Vir′gi-nal.
（Music.) An instrument consisting of a number of strings stretched in a frame like that of a harp, and played by means of hammers and keys. It was one of the precursors of the piano-forte, and was well known to the musical profession and the cultivated classes of society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; how much earlier we do not know. See n, Plate XL. A book of exercises for the virginal, written for Queen Elizabeth, is still extant. The pit-a-pat motion of the fingers, so different to the clawing action of the hands in playing upon the harp, gave occasion to Shakespeare to compare to it the love-taps of his heroine, —
Still virginatingThis man, whom nothing escaped, made words as he wanted them. A century later Gabriel Platte describes a dibbling-machine as formed of iron pins.
Upon his palm.
Made to play up and down like virginal jacks.After many essays and various changes in movement and application, after the virgina's, manichords, clavichords, harpsichords, and spinets had their day, the piano came forth, “beyond all question the first of musical instruments.” — Thalberg. The “virginall” and printed “virginall-book” are several times mentioned by Pepys, 1660-63.
Took Aldgate Street on my way, and there called upon one Hayward that makes Virginalls, and there did like of a little espinettes [spinet] and will have him finish them for me; for I had a mind to a small harpsichon, but this takes up less room. — Pepys's Diary, 1668.It is commonly said that “the idea of making the hammer of the harpsichord strike the string instead of pulling it gave rise to the piano-force.” The substitution of the hammer for the plectrum was, however, made in the virginal a century before the introduction of the harpsichord. The clavichord was also a well-known instrument and operated by keys and wires, which acted as hammers. The virginal had a padded hammer, consisting of a leather button on the top of the hammer-wire. With the exception that the harpsichord had two strings and the virginal but one, it is easier to see the original of the piano-forte in the virginal than in the harpsichord, in construction as well as date. These instruments, with hammers and quills in various forms and combinations having been in use for nearly three centuries at the time the piano-forte was introduced, it is hardly worth while to give credit to any particular person at that late date for the invention of an instrument in which the strings of a prostrate harp were struck by hammers. The improvements on that well known device were, however. great, and the piano may be sail to date from that of B. Christofori of Florence, 1711. See A, Fig. 3686, and accompanying description, page 1691.
