On the trail of Olga Nethersole's Harpsichord

2025-07-20 by Peter Bavington

While I was attempting last year to revise and update the BMO records of the instruments at Fenton House, London, I came across an anomaly: a harpsichord (BMO-1688) that was recorded as being at the House, but is certainly not there now. According to the record—taken over from Boalch 3—it was a single-manual Ruckers harpsichord, acquired by Roger Warner of Burford for only four pounds in June 1952 at the sale of the effects of Olga Mothersole [sic], a ‘Victorian music-hall artiste’.

Of course, there is a Ruckers harpsichord at Fenton House: BMO-1628, a splendid double-manual instrument of 1612; but the history of that one is well established: it is on loan from the UK Royal Collection, and has long belonged to the Royal family. This, if it existed, would be a different Ruckers.

The BMO-1688 record included the comment: ‘Further information is required’. Taking up this implied challenge, I set about trying to trace the mystery Ruckers. My first line of attack was to identify the earlier owner. It soon became clear that her name was Olga Nethersole: she was a famous actress in her day, a contemporary of Sarah Bernhardt and Henry Irving.

Mistress of her own company, producer and set designer as well as lead actress, she undertook eleven extensive tours in the USA between 1894 and 1914, travelling from town to town in her own railway coach. Wherever she went, she made an impact. In 1900, her production of Sapho by Clyde Fitch was closed down by the police for allegedly outraging public morals: fortunately, in the subsequent trial Olga was found not guilty, and the result was, of course, that the play reopened to even bigger audiences than before.

As a result of this and other successes, Olga became hugely wealthy. Why she owned a harpsichord is unclear. I can find no reference to her having any particular interest in music, or to her singing or playing an instrument on or off the stage. However, like most middle-class girls at the time, she had probably been taught to play the piano. Moreover, she was a close contemporary of Arnold Dolmetsch and may have known about his work, particularly as Arnold himself was active in the London theatre in the 1890s and provided on-stage music for some plays. Some of her later USA tours took place at the time when Dolmetsch was making harpsichords and clavichords in Boston at Chickering & Sons.

Having established the identity of the former owner of the mystery harpsichord, I turned my attention to the informant, Roger Warner, who claimed to have bought it at the auction of Olga Nethersole’s effects in 1952 for only four pounds. He was, for some 50 years, an antique dealer, based in Burford, some 18 miles west of Oxford. Among his customers were members of the Royal family and national museums; he became known to a wider public when he appeared on television in the 1960s in programmes about antique furniture.

Warner’s archive has been deposited at Leeds University, so I went to look at it. Unfortunately much of the archive is closed to researchers, but from the rest I established that he had indeed been present at the estate sale, and bought a ‘green painted case Harpsicord [sic]’—not described as a Ruckers—which was said to be ‘now at Fenton House’. This was presumably the mystery harpsichord.

Warner wrote a memoir of his time in the antiques trade, which was published in 2003 by the Regional Furniture Society as Vol. 17 (2003) of the Society’s Journal Regional Furniture, available online. In it, Warner described the acquisition of the harpsichord:

The painted case harpsichord, wanted by no-one, I was able to buy at a cost of a mere four pounds (although it was made by the firm of Ruckers of Amsterdam). On my return to Burford, I sold it to Legge of Cirencester […] He paid me seventy five pounds for it, and managed to get it back into something like its original state, as, over the years, the keyboard had been increased in size by almost a third […] This can now be seen at Fenton House Musical Museum in Hampstead.

It is clear that Warner compiled this memoir in his old age after closing his shop and retiring. He seems to be writing from memory, and he is far from precise in details: for example, placing the Ruckers family in Amsterdam instead of Antwerp is an obvious howler. Nonetheless, the tremendous coup he performed by buying the harpsichord for four pounds and selling it for seventy-five may have helped it to stick in his memory.

He describes an instrument that had had its compass enlarged—something frequently done to Ruckers harpsichords in the eighteenth century. Legg had apparently reversed this enlargement, restoring something like the original compass. Unfortunately attempts to contact E. C. Legg and Son met with no reply. But here BMO came to my aid: a search for ‘Legg’ threw up records for some of the many instruments that they had worked on. One, in particular, caught my attention: BMO-301, a 1645 single-manual harpsichord by Ioannes Couchet, now in the Edinburgh University collection.

This had undergone an enlargement in the eighteenth century, and was reduced to its present compass around 1955: exactly what Roger Warner reported had happened to Miss Nethersole’s Ruckers. Like that instrument, it has a green painted exterior. Legg and Son sold it in the 1950s to Raymond Russell, and it had been given after his death to Edinburgh University, along with other instruments from his collection.

Could this be Miss Nethersole’s harpsichord? True, it was not strictly speaking a Ruckers, but Ioannes Couchet was the grandson of Hans Ruckers and could perhaps be considered part of the Ruckers family firm. But had this harpsichord ever been on show at Fenton House, as Roger Warner claimed? I was aware of the possibility that from time to time instruments had been loaned and exhibited alongside the permanent collection there. Raymond Russell in the 1950s was well known as an expert on historical keyboard instruments, and he had connections with Fenton House, having compiled the first catalogue of the keyboard instruments there. Could he have loaned this Couchet harpsichord to the House?

To try and establish the truth, I visited Fenton House in October last year and examined the relevant documents from the 1950s. I did not find any evidence that BMO-301 had ever been on display there. But Raymond Russell did loan a harpsichord to the house, in 1956–7. It was BMO-175, a French instrument, made by Nicolas and François-Étienne Blanchet in 1730. A postcard issued at the time (image on left) shows the instrument in one of the attic rooms.

Could it be that Roger Warner, knowing that Raymond Russell had bought the Nethersole harpsichord from Legg and Son, and hearing that Russell had lent a harpsichord to Fenton House, simply assumed that the two instruments were one and the same? As we have seen, he was not always very precise about detail.

At any rate, that’s the best explanation I can think of for Miss Nethersole’s alleged Ruckers harpsichord – for now!

This blog is based on an illustrated talk given at a meeting of Friends of Square Pianos, Chelveston, Northamptonshire, UK on 26 April 2025.

Thon's 1817 list of 100 Makers

a gradual process of identification

2025-06-22 by Lance Whitehead

Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Thon (1773–1844) was born in the town of Kaltennordheim, Thuringia, on 3 November 1773. He attended Hennebergisches Gymnasium in Schleusingen and subsequently the University of Jena, before starting work as a revenue officer. As a result of some financial irregularities, Thon lost his job and from c1816 onwards devoted his career to writing books on various subjects: wine production, decorative painting and gilding, bookbinding, riding, and cattle breeding. His volume Ueber Klavierinstrumente, first published in 1817, is important for early keyboard studies since it helps confirm the continued use of the clavichord in Europe during the early nineteenth century, and provides a skeletal list of over 100 keyboard instrument makers of German, Austrian and Bohemian heritage. All were included in the third edition of Boalch, edited by Charles Mould. Thon's complete list is posted in the BMO Appendix.

Firstly, it should be stressed that Thon’s list of makers is heavily biased and the rationale for inclusion in the text remains uncertain. The list includes only male instrument makers from one, albeit large, area of Europe, and although the hometown of each maker is given, there appear to be some typographical errors or irregular spellings and only the family name is recorded. Moreover, some important makers such as the Egedachers are absent, while the inclusion of multiple Viennese makers – including those listed by Thon as Bertsche, Brodman, Dohnal, Katholnig and Schanz – is a reminder that piano makers feature heavily in the register.

The identification process is on-going, but some makers have been identified from biographical entries in both E.L. Gerber’s two-volume Historisch-biographisches Lexicon der Tonkünstler (1790–92) and J.G. Dlabacž’s three-volume Allgemeines-Historisches Künstlerlexicon für Böhmen (1815). Most of the lesser-known makers have been identified from extensive searches of parish registers, published online by matricula-online.eu, and familysearch.org. Only a subset of parishes has indexed their registers of births, deaths and marriages. Here are some of my findings.

Thons’s ‘Holzheu, in Ottobeuern und Kaufbeuern’ probably refers to Johann Nepomuk Holzhey (1741–1809) of Ottobeuren; ‘Heidenreich, in Hof’ is likely to be one Friedrich Heidenreich (1741–1819); and ‘Gehrhard, in Lindig bei Kahla’ probably refers to Christian August Gerhard (1745–1817). Also, ‘Schott, in Bamberg’ could be Johann Michael Schott the younger (fl.1769–1804), who was buried in the church of Unsere Liebe Frau, Bamberg, on 23 February 1804.

