Instruments:
Italian virginal (c. 1580, anonymous), two different instruments built in 2000 and 2001
one register 8´, range HH – e´´´
(W. Byrd, G. Farnaby – both virginals: mean-tone temperament)
German singl-manual harpsichord (c. 1715, anonym, Thüringen), built in 1987 as opus 1
(original – Bach´s birth house, Eisenach)
two registers 8´, lute, range HH – d´´´
(G. Frescobaldi – mean-tone temperament, J.S. Bach: Chorals – Valotti temperament)
Italian singl-manual harpsichord (c. 1681, Giovanni Battista Giusti, Lucca), built in 2004
(original – Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Norimberg)
two registers 8´, range C – d´´´
(G. Frescobaldi – mean-tone temperament, G.F. Händel – Valotti temperament)
Flemish double-manual harpsichord (1624, Johannes Ruckers), built in 1993
(original – Musée d´unterlinden, Colmar)
three registers 8´, 4´, 8´, lute, range GG – e´´´
(J.S. Bach: Double-concerto – Valotti temperament, J.A. Štěpán – Valotti temperament)
Flemish double-manual harpsichord (1640, Andreas Ruckers), built in 1995
(original – AR 1640, Hôtel de Croix, Namur)
three registers 8´, 4´, 8´, lute, range GG – d´´´
(J.P. Sweelinck – mean-tone temperament, J.S. Bach: Double-concerto – Valotti temperament,
J.S. Bach: Preludium & Fuga, Toccata – Bach-Barnes temperament)
French double-manual harpsichord (1769, Pascal Taskin), built in 1998
(original – Raymond Russell Collection, Edinburgh)
three registers 8´, 4´, 8´, lute, range FF – f´´´
(L. Couperin – Valotti temperament)
The workshop of František Vyhnálek celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year, 2007. The initial direct impulse for Vyhnálek’s interest in building harpsichords was an order from Pavel Klikar, head of the Musica Antiqua Praha ensemble, who needed an instrument for his concerts of Baroque music. That was the “prehistoric” period of harpsichord building in Hovorčovice (a village just a bit northeast of Prague), when Jiří Vykoukal and Petr Šefl were Vyhnálek’s partners. Together they built several instruments in the 1980s, using kits purchased aboard.
The single-manual “Eisenach” model, built by Vyhnálek in 1987 after returning from a study-stay with the master harpsichord-maker Jürgen Ammer in Leipzig, was his first real instrument, built without kits. It was not easy to establish a workshop in the “real-existing Socialism” of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It was difficult to buy the proper wood, tools, anything, in fact, that was required when building harpsichords. Fortunately, the situation changed after the collapse of Communist rule in the autumn of 1989. Interest in Vyhnálek’s instruments, both in Bohemia and especially abroad, surpassed all expectations. Today harpsichords from the Vyhnálek workshop in Hovorčovice can be found, for example, in Prague, Brno, Olomouc, Ostrava, Pilsen, Bratislava, Vienna, Budapest, Vilnius, Paris, Würzburg, Cleveland, Boston, Malmö, and Kyoto. They are owned by conservatories and universities, professional harpsichordists and serious amateurs. Many of the world’s top performers, including Zuzana Růžičková, Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman, Jacques Ogg, and Johann Sonnleitner, have given concerts on Vyhnálek harpsichords at the Prague Spring Festival.
From 1987 to 2007 Vyhnálek’s workshop in Hovorčovice built a total of 120 instruments, almost half of which are double-manual. They include copies of French, Flemish, Italian, and German instruments, as well as English and Italian-style virginals, several French spinets, and a pentagonal Italian spinet. In recent years Vyhnálek has worked with the skilled instrument builders Pavel Jouza, Filip Dvořák, and his own son, Martin. František Vyhnálek is also involved in the restoration of historic harpsichords, clavichords, and fortepianos.
For this recording, harpsichords have been chosen that would best represent both the diversity of kinds and the full range of sounds of instruments produced by the Hovorčovice workshop. The compositions have been arranged in a sequence of contrasting musical forms, moving through musical centres of Europe, from Elizabethan England to eighteenth-century Vienna. The second disc of this double CD is dedicated to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The workshop of František Vyhnálek celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year, 2007. The initial direct impulse for Vyhnálek’s interest in building harpsichords was an order from Pavel Klikar, head of the Musica Antiqua Praha ensemble, who needed an instrument for his concerts of Baroque music. That was the “prehistoric” period of harpsichord building in Hovorčovice (a village just a bit northeast of Prague), when Jiří Vykoukal and Petr Šefl were Vyhnálek’s partners. Together they built several instruments in the 1980s, using kits purchased aboard. 
