Claviharp

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Claviharp" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The claviharp, also known as the harp piano, xenorphica, or Keyboard Harp, is a 19th-century musical instrument that combined a harp with a keyboard. Despite mentions of this instrument in previous centuries (see Juan Hidalgo^[1]), Johann Christian Dietz has been recognized as the inventor of the instrument in 1813.^[2] His grandfather was one of the first upright piano manufacturers. Struck by what he saw as difficulties and defects of the harp, in 1810, he built an instrument à cordes pincées à clavier, which connected a keyboard to the harp strings.

He made the instrument to address limitations of the harp—susceptibility of catgut strings to atmospheric change, inconsistency of sound as finger motion varies, limited diatonic scale (without pedals), and lack of dampers. The claviharp's keyboard plucked the strings (as a harpsichord) rather than strike them (as a piano). It was essentially a 6 Octave Upright Tenor Harpsichord that uses Special Strings to emulate the sound of a Harp.