Christian August Gerhard and Michael Schott the younger were both second generation organ builders and several of the other names in Ueber Klavierinstrumente refer to a family or dynasty of instrument makers. Thus, the listing of ‘Blersch, in Straubingen’ might refer to either Johann Peter Plersch (1729–1791) or Johann Alois Plersch (c1765–1817), uncle and nephew, both of whom were organ builders in the town of Straubing. ‘Errlich, in Mergentheim’ might refer to Johann Adam Ehrlich (1703–1784) of Wachbach, a satellite town of Bad Mergentheim, or to his son Johann Anton Ehrlich (1742–1824), who was based in the town of Bad Mergentheim itself. ‘Stumm, auf dem Hundsrück’ must refer to the organ building dynasty founded by Johann Michael Stumm (1683–1747) of Sulzbach. The town, some 15km west of Frankfurt am Main, is in the mountainous Hünsrück region of Rhineland-Palatinate.

In addition to Schott, Thon records the names of two other makers active in the town of Bamberg: ‘Hansin’ (identified as Karl Justus Hansen) and ‘Ehrlich’ (identified as Christoph Ehrlich). Hansen’s ancestry and training remain unknown, although in his book Die Bamberger Hof-Musik unter den drei letzten Fürstbischöfen (1885, p.36), Marschalk von Ostheim gives his birthplace as Göttingen, so it is possible Hansen was related to the organ builders Johann Tobias Hansen and Johann Justus Hansen (father and son), whose workshop was situated in Angerstein, a satellite town of Göttingen. We do know that Hansen was appointed Hoforgelbauer in Bamberg on 22 December 1790, and married Maria Elisabeth Krämer in Martinskirche there on 14 February 1791. He died in Bamberg on 19 June 1841 and was buried in the Cathedral of St Peter and St George two days later.

Slightly more is known about Christoph Ehrlich (1781–1830), who was active in Bamberg from c1805 onwards. His workshop produced various instrument types, including giraffe pianos and guitars, and there are some extant examples. The son of the organ builder Johann Bernhard Ehrlich, Christoph was born in Waldenburg, in the Hohenlohe district of Baden-Württemberg, on 22 April 1781, and probably received his initial training in his father’s workshop. Moreover, in his study ‘Der Instrumentenmacher Christoph Ehrlich (1781–1830): Beschreibung und Analyse von zwei Gitarren aus dem Historischen Museum Bamberg’ (2003/4), Thomas Ochs reports that after seeing military service during the Napoleonic Wards, Ehrlich moved to Bamberg, where he worked successively for two organ builders: Hansen (perhaps Karl Justus Hansen) and Achatius Diemer. Ehrlich subsequently married Diemer’s widow and established his own workshop on the Oberer Stephansberg in Bamberg.

It should also be stressed that some of the identifications remain uncertain. Does Thon’s listing of ‘Hesse, in Ochsenhausen’ refer to the organ builder Joseph Höß (1745–1797), who had his workshop in the town? Might Thon’s ‘Rommel, in Linz’ refer to Johann Caspar Rommel (1721–1800), who was based not in Linz but in the town of Roßdorf, Thuringia? Perhaps more likely is the organ builder Nikolaus Rummel (c1708–1794), whose premises were indeed in the town of Linz.

Further archival work is necessary to identify other makers in Thon’s list and to determine whether any of their workshops produced clavichords. Some of the ‘new’ names might in the future assist in the attribution of an instrument, which has only a partial inscription or where the maker’s label has been lost. It also requires additional work to determine which of these ‘new’ makers produced harpsichords or clavichords. However, in her study ‘Johann Adam Ehrlich (1703–1784) und Sohn Johann Anton Ehrlich (1742–1824): zwei kunsterfahrene Orgel- und Instrumentenmacher’ (1995, pp.181–221) Rosemarie Volz reports that an inscription on an organ he built for the Stadtkirche in Neuenstadt am Kocher (1741) reads ‘1741 ist dies Orgelwerk von mir, Johann Adam Ehrlich, Orgel- und Instrumentenmacher in Wachbach verfertiget worden’, so it is possible that we have at least one more potential stringed keyboard instrument maker.

Images of harpsichord makers

coins, paintings and caricatures

2025-05-21 by Lance Whitehead

By assessing their surviving instruments, reading a copy of their wills and examining population surveys in which they are listed, we can build up a mental image of what a harpsichord maker’s life might have been like. Insurance records and architect’s drawings can add complimentary evidence, while the Proceedings of the Old Bailey remind us that instrument makers were victims of crime, suffered financial hardship and sometimes fell down drunk in the street. Moreover, there are actual images of a handful of historical makers, including mezzotint engravings of John Broadwood and Frederick Collard, two pen and ink drawings of Giuseppe Mondini, oil paintings of Jonas Gren, Thomas Haxby and Thomas Ferdinand Weber, a family portrait of Burkat Shudi, and two Renaissance coins showing Michael Mercator.

There exist at least two commemorative coins showing the Dutch organ builder, harpsichord maker and diplomat Michael Mercator (1491–1544): one executed in silver (British Museum, inv. no.M.6793), and one executed in lead (National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession no.1957.14.1305.a). Both coins are inscribed on the reverse ‘MICHAEL . MERCATOR . ÆTATIS SVÆ XLVIII . GRATIA . DEO ET REGI . M.D.XXXIX.’ (Michael Mercator at the age of 48. Thanks be to God and the King. 1539.), but while the lead coin shows Mercator in profile, the silver coin portrays him in three-quarter profile. Mercator was virginal maker to Floris van Egmont (c1470–1539), and in 1526 a member of Henry VIII’s musical establishment. Moreover, between 1529 and 1532, we know that he made virginals for Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey. Mercator also served as a diplomat in the service of Henry VIII, and when the King bestowed a knighthood upon him, a special coin was struck in his honour.

We also have two full-length pen and ink caricatures of the harpsichord maker and cleric Giuseppe Mondini (1658–1718) by Pier Leone Ghezzi, in which he is shown wearing a pileolus or skull cap: Vatican Library reference Ott.lat.3113, f.78r (possibly a preliminary sketch); and Ott.lat.3112, f.53r. Importantly, Mondini’s name and occupation are inscribed on both drawings. Sometimes referred to as the Prete da Imola, Mondini resided at the presbytery of Sant’Agnese on the Piazza Navona in Rome, the private chapel of the Pamphilj family. Moreover, Patrizio Barbieri has found archival evidence that Bernardo Gaffi (a pupil of Pasquini) and Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni both owned instruments by Mondini, while a harpsichord by Mondini is recorded as being in the Pamphilj Palace in 1709, and the 1700 inventory of the Medici musical instrument collection includes no less than three instruments by him: two harpsichords dated 1687 and 1688, together with an undated spinet. 

To date, virtually nothing has unearthed about the virginal maker Paul Wissmayer. However, he may be depicted in an early seventeenth-century virginal lid painting preserved at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (BMO-2247). The lid painting, dated 1619, has been attributed to the Flemish artist Friedrich von Falckenburg (1556–1623), and probably represents a gathering of a Nuremberg musical society or Krenzleinsgesellschaft at Thumenberg Palace. Susan Gattuso has identified several of the figures, including von Falckenburg (holding a palette), Johann Staden (playing the claviorgan), and Lucas Friedrich Behain (playing the bass viol). It seems likely that the two instrument makers responsible both for the instruments depicted in the lid painting and for the instrument to which the lid belonged (now lost), are also shown and identifiable by their attributes: the organ builder Stephen Cuntz (an organ pipe), and Paul Wissmayer (a tuning hammer). Whether the image is a true reflection of early seventeenth-century performance practice is, however, open for debate.

In contrast, we know quite a lot about the musical instrument maker Thomas Haxby (1729–1796), who spent his entire life in the city of York. In addition to making harpsichords, pianos and guittars, for example, he was Parish Clerk for St Michael-le-Belfry, and a ‘singing man’ in York Minster, where he also tuned the organ. In addition, two insurance policies (dated 1764 and 1771) show that while Haxby’s workshop was initially situated above his living space in Blake Street, by the early 1770s his premises had expanded to include a warehouse plus a separate workshop, which then adjoined his place of abode. Moreover, the knot of buildings occupied by Haxby survive and have been surveyed. According to the York Historic Environment Building record MYO1843 (available online), Haxby built a row of three four-storey houses (15–21 Blake Street, odd numbers) in the early 1770s, the rainwater heads being dated 1773 and initialled TH. There is also an outbuilding, dated 1766 and again initialled TH on a rainwater head, which may have been the warehouse referred to in Haxby’s insurance policy.

