A harpsichord that entertained the elites of Italy in the mid-1500s has been restored by a South Dakota museum and will soon bring its sound to 21st-century ears. The National Music Museum in Vermilion, which acquired the instrument in 2009, worked with Chilean-born musician Catalina Vicens, who specializes in historical keyboards and percussion instruments, to produce the harpsichord's first full-length recording.

The crowd-funded project resulted in a 20-track disc of compositions that Vicens says would have been performed in Naples when the instrument was in its youth. "It's kind of magical because it is an extraordinarily old instrument, and the restoration that was needed was not extreme, so we can see the instrument's stage is very close to the stage it was 500 years ago," says Vicens, who lives in Switzerland and spearheaded the effort.

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Source: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/