' 33") - (c) 1990 - ADD
	Note		Produced by Toccata

The virginal is a rectangular, or sometimes polygonal, form of the harpsichord in which there is a single set of strings running nearly parallel to the front of the case. The earliest description of the harpsichord by Henricus Arnaut de Zwolle (circa 1440) mentions the possibility of the rectangular form and the term "virginale" is used a few years later by Paulus Paulirinus de Praga (circa 1460), who likens its tone to the sweet voice of a virgin. The word, however, may actually stem from the latin "virga" (stick), referring to the jack-action. The Italian word fo the instrument "spinetta", may similary have been derived from the Latin "spina" (thorn), referring to the pointed piece of quill which plucks the strings. Virginals were made in large numbers throughout Europe until about 1675 and there survive excellent examples from Italy, England, Germany, and the Low Countries. A high point was reached in the instruments made in Antwerp from about 1550 to 1650, most notably those made by the several menbers of the Ruckers family. The sophisticated design, craftmanship, and decoration of their virginals demonstrates that these were not regarded merely as less expensive substitutes for the wing-shaped harpsichord. After about 1580 Flemish virginals were made in two basic configurations: the spinet with its sharp, bright tone, in which the keyboard was placed to the left and the muselar in which the keyboard was placed to the right so that the strings were plucked near their centers, resulting in a rich, hollow tone quite unlike any that could be produced by the harpsichord. The spinet-type was similar to the virginals of other countries, but the muselar was uniquely Flemish. Muselars generally had a stop which, when engaged, would cause the bass strings to buzz and rattle. The Renaissance love of varied tone-color was further indulged in the double virginal, also called the "mother and child", in which a small virginal at octave pitch, the child, was stored like a drawer in a large virginal, the mother, which could be either spinet or muselar. The two instruments could be played separately or the child could be placed upon the mother in such a way that the two instruments were coupled. The result was a two-manual instrument with 8' plus 4' on the lower manual and 4' on the upper, so that the two keyboards could be used for the rapid alternation or simultaneous use of contrasting tone-colors. This was not possible on the contemporary two-manual harpsichords, whose keyboards were a fourth apart in pitch and which were constructed so that the stops of one keyboard had to be disengaged before those of the other keyboard could be used. Although double virginals were particularly common in the Low Countries, from which come all fourteen surviving historical examples, the instrument was known throughout Europe and one by Hans Ruckers was even sent to Peru. Thus the instrument here recorded, a close copy of a double virginal with a muselar-type mother after Hans Ruckers, Antwerp, 1591, is appropriate not only to the works of the Dutchman Sweelinck and John Bull, who spent his last years in Antwerp, but also to those of the former's German pupil Samuel Scheidt and the Englishmen Thomas Morley and Orlando Gibbons. John Koster