The portrait of Thomas Haxby, probably dating from the 1780s or 1790s, provides yet another facet of this well-documented life, and has a handwritten note on the reverse, which reads ‘ This picture of the late Mr. Thos. Haxby was determined by him to remain in the possession of Ann Worrill during her life and at her death to be given to Mr. Thos. Tomlinson nephew of the said Mr. Thos. Haxby.’ We know that following Haxby’s death his instrument-making business passed to his nephew and brother-in-law Thomas and Edward Tomlinson. The identity of Ann Worrill, who signed and dated the inscription 17 October [18]17, requires further investigation, but she may have been Haxby’s housekeeper.

Estimating workshop size 

with evidence from a few keyboard instrument makers

2025-04-22 by Lance Whitehead

In general, it is very difficult to ascertain the size of a keyboard instrument maker’s business in terms of workhands employed in their workshop. The distinct 
lack of wage sheets, daybooks and personal bank accounts means a more convoluted approach is needed. 

Firstly, there is some second-hand evidence with regards a handful of makers. In his volume Bemerkungen auf einer Reise von der türkischen Gränze über die Bukowina durch Ost- und Westgalizien, Schlesien und Mähren nach Wien (Vienna, 1804, p.288), for instance, Josef Rohrer noted that Anton Walter (1752–1826) then employed 20 journeymen. Also, according to a promotional piece in The Times (31 January 1788, p.3), first identified by Jenny Nex, Longman and Broderip’s manufactory gave ‘[…] employment to several hundred workmen of different denominations.’ Precisely how this figure was calculated, however, remains uncertain, and it is possible that it included porters, sawyers and administrative clerks as well as a variety of musical instrument makers. It should be noted, too, that Longman and Broderip employed some makers, such as Thomas Culliford, under contract, whilst supplying others with all the necessary materials and paid them only for their workmanship.

For Ferdinand Weber (1715–84), who worked in Dublin from c1749 onwards, there is one reference to his employment of two men: in 1780, he charged Mr [Ignatius] Purcell of Crumlin House £1 2s 9d for ‘[…] taking your Organ down at Crumlin and bringing it to Town by Six Chairmen and one Carr, which with the wages of two of my men came above a Guinea.’ 

There is more evidence with regards Burkat Shudi’s workforce and it is possible to identify the names of six of his journeymen, including two of Swiss heritage: Hans Balthasar Zopfi (1713–50) and Samuel Blumer (1722–60). Zopfi originated from the same hometown as Shudi, and Blumer’s undated trade card states that he was ‘late Foreman to Mr. Shudi’. The names of four other journeymen are known from an affidavit sworn by three of them on 12 January 1767 and published two days later in the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser: Andrew Clark(e), John Broadwood, Thomas Nixon and Joshua Shudi. 

In some instances, we can use the number of registered apprentices as a rough guide to workshop size. Stephen Keene (fl.1655–1712), for example, had eight apprentices over his lifetime, while Edward Wright has found evidence that John Player (c1636–1707) trained ten apprentices. In both cases, the number of primary workers seems to correlate with a relatively high number of extant instruments. In contrast, it is likely that lots of harpsichord and virginal makers, including Francis Coston, James Chew, Robert Falkener and Alexander Adam, worked in isolation or with the assistance of a single journeyman. John Richards, for instance, is the only known apprentice of Francis Coston, and it is possible that the name ‘Jack’ written on the wrestplank of the Coston harpsichord (BMO-300) refers to him.

For makers active in Stockholm, however, regular population surveys, tax records, and household lists, as well as parish entry and exit registers provide an unrivalled means of assessing both workshop size and dynamics. Evidence from the 1760 population survey, for example, suggests that both Johan Broman (c1717–72) and Lars Kinström (1710–63) maintained modest workshops: one journeyman is listed with Broman; one journeyman and one apprentice, probably both nephews, are listed with Kinström. In contrast, Carl Jacob Nordqvist (1783–1861) employed up to four journeymen plus an apprentice concurrently, while Georg Christoffer Rackwitz (1760–1844) usually employed two or three journeymen concurrently. This strongly suggests that the two extant clavichords signed by Rackwitz (BMO-1466 and BMO-1467) represent only a tiny proportion of his workshop’s total output.

Perhaps the best evidence survives for Pehr Lindholm (fl.1764–1813): in 1780, he is listed with a single apprentice; by 1790, he had three journeymen and one apprentice; by 1800, the workforce (now run in collaboration with Henric Söderström) had expanded to at least six journeymen; and by 1810, the workshop had fallen back to four. While these figures only relate to personnel listed with Lindholm at kvarter Saturnus no.27 (c1776–98) and subsequently at kvarter Östergötland, Skaraborgsgatan no.68 (c1800–10), it is possible that two or more of his workforce lived in shared accommodation at a nearby address. Since hometowns and dates of birth are sometimes included in the surveys, it is possible to create biographical profiles for several of Lindholm’s workers. Moroever, since wives, daughters, maids and housekeepers are also listed, we have the opportunity of assessing the contributions made by women in the combined workplace/household economy.

Finally, we have architect’s drawings for Lindholm’s premises at Skaraborgsgatan no.68 and for Rackwitz’s premises at kvarter Sporren. Since the premises probably contained both workshops and living accommodation, we have an additional means of assessing the physical size of their respective homes and workspaces.

Fredric Svede: a journeyman clavichord maker

2025-03-23 by Lance Whitehead

In general, the absence of workshop accounts means it is difficult to identify the names of journeymen employed in a particular workshop. For Stockholm, however, regular population surveys, household examination books and tax records mean there is potential to profile the changing structure of instrument maker’s workshops over several decades. Moreover, it is possible to focus in on the lives of individual journeymen, workhands often overlooked in organological research. One such artisan was the clavichord maker Fredric Svede (1753–1838).

The ancestry of Fredric Svede remains uncertain, but the Stockholm Taxpayers List (1815) gives his date of birth as 10 August 1753. Moreover, from the various primary sources outlined above, we know that he was employed in the workshop of Pehr Lindholm from at least c1782 to c1810, including ten years working for the firm of Lindholm and Söderström.

Following Henric Söderström’s death in 1817, it is possible that Svede was employed in another (unidentified) instrument maker’s workshop, perhaps that of Carl Nordqvist, since Svede continues to be listed as a journeyman instrument maker as late as 1836–37. According to Eva Helenius, ill-health prevented him from becoming a master, so the one extant signed clavichord dated 1823 (BMO-1927) may indicate he shared a workspace. The instrument has, of course, all the characteristics of one made in the workshop of Lindholm and Söderström.

We also know that Lindholm’s premises were situated at Saturnus no.27 (c1776–98) and later Skaraborgsgatan / Östergötland no.68 (c1800–10), two nearby addresses in the parish of Maria Magdalena, and the population surveys of 1790, 1800 and 1810 list Svede as a journeyman at these locations. Whether he also lived at his place of work remains uncertain. Indeed, from c1790 onwards a mixture of personnel, all identifiable as members of Lindholm’s workforce, are listed in the household examination books at an address in Qvarteret Laxen, including (Carl) Dahlpihl and Johan Daniel Krus (1790), Svede and Johan Soderberg (1792), and Dahlpihl, Krus and Svede (1794). Svede possibly remained at the same premises in Laxen from 1792 until his death in 1838, but there are inconsistences in the house numbering and some gaps in the surviving records.

Some details of Svede’s family life have also been uncovered. He married twice: first, to Maria Christina Hallongren at Adolf Fredriks kyrka on 31 May 1778, and second, to Catharina Üllström at Maria Magdalena kyrka on 12 November 1803. There were two children from the first marriage, both baptised at Klara kyrka: Johan Fredric (bap. 19 February 1779) and Christina Catharina (bap. 11 May 1780). How the family unit functioned or whether Svede continued working into his 80s are both unknown, but he died on 8 February 1838 and was buried in Maria Magdalena kyrka four days later, the burial register recording his age as 85.

