Clavichord...

Anyone here compose for or play the clavichord? I've been rather obsessed with this instrument recently, especially because of Keith Jarrett's "Book of Ways" album, where he improvises I think 17 or 18 short clavichord pieces in varying idioms.

My first-hand experience with clavichords is existent but minimal. A college that I studied at for a number of weeks had a room containing a completely unplayable early-18th-century (IIRC) Swedish square piano and two clavichords, one of which was playable. During my time there, I spent a grand total of perhaps a couple of hours at that clavichord, playing around. The biggest impression of it was how extraordinarily sensitive it was to control of touch in dimensions you wouldn't think possible. Certain fingers of mine would tend to cause this ugly tone with a very sharp attack, then very sharply decaying. Hardly singing. The same fingers on my other hand didn't, nor did some other fingers, even when I played the exact same notes and tried to imitate the touch precisely. When I tried to replicate these successful notes with the problem fingers: failure. I never really figured out what exactly, from a purely physical or acoustic point of view, was wrong with my touch, or how it influenced the excitation of the string... it's still a bit of a mystery to me. And obviously I never learnt to control it. Of course, we're talking about a very brief amount of time here, but at least it was obvious how mercilessly revealing the clavichord is to every minute flaw of touch. Far moreso than the organ or harpsichord, or even the piano (although I might be saying that just because I am a piano).