virginal

In 2018, the Musical Instrument Fund received this exceptionally beautiful instrument as a gift from a private individual in Amsterdam. The donor (who sadly passed away in 2019) was a great enthusiast of historical keyboard instruments and a gifted amateur player himself. Over the course of his life, he had assembled a collection that included several clavichords, a harpsichord, and a virginal. The Musical Instrument Fund was given permission by the owner to try out all the instruments, and if any of them were likely to be of interest to our target audience, he would consider donating the instrument—or instruments—to our foundation. The Musical Instrument Fund consulted an expert, and it quickly became clear that the virginal built by Willem Kroesbergen in 1971 would be a wonderful addition to the Musical Instrument Fund’s collection.

In consultation with the donor, it was decided that the Kroesbergen virginal would be best suited for the keyboard department at the Amsterdam Conservatory. There, the instrument would be accessible to all keyboard students in the program who wished to delve deeper into the performance of early music on instruments from the period in which that music was written. Kroesbergen built this virginal based on a model by Ruckers. The Ruckers family played a crucial role in the development of keyboard instruments during the 16th and 17th centuries. The family was based in Antwerp. Their instruments set the standard, and their models are still used today as the primary references for building historical replicas.

This virginal by Kroesbergen was used, among others, by Ton Koopman during the 1974 recordings of works by Sweelinck, Frescobaldi, Rossi, and Scarlatti. On those recordings, Koopman plays various replicas of historical keyboard instruments. All instruments used during the recordings were crafted by Kroesbergen. Koopman also had Kroesbergen present during the recordings to ensure the instruments were always in optimal playing condition and would thus sound their best.

The virginal can be heard here, played by Menno van Delft of the Netherlands Bach Society, in a work by J.S. Bach, performed at the Mauritshuis in The Hague.