While the survival of just one signed clavichord may, on the one hand, suggest a maker of only minor significance, considering his employment in the workshop of Lindholm and Söderström for perhaps 30 years, Svede deserves greater recognition. Indeed, he may have been partly responsible for a dozen or more extant clavichords.

Special harpsichords with 16′ registers

2025-02-23 by Lance Whitehead

The 1734 Hieronymus Hass harpsichord shown here (BMO-679, Musical Instrument Museum, Brussels) has four sets of strings including one at 16' pitch, but Hass and others made harpsichords even larger. With three manuals, five sets of strings (1×16′, 2×8′, 1×4′, 1×2′), and six rows of jacks, the harpsichord made in Hamburg in 1740 by Hass (BMO-680) is one of the largest stringed keyboard instruments known to have been made before the twentieth century. However, recent newspaper discoveries suggest that other makers made similarly large and complex instruments, and Hass even seems to have made harpsichords with six sets of strings. In 1778, for example, Johann Gerlach (fl.1744–80), perhaps a pupil of Hieronymus Hass, advertised a double-manual harpsichord in the Hamburg press with the same disposition as BMO-680, in which the registers were controlled by six pedals:

Kaiserlich privilegirte Hamburgische neue Zeitung (16 October 1778):
Bey dem Musicalischen Instrumentmacher Gerlach am Gänsemarkt, neben den Opernhof über, ist ein Clavecin de Forte-Piano, mit dreymal 5: 
1) mit 5 Octaven von contra F bis dreygestrichen F,
2) mit 5 Register, ein 2, ein 4, zwey 8 und ein 16 Fuß-Ton,
3) mit 5 Abtritt zu den Registers und ein Antritt zu der Laute, anjetzo fertig geworden

At the musical instrument maker Gerlach on the Gänsemarkt, next to the opera house, a loud and soft harpsichord, with three times five [combinations]: 
1) with 5 octaves from FF to f3,
2) with 5 registers, one 2′, one 4′, two 8′ and one 16′ pitch,
3) with five pedals to turn off the registers and one to turn on the buff stop, has now been completed.

Furthermore, a double-manual harpsichord advertised in the same periodical on 17 April 1789, is described as ‘der größten und schöncken Hassischen Flügel’, with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl keycoverings and the disposition 1×16′, 2×8′, 1×4′, 2×2′.

Frederick Neubauer (fl.1754–74), who worked first in Hamburg and then in London, also made special instruments. The Universal Director (1763, p.51) describes him as a ‘Maker of double-basset and treble-key’d Harpsichords, with six stops, and of Piano-fortes, Lyrichords, Claffichords (sic), &c.’ Moreover, a notice in the Morning Post (1 January 1774) refers to a harpsichord that he had recently sent to Catherine the Great (reigned 1762–96), as:

‘[…] a double-key’d and double-bass’d Harpsichord: the upper-keys play three rows of jacks, one unison, the lute and the double-bass’d Welch harp, all three together or separate, and all three buff’d by two pedals, or not, at pleasure. The lower keys play four full rows of ja[c]ks, the double bass, two unisons, and the octave; every one single, or two, three, or four together, at pleasure.’

Although the terms ‘double-basset’ and ‘double bass’ are ambiguous, considering Neubauer’s Hamburg heritage it is arguable that they refers to a choir of strings at 16′ pitch. Certainly, instruments that combined harpsichord and piano actions, such as Joseph Merlin’s ‘Patent Double Bass Pianoforte-Harpsichord’ and Satchell & Fröschle’s ‘Grand Piano Forte and Harpsichord united’, had 16′ registers so a subset of both Hamburg and London audiences must have been aware of their musical qualities.

It may have been the extravagent design of Neubauer’s instrument that appealed to Catherine the Great, and there is lots of potential to exploit five or more registers as a continuo harpsichord player in an opera house, or even at an outdoor venue, but how did these intruments sound? The astounding sound of BMO-680 may be heard in recordings made by the harpsichordist Benjamin Alard as part of the series ‘Johann Sebastian Bach: The Complete Works for Keyboard’, on the Harmonia Mundi label. Volume #9 of the series includes a recording of Brandenburg 5 and the aria ‘Chi in amore ha nemica la sorte’, from BWV 203, both of which demonstrate the full tonal range of this remarkable instrument (available on YouTube). 

Keyboard History by the Numbers

2025-01-21 by John Watson

Can Boalch-Mould Online answer questions such as these? .

• What was the relative popularity of virginals, harpsichords and spinets over time and how does the clavichord fair in that picture?
•  Comparing the major instrument-making countries, what percentage of the surviving harpsichords did each produce and how did their output change from quarter to quarter? Can that be shown in graphs? In maps?
• What percent of the makers in BMO have only one surviving instrument? How would you graph that?
• How did the choice of bottom note (CC, C, FF, or F) change over time and region?

These are the questions that were asked and answered by Andrew Gustar in his article published this month in the National Early Music Association Newsletter. Entitled ‘A Matter of Perspective: Taking a Distant View of Music History’, Andrew uses BMO as his case study to demonstrate the methodology and the potential of statistical techniques in the study of music history. .

‘Qualitative analysis’ is what most of us are doing when we drill down into the minutiae of individual instruments. The broad-based questions above, however, demand what Andrew Gustar calls ‘quantitative analysis’, which finds information that can be discerned only when the dataset is very large. Such a birds-eye perspective can sometimes correct impressions that come from narrower, qualitative analysis..

Identifying biases that exist in BMO and any such dataset is part of interpreting statistical data. He also demonstrates creative methods of pulling data from online sources, even showing the exuberance that statisticians feel with ‘the prospect of new sources of data to play with!’ .

Learn more about Andrew Gustar’s answers to the questions above, and about his approach to the study of music history through statistical analysis in his full article here, and on his website.

Bread making, hot-air ballooning and clavichord making in Schleswig 

2024-12-14 by Lance Whitehead

During the historical period, stringed keyboard instrument making seems to have been largely concentrated in urban areas – including Venice, Antwerp, London and Paris – towns with threshold populations sufficient to support specialist and generalist builders alike. In Georgian London, for example, an upmarket harpsichord might be procured from the likes of Kirkman and Shudi, bought or hired at a more modest cost from Longman & Broderip’s music shop, purchased from a specialist second-hand dealer, or acquired at a bargain-basement price from Robert Falkener, who also published popular songs and a book on music theory.

In smaller towns, it was even more likely for a maker to be double-handed, to be heavily reliant on tuning and repair work, and to spend many days tramping the hinterlands in order to eke out a living. Hartvig Jochum Müller (c1716–93), for instance, worked as church architect, clavichord maker and organ builder, providing instruments for Christians Kirke in his hometown of Copenhagen (1759), Larvik Kirke, Norway (1752), a distance of 600km from the capital, and Dreslette Kirke, Haarby (1787) some 190km away. Similarly, Ferdinand Weber (1715–84) provided organs for churches the length and breadth of Ireland, and when, towards the end of his career, he started to scale down his business, he advertised the sale of ‘a good Post Chaise, and an excellent pair of black horses […] used to the Hills of the County of Wicklow’ (Saunders’s News-Letter, 15 April 1779).

Jürgen Hinrischen Angel (fl.1759–1810) and Johann Christian Jürgensen (1744–1823) both worked in the borderlands between Germany and Denmark, and both were probably multi-handed out of necessity. Both makers have been largely overlooked, perhaps because so few of their instruments survive, but their fascinating lives helps shed light on regional instrument making that was arguably no less significant than that carried out in the larger metropolises.

Angel’s ancestry remains uncertain, although it has been suggested that the family name was originally Hinrichsen and that Angel is derived from the coastal region of Jutland known as Angeln, from where the family originated. He was apprenticed to the carpenter Joachim Schröder in Flensborg (now Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein), but the source of his musical instrument training is unknown. Some writers think he was self-taught. We do know that following his apprenticeship, Angel worked as a gravedigger, verger and organ blower at St Marien Kirke in Flensborg. From 1769, he also maintained the organ there, and in 1772 he was awarded a privilege to practice as an organ builder. He thereafter worked mainly in the Schleswig area, and the façades of several organs he built are known to survive, including those for St Nicolai Treia (1797) and Brahetrolleborg Kirke (1804). There is also one extant clavichord (BMO-18). His premises at 348 Kompagniestraße were adjacent to St Marien Kirke in Flensborg, and the 1803 Schleswig Census provides testimony that he employed two journeymen: his son Nicolai Angel (36) and Lorenz Gandrup (57). He died on 23 January 1810, the family business being continued by Nicolai.

In contrast, Johann Christian Jürgensen was the son of a baker and lived all his life in the town of Schleswig. He trained as a baker, and after his father’s death continued to run the family bakery with his mother until 1769, when he opened an instrument-making workshop. Again, he may have been self-taught. He apparently made a variety of keyboard instruments, including pianos (two survive), clavichords (one survives), and a Clavecin Royal with 12 Beränderungen or variations of tone. There is some evidence, too, that he constructed optical instruments, thermometers and lightning rods, and took a keen interest in hot-air ballooning. Moreover, he wrote papers on runestones, on Hans Brüggemann’s Bordesholm altarpiece in Schleswig cathedral, and reworked Nicolaus Helduader’s Chronik der Stadt Schleswig (Schleswig, 1822). Following his death on 8 November 1823, a short biography of him appeared in the Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburgische Provinzialberichte.

Chasing down identities: 

a BMO investigation

2024-10-11 by Lance Whitehead

Of the fact that some keyboard instrument makers relocated to new towns, new countries and new continents there is no doubt. Georg Christoffer Rackwitz (1760–1844), for example, was born in Pressburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia), spent much of the 1780s as a journeyman in St Petersburg, and by c1791 had settled in Stockholm. Charles Trute, in contrast, worked in London (c1780–90), Philadelphia and Wilmington (c1794–1807), apparently spending the intervening years in Jamaica. And we know that Girolamo Zenti (c1609/11–67), often referred to simply as ‘Girolamo’ in historical texts, worked as a court harpsichord maker in Rome, Stockholm, London and Paris.

It is possible that Rackwitz considered himself Austrian, Trute felt English, and Zenti Italian, but most makers probably identified more closely with their home parish, arrondissement or contrada rather than their state. There is, however, some evidence that makers occassionally sought out fellow compatriots in their new locations. John Broadwood (1732–1812), who was born in the Scottish borders, employed multiple workhands of Scottish heritage, attended the Scottish Secession Church in London and contributed to at least two Scottish charities. It can also be demonstrated that a group of businessmen, all originally from South West England, worked in collaboration for the benefit of their joint music shop in London: James Longman (1745–1803) and Francis Fane Broderip (1750–1807), both from Somerset, the Devonian Charles Lukey (1740–76) and the Cornishman Thomas Culliford (1747–1821).

Some makers were named after their hometown, but this does not always simplify matters of identification. Both Giovanni Battista and Giuseppe Boni (father and son) were referred to as ‘il Cortona’, and as many as three makers from Salò signed their instruments ‘Salodiensis’. Fortunately, there is strong evidence confirming the identity of Iseppo Ruosa, referred to in the will of Marco Facoli (c1540–85) as ‘Iseppo Ruosa da Salò fa arpicordo’. More confusingly, Hans Suys, who worked in multiple cities – Frankfurt, Liège, Strasbourg and Amsterdam – was sometimes referred to as ‘Hans van Cuelen’ (from Cologne), and may be the same person as Jan Karest, the father of Joes and Goosen Karest, two important makers who practised in Antwerp.

Working within a patriarchal society, women harpsichord makers were probably forced to identify with their father’s, husband’s or partner’s name. Jane Pinches (fl.1782–95), for instance, took the name of her long-term partner William Harris (fl.1761–82), maintaining the business, name and perhaps workhands after his death. Rachel Weber (fl.1755–89) advertised as the widow and administratrix of Ferdinand Weber and ensured readers of Saunders's News-Letter (15 November 1784) that she ‘carries on the business in the same manner as he did, and employs the same men.’

Some compilers of parish registers were considerate enough to include the occupation of the deceased, full names of both the bride and groom, and sometimes the street address. While this enhances our identification of ‘new makers’, genealogical websites have yet to offer searches based on types of occupation, and the practice of successive parish clerks associated with St Giles Cripplegate to identify the occupations of the deceased may over-emphasise the concentation of virginal makers in this parish.

The collection of Paris ID cards issued by the French authorities during the early years of the French Revolution, do seem to shed new light on the identities of a dozen harpsichord makers active in Paris at this time. We now know, for example, that Jean Marie Dedeban (fl.1763–1812) arrived in Paris from Bordeaux in 1763, and that Joseph Gaspard Lauterborn, Jean-Henri Moers, and Tobias Schmidt were all of German heritage. The source requires careful interpretation, however, and while there are ID cards for both Pierre Joseph and Guillaume Zimmerman, there appear to be mis-transcriptions of the original documents, the latter being unavailable online. While Guillaume’s place of birth is given as ‘Cologne’, Pierre Joseph’s birthplace is listed as ‘Prut, Pologne’. It is possible that both makers were of Polish heritage and that Cologne is a mis-transcription of the placename ‘Pologne’ (the French for Poland), but no town named Prut has been traced, and for now the brother’s national identities remain uncertain.

Two Sixteenth-Century Virginal Makers:

A Story of Plague and Religious Intolerance

2024-08-26 by Lance Whitehead

It is difficult to gain an overall picture of virginal making in Tudor London: there is only one extant signed instrument, a combined organ-harpsichord by Lodewijk Theewes (BMO-1942), and the variability of spellings makes the identification of makers problematic. Nevertheless, we know the names of as many as 22 individuals, who are listed as ‘virginall maker’, or who received payment for repairing a virginal during the sixteenth century. Some, such as William Reynolds (fl.1594) and Anthony Lingham (d.1582), are known only from parish registers, while Hans Fothermaker has been identified from a marriage licence granted on 11 March 1583 to ‘Jodocum Williamson, of Whitechapel’ and ‘Nelkinam Bowens, Widow, relict of Hans Fothermaker, Virginall Maker’.

A significant proportion of the virginal makers were economic migrants or religious refugees and are typically described in primary sources as either ‘aliens’ or ‘strangers’. Paul Defield, for example, seems to be listed three times in the Returns of Aliens Dwelling in the City of London: as ‘Pavyll Fandevell’ in 1568, as ‘Polle Fyeld’ in 1571, and as ‘Pawle Defield’ in 1582. If the entries all relate to the same person, we know that he was born in Leuven and was a religious refugee; he was perhaps a Protestant, who fled to England to escape the ‘Second War of Religion’ (1567–68).

The same source also provides testimony that Defield and his wife Marie resided at the home of two other ‘alien’ virginal makers working in London – Lodewijk Theewes in 1568 and John James in 1571 – and it is tempting to suggest that Defield was employed as a journeyman in the workshops of Theewes and James. Moreover, recent research has identified that by the early 1590s, perhaps earlier, the Defield family resided in the parish of St Botolph Aldgate and it was here that four children of ‘Paull van de Feld’ were buried in rapid succession, suggestive of having succumbed to the plague: Sara (27 September 1593); Abygale (12 October 1593); Elizabeth (26 October 1593); and Paul (8 November 1593). As well as giving his occupation as ‘verginall’ or ‘virginall’ maker, the burial register provides us with the location of his premises: ‘Kercoms Rents being in the precinct neare the tower’, perhaps a barbican known to have existed on Ludgate Hill, rather than the Tower of London. Defield may have died shortly after that of his children, but no record of his burial has been identified.

More is known of the organ builder and virginal maker Robert Broughe (fl.1555–1603), probably a maker of English heritage and someone who seems to have practiced religious tolerance. He was an important member of the Fletchers’ Company, serving as an Assistant to the Master from 1575 to 1603, and three terms as Warden (1574, 1582 and 1600–1). We also know that Broughe resided in the parish of St Martin’s Ludgate: he was a vestryman there from 1586 to 1600, and it was where four of his children were baptized. Moreover, Broughe was married to Barbara Byrd, the sister of the composer William Byrd, who is known to have been a lifelong Roman Catholic. Like Byrd, Broughe enjoyed the patronage of Sir John Petre (1549–1613), another Catholic, and there is documentary evidence that on at least one occasion composer and instrument maker travelled together from London to Petre’s estate in Essex. Broughe supplied an organ to Sir John Petre and ‘a payer of small virginalls for Mr John Petre’, perhaps a diminutive instrument intended for his young son.

In the late 1590s, Broughe accused the warden of the Fleet prison of extortion, and was summoned to appear before the Privy Council on 18 April 1598. Broughe’s action was unsubstantiated and he was consequently sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the Marshalsea. How long Broughe remained in jail is unknown, but the proceedings of the Privy Council provide us with Broughe’s home address: the Old Bailey, a thoroughfare running between Ludgate Hill and Newgate Street. Whether he recommenced working as a keyboard instrument maker after leaving jail is similarly uncertain, but we do know that he died of the plague in 1603 (indicated by the letter ‘P’ in the burial register) and that he was buried in St Andrew’s Holborn on 27 August 1603.

Handel's Harpsichord?

2024-07-16 by Peter Bavington

Any object that has links to a well-known personality is bound to be of special interest. One such case is the double-manual Ruckers harpsichord belonging to King Charles III (BMO-1628), which is on long-term loan to the National Trust, and is kept with the other keyboard instruments of the Benton Fletcher collection at Fenton House, London. A persistent tradition links this instrument with the composer George Frederic Handel; but did it really belong to him?

It was discovered in a derelict condition in 1883 in a storeroom at Windsor Castle, a Royal residence some 25 miles west of London, along with some old sedan chairs. From then on, its history is known: it has been restored several times since its discovery, and the history of its various eighteenth-century enlargements and alterations has been established.

The idea that it had belonged to Handel came originally from A. J. Hipkins , who announced its discovery in a letter to The Athenæum in September 1883. Hipkins assumed that it was the ‘large harpsichord’, mentioned in Handel’s will, which was left to his amanuensis Christopher Smith, along with a house organ, music books and £500 sterling. Smith, he said, presented it to King George III in gratitude for the granting of a pension.

For many years this account was widely accepted: for example, when Henry Tull restored the harpsichord in 1938 for Queen Elizabeth (the mother of the late Queen Elizabeth II), he displayed it in his music room at Ealing with a label unequivocally declaring it to be ‘Handel’s harpsichord’ .

More recently, doubts began to be expressed. Several problems with Hipkins’s account were noticed: firstly, he does not distinguish between Christopher Smith (1683–1763) and his son John Christopher Smith (1712–95). Both of these men had been friends and assistants of the composer in his blindness and old age, but it was the father who inherited the ‘large harpsichord’. On his death in 1763, it could have been inherited by his son, but it is not specifically mentioned in Christopher Smith’s will.

The younger Smith may have presented the harpsichord to George III, but the details of this are unclear and come from a possibly unreliable secondary source (the anonymous Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel and John Christopher Smith, published in London in 1799). And there are several other claimants to the title of ‘Handel’s Ruckers’, notably one now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (BMO-1573) and one in the Morris Steinert collection at Yale University (BMO-1563).

Such was the level of skepticism that until recently the BMO record roundly declared ‘the persistent legend that this harpsichord at one time belonged to Handel is without any firm foundation’.

The pendulum has swung, and it now seems that it probably did belong to Handel after all. Why this sudden change; what has made it possible? The answer is digitisation of the British Library's extensive collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century newspapers, so that they can easily be searched online for specific words or phrases, reducing a task which would have taken days or even months before to a matter of an hour or two.

Peter Holman has made use of this wonderful new resource, and presented his findings in two articles in the periodical Early Music in 2021. He has found several reports of King George III playing a harpsichord at Windsor, where he was living in retirement because of his mental illness (so memorably portrayed in Alan Bennet’s play The Madness of George III).

His son, Prince George, was appointed Prince Regent in 1811, taking over the King’s duties as sovereign. A report in the Ipswich Journal in January that year headed ‘A letter from Windsor’, stated that ‘the harpsichord on which his Majesty plays, formerly belonged to the great Handel, and is supposed to have been manufactured at Antwerp in the year 1612’. It was said to be in the king’s sitting room in the Blenheim Tower. Another report in the Examiner, also in 1811, mentioned that the King used ‘to shew it to his musical friends with much pleasure, and explain to them whom it belonged to, and that the keys were worn away by HANDEL’s fingers’.

This detail – the excessive wear on the keys – tends to confirm the link with Handel. Some 35 years earlier, it had been mentioned in Sir John Hawkins’s General History of the Science and Practice of Music (published 1776): Handel, he said, ‘had a favourite Rucker harpsichord, the keys whereof, by incessant practice, were hollowed like the bowl of a spoon’.

So the link between Handel, King George, and the instrument discovered at Windsor in 1883 now seems fairly secure. Yet doubts remain. Hipkins reports that the harpsichord when found did not have the heavily worn keys he was expecting to see: ‘Are the keys scooped out […] by the composer’s fingers? Alas, no! Like the one in South Kensington [BMO-1573], it has two modern sets.’ Why and when were these new keys installed? Could a subsequent royal owner have commissioned them? George, descending into his final madness, would hardly have been in a position to do so. 

How is it that a very similar Ruckers harpsichord was sold at Christie’s on 10 May 1819 as part of the effects of Queen Charlotte, and immediately bought by the Prince Regent and brought back into the Royal household? Is this the same harpsichord, or another one?

If only harpsichords could talk, as well as sing, all these puzzles could be resolved. As it is, we try to keep abreast of the latest knowledge in the ‘Provenance and Episodes’ section of each record in BMO.

Workshop training and apprentices

2024-05-22 by Lance Whitehead

Guild records – such as those of the various Livery Companies of the City of London, the Università di Por San Piero e dei Fabbricanti (Craftsman’s Guild) of Florence, and the Registres des jurandes et maîtrises des métiers de la ville de Paris – are an important source of information concerning the lives and working practices of keyboard instrument makers, especially the training of apprentices. They do, however, require careful interpretation and they do not provide the entire picture; the Paris registers record the date when makers became ‘masters’ at the conclusion rather than the commencement of their training.

The number of registered apprentices, for instance, gives only a rough estimate as to the size of a workshop. Stephen Keene (fl.1655–1712) and John Zumpe (1726–90) were both highly successful businessmen and ran busy workshops. Keene worked within the City of London, was an important member of the Joiners’ Company and registered as many as eight apprentices over a career spanning some 40 years. In contrast, Zumpe worked in the City of Westminster outside the guild system, and seems to have trained only one apprentice, James Laurence, whom he acquired on the cheap through St Martin’s Workhouse. Moreover, there is no concrete evidence that Jacob Kirkman (1710–92), Burkat Shudi (1702–73) or John Broadwood (1732–1812) registered any apprentices over their long and illustrious careers.

There is quite a lot of evidence to support the claim that makers often trained members of their extended family, but not all can be confirmed by archival records. Guild records do show that both Stephen Keene and John Hitchcock trained their nephews Edward Blunt and Thomas Young, and from the French National Archives we know that Robert Baudin (fl.1631–51) was apprenticed to four different masters, the first two (Jean Marcire and Claude Lesclan) being his uncles, who both died inconveniently early. The fact that Joseph Treyer (1731–88) succeeded to his uncle’s workshop suggests that he was also probably trained by Jean-Baptist Keiser (c1700–72), but no documentation for this has been uncovered. Jacopo Ramerini’s bequest of wood and workshop tools to his nephew Pietro Ramerini in 1674 similarly suggests a master-apprentice relationship that remains unconfirmed.

Since a maker’s workshop and family home often coincided during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was normal for apprentices to reside at the home of their masters. In 1626, Noël Alliamet (fl.1626–44) formally agreed to teach, feed and lodge Pierre Flament for six years, but it is from the 1787 Danish Census that we know Christian Ferdinand Speer (c1726–97) lived at 196 Lille Regnegade in Copenhagen with his wife and daughter, a servant, five journeymen and three apprentices. We only know from the inventory after the death of Pascal Taskin (1793) that two of his great nephews, Henry-Joseph and Lambert Taskin, were living with him, and this is the sole circumstantial evidence that they had just commenced their training.

Some apprenticeships were clearly disjointed, others failed completely, and a record of apprenticeship doesn’t confirm that an individual went on to establish their workshop. We know that Charles Trute (fl.1780–1807) acquired a parish apprentice through the Poor Law authorities of St Giles in the Fields in 1787, but whether he later accompanied Trute first to Jamaica and then to Philadelphia remains unanswered. Nevertheless, apprenticeship records can provide us with an otherwise unknown address and suggest links between family members. Partly due to the commonality of the name Haward, the ancestries of John, Charles and Thomas Haward are all uncertain, but the freedom records of all three provide evidence that they were the sons of John Haward, perhaps the progenitor of the family. The agreement by Alliamet to accept an apprentice in return for 40 livres of salted butter from Normandy also provides an insight into the mindset of historical makers: the bottom line is the provision of food.

Lyonnais harpsichord makers

of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

2024-04-06 by Lance Whitehead

Although principally known for its canuts or silk workers, who tended to be concentrated in the Croix-Rousse district (characterised by special covered passageways called traboules), the town of Lyon in southeast France was also home to several notable harpsichord makers. These include Gilbert Desruisseaux (1651–1703), Pierre Donzelague (1668–1747), Jospeh Le Tourneur (fl.1708–40), Joseph Collese (1717–76), and Jean François Franky (fl.1777–79).

Interestingly, most seem to have been outsiders. Desruisseaux was originally from Moulins, and moved to Lyon after completing his training in Paris with Michel Richard. Donzelague was from Aix-en-Provence, Joseph Le Tourneur was baptised in Beaune (some 150km north of Lyon) and Joseph Collesse was from the Brittany town of Rennes. Moreover, all were musicians. Donzelague’s move to Lyon has been pinpointed to his joining the Académie royal de Musique de Lyon on 27 October 1688 as a singer and ‘joueur de basse de violon continuo’, Collesse is called a facteur de clavessin et musicien in his record of marriage, and both Le Tourner and Desruisseaux combined the activities of organist with that of musical instrument maker. Perhaps the Académie des Beaux arts de Lyon was a magnet to musicians and musical instrument makers alike, and we know that the institution owned various instruments, including two harpsichords by Donzelague: one was kept in the library (online archive available, here) and one was kept in the concert hall (online archive available, here).

Whether a maker worked in isolation or ran a busy workshop with multiple hands is always difficult to establish. However, Joseph Le Tourneur may have trained with his father Étienne Le Tourneur (c1676–1727), who was both an organist and organ builder, and there is a possibility that Donzelague worked in Lyon with his father François Donzelague (fl.1668–1709). A record of burial dated 18 February 1709, for one François Donzelague in the church of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Saturnin in Lyon, suggests that François did not remain in Aix-en-Provence as most writers suggest, but joined his son in Lyon. Although no occupation is recorded, the age of François is given as 75, which also fits with the known facts about this maker, and Pierre is named as his son.

From extensive searches in the Lyon archives, we now know that Joseph Le Tourneur and Joseph Collese married two sisters, Jeanne and Madeleine Argoud, and were thus brothers-in-law. Joseph Le Tourneur was one of the witnesses at Collesse’s marriage on 9 October 1730 (archive available online, here), and it is tempting to suggest that Le Tourneur and Collesse worked together. Moreover, a harpsichord left unfinished at the time of Collesse’s death in 1776 (BMO-293) was completed in 1777 by Jean François Franky. Franky’s family history has yet to be established, but he is recorded as a witness for two marriages in the church of Saint-Nizier on 11 July 1779. In both cases, he signed his name ‘Je Frankÿ’ and is described as a faiseur de Clavessin, thereby confirming his activities as a harpsichord maker. Research is ongoing to establish whether Collesse suceeded to Le Tourneur’s workshop, if Franky was the successor to Joseph Collesse, and whether either of these two had links with Christian Kroll (fl.1770–74) or Pierre Kettenhoven (fl.1772–78), two makers of probable German heritage active in Lyon in the 1770s.

Three Harpsichord Makers and their Links to Scientists

2024-03-06 by Lance Whitehead

The design and construction methods used by historical stringed keyboard instruments has been the focus of multiple writers, especially since the 1960s, but the possible connections between historical makers, scientists and mathematicians has perhaps been under-explored.

There is, of course, the well-known connection between Jacob Kirkman (1710–92) and the Cambridge mathematician and astronomer Robert Smith (1689–1768), whose work on acoustics is contained in two important publications: Harmonics, or The Philosophy of Musical Sounds (1749, title page on left); and A Postscript […] upon the changeable harpsichord (1762). Importantly, Smith commissioned Kirkman to make him a ‘changeable harpsichord’ with the compass GG to e³, and the possibility of playing in 14 different tonalities. The following two examples are perhaps less well-known.

The Dutch harpsichord maker Jan Dirckszoon Tegelbergh (1578–1650), for instance, may have had links to the early modern scientist Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637). Much fascinating information concerning Tegelbergh has been unearthed by Cock Rijerkerk and published on the website, and from this work we know that as well as being a harpsichord maker in Dordrecht, Dirckszoon was also a clock maker, a carillonneur and supplier of gunpowder. Although Tegelbergh is not mentioned by name, Beeckman noted in his journal (available online), for February 1628, that he had received information on tuning from ‘De clavercynmaker ende clockstelder hier te Dort’. In the volume Knowledge and Culture in the Early Dutch Republic: Isaac Beeckman in Context (Amsterdam, 2022, p.337), Albert Clement suggests that the harpsichord maker in question was Jan Tegelbergh.

There is also a possible link between John Player (c1636–1707) and the important mathematician Euclid Speidell (fl.1662–1702), who wrote a book called Logarithmotechnia, or the Making of Numbers called Logarithms (available online) Moreover, in his pamphlet The Triangular Quadrant (London, 1662), John Brown recommended Speidell as a mathematics tutor, and directed his readers to the latter’s ‘Chamber at a Virginal Makers house in Thread-needle Street, and at the Kings head near Broadstreet end.’ Although Stephen Keene (fl.1655–1712) is known to have had premises in the same street from at least 1671, he only became a Freeman of the Joiners’ Company in November 1662, and thus the unnamed virginal maker is more likely to have been John Player. Whether or not Player made use of Speidell’s mathematical expertise in the design of his instruments is of course pure speculation, but it makes for a good story.

When one is not enough:

Evidence for the ownership of multiple harpsichords

2024-02-11 by Lance Whitehead

Although there are only a handful of account books detailing the names of clients and the types of instruments they purchased, there is some evidence that royal families and institutions often acquired keyboard instruments in large numbers.

We know from an inventory made in 1700 of Ferdinando de’ Medici’s instrument collection in Florence, for example, that he owned 17 cembali, 15 spinette and two sordini, some of them antique instruments. The French royal family was similarly well supplied: the Inventaire Général des Effets appartenants au Roi existans dans les Magasins des Menus Plaisirs de Sa Majesté (1770) catalogues 25 stringed keyboard instruments, mainly by members of the Ruckers family, but also by Bourdet, Vater and Blanchet (archival source online).

There is some evidence, too, that theatres required multiple harpsichords. In 1738, Giuseppe Calandra (1668–1748) signed a six-year contract with the Royal Theatre in Turin to supply and tune two harpsichords for orchestral use, plus a harpsichord or spinet for each of the (principal) singers. Also, Stephen Heming (fl.1685–1715), whose premises were ideally situated in Playhouse Yard, Drury Lane, supplied the Theatre Royal in London with one harpsichord for Italian opera productions, but two harpsichords for English plays with ‘musical entertainment’. Moreover, Heming supplied all the principal singers at the Theatre Royal with a practice spinet. Perhaps the largest number of harpsichords supplied to a theatre is the nine provided by Giuseppe La Manna (fl.1787–97) in 1787 for the Santa Cecilia Theatre in Palermo, and it is likely that some of these, too, were used by the singers for warming up or practice purposes.

Musical training colleges could also be equipped with large numbers of keyboard instruments, as documented by Charles Burney’s visit in the early 1770s to the Conservatorio of St Onofrio, one of three such institutions in Naples at the time. The number of harpsichords, as well as the practice arrangements, were reported in The Gentleman’s and London Magazine (August 1771, pp.501–2) a few months later:

Wednesday, Oct. 31. This morning, I went with young Oliver, an English student, to his Conservatorio of St. Onofrio, and visited all the rooms where the boys practise, sleep, and eat. On the first flight of stairs was a trumpeter, screaming upon his instrument till he was ready to burst; on the second was a French horn, bellowing in the same manner. In the common practising room there was a Dutch concert, consisting of seven or eight harpsichords, more than as many violins, and several voices, all perfoming different things, and in different keys: other boys were writing in the same room; but it being holiday time, many were absent who usually study and practise in this room […] The beds, which are in the same room, serve for seats to the harpsichords and other instruments. 

Unfortunately, we don’t know whether the harpsichords supplied to the various theatres were at a special ‘theatre pitch’, and historical performance practitioners have yet to pick up on the seating arrangements adopted by the young musicians in Naples. There is, however, no doubting the prestige and financial security provided by the acquisition of such important contracts for supplying and maintaining instruments as those outlined above.

Lotteries and Raffles

2024-01-12 by Lance Whitehead

Insurance records, newspaper advertisements, court proceedings and parish registers are perhaps the most important sources of information concerning the lives of historical keyboard instrument makers.

The register of prizewinners of an early seventeenth-century lottery held in Haarlem is a more obscure source, but provides us with the only known documentation concerning one Artus Gereyn, a clavecimbelmaker who lived next door to the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. Several other harpsichord and clavichord makers seem to have occasionally made use of lotteries and raffles, too, perhaps as much as a means of self-promotion as for fund raising.

In 1622, Cornelis Hartung organsied a lottery in Utrecht, the prizes for which included two claviorgans, an English harpsichord, two mother-and-child virginals, and a combined harpsichord and virginal. Moreover, the best evidence for the types of instruments made by the Copenhagen instrument maker and horologist Magnus Christensen, is provided by a list of them in the Adresseavisen (May 1764), which were the prizes for Christensen’s illegal private lottery. In addition to a musical clock and a double-manual harpsichord, there are seven unfretted clavichords, and a Clavicembalo di Gambo, perhaps a type of gut-strung clavichord with pedals. 

The best nugget of information we have concerning the early eighteenth-century English harpsichord maker Thomas Hancock is with regards a raffle of one of his instruments. While the ancestry and workshop training of Hancock remain a mystery, in part due to the commonality of his name, the notice in the Daily Post (17 December 1730) provides us with an address for him near Lincoln’s Inn Fields:

This is to give Notice, To all Masters and Lovers of Musick, THAT on Thursday the 23d of this Instant December, there will be an exceeding well-toned Harpsichord raffled for at the Half-Moon Tavern in Castle-yard, Holbourn (sic.). There are to be 25 subscribers at 2 Guinea (sic.) each. The Subscriptions are taken in at Daniel’s Coffee-house in Fleet-street, and at the Bar of the Half-Moon Tavern aforesaid. The Instrument will be there two Days before the Time, or may be seen at Mr. Hancock’s, Harpsichord-maker, in Queen-street by Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, by any Master of Musick.
N.B. This is to be advertised once more before the Time it is to be raffled for. If there is not the full Subscription the Money will be returned that Night.

Whether Artus Gereyn collected his winnings, Magnus Christensen was prosecuted for his illegal lottery, or if indeed Mr Hancock obtained a full subscription for his raffle and was thus able to dispose of his harpsichord in this way, are all unknowns.
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Worth a Thousand Words

2023-11-16 by John Watson

Did you know there are over 3800 photographs in BMO? You have probably seen the photo viewer for looking closer at the photos of a particular instrument, but have you discovered the powerful photo search tools? The screenshot is how results are shown using the 'Search > Photo' feature (click ‘Photos’ in the ‘Search’ menu). This example gives a scrolling birds-eye view of all photos from a specified collection. You can also search by maker, type, place of origin, or other criteria. From there you can either open the details page for a selected instrument or open the photo viewer to look closer at its photos.

A second useful photo feature is shown in the lower left. On the Advanced Search form, click the checkbox labeled, ‘Only return results with photos’ (at the bottom of the form). The search results are similar to any other advanced search, but returns only examples with photos and shows each found instrument with a thumbnail photo. From there, you can open the instrument's details page and see more photos if they exist.

Try both of these photo-search methods to view all photographs for a selected maker,  collection, or year of construction, or whatever combination of filters you choose. Some collections are especially well represented because their administrators know the benefits of having their collection on everyone's radar. They have made their online catalog photos freely sharable or have given us permission to extend the reach of their museum by including their photos in the database. Try, for example, either photo search method and enter in the collection field 'MIMEd' or 'Smithsonian' or 'Sigal' or 'SIMPK'. 

Where photos are lacking, and you have some you are free to share, open the instrument's details page and 'Click to Upload Images'. The upload process offers an easy online method that collects photo credits and optional captions. A BMO orientation video tells how to submit information and photos (the photo demo starts at the 4-minute point).

Photos add a wealth of visual information to the new online edition of ‘Boalch’. For identifying and correcting duplicate entries, photos are the ultimate tool, and for describing great amounts of detail about style, decoration, and construction, they provide what words cannot. 

Some photos in BMO are glamour shots, but since even poor photos can reveal critical evidence, we include some photos that are old, faded, or black and white . Some were taken during close examination of construction details or during repairs. Such photos show interiors with soundboards removed, internal inscriptions, and mechanical or decorative minutiae. 

The makers of harpsichords and clavichords never limited their artistic message to our ears. Every instrument takes its place in the decorative arts. It expresses the rich visual aesthetic of the time and place of its origin or gives testimony to the culture of the artisans in whose hands it was re-made. If you benefit from these photo resources, please also share your own photos for the benefit of your early keyboard colleagues.

Women in the harpsichord and clavichord trade

2023-10-02 by Lance Whitehead

The role of women in the harpsichord and clavichord trade has been largely ignored until recently. There are a number of reasons for this.

Keyboard instrument narratives have traditionally relied upon extant instruments and their inscriptions, which typically refer to the patriarchal head of the workshop, and there are no known historical harpsichords or clavichords inscribed with a woman’s name.

Harpsichord Makers and the French Revolution

2023-09-15 by Lance Whitehead

Making a living from the sale of objects affordable only by the very wealthiest in society, it is not surprising that some musical instrument makers suffered significantly during the French Revolution, particularly those who were politically active. As shown by Adelson et al (The History of the Erard Piano and Harp in Letters and Documents, 2015, pp.49–51), for instance, Sébastien Erard was denounced to the Revolutionary authorities in early September 1793 and the Erard premises raided by the police. Others were less fortunate.

Happy first birthday, BMO!

2023-09-01 by John Watson

Charles Mould wrote in the preface to the 1995 print edition of ‘Boalch’ that the internet would soon be the better medium for free public access to the database. It took a while, but Boalch-Mould Online (BMO) finally went public as a free, interactive, public resource one year ago, on September 1, 2022.

As had each of the print editions, the new online version is a qualitative and quantitative leap forward. The original 1840 cutoff is now pushed to 1925 to encompass the historic first generation of the early keyboard revival, like historic #1 in the Dolmetsch-Chickering  production pictured here. Instruments by unknown makers, some with great historical significance, had also been excluded from all three print editions, but now are being entered as time permits.

A Harpsichord of Considerable Note

2023-08-15 by John Watson

A recent harpsichord restoration puts a dazzling spotlight on a remarkable harpsichord. Instruments continually reveal new insights about their origins as the tools and discipline of scholarship evolve and ‘forensic’ science expands the ability to see and interpret physical evidence. Our harpsichord (BMO-1617) known by some as ‘The Golden Harpsichord’ appeared in the 1956 edition of ‘Boalch’ (B1) as the work of ‘Hans Ruckers the Younger, otherwise Jean ’. By the third edition (B3, 1974) the instrument was reported to be ‘probably of French origin’ by an unknown maker. Grant O’Brien’s 2004 article in Early Keyboard Journal put the instrument under the proverbial microscope. Convincing physical evidence indicated a ‘Flemish’ origin yet decidedly and most surprisingly not from a member of the dominant Ruckers dynasty. The spectacular painted decoration and gilding continue to drive the efforts of art historians to identify what were clearly artists of the highest order.

Portfolio careers and multi-handedness

2023-07-26 by Lance Whitehead

Few harpsichord makers appear to have been able to make a living solely from musical instrument making. Some, such as Robert Falkener and Longman & Broderip, combined harpsichord making with music publishing, and there is evidence that makers occasionally let rooms to supplement their income. Mary Shudi (the widow of Joshua Shudi), for example, placed a notice in the Public Advertiser (16 January 1775) confirming her intention of continuing her late husband’s harpsichord making business at 16 Berwick Street, St James Piccadilly, as well as offering a ‘genteel First Floor to lett (sic), with other Conveniences’. The large number of properties owned and let by various members of the Kirkman family probably added significantly to their flourishing harpsichord and piano making business. George Downing, who worked as a harpsichord maker during the 1760s and early 1770s, later concentrated on tuning and the sale of second-hand harpsichords, particularly those by Kirkman. Moreover, he invented a type of lamp, known as a ‘Chamber Lanthorn’, and in c1790 opened a warehouse at 5 New Street, Covent Garden, with a patent Lamp Shop on the ground floor and harpsichord showroom on the first floor (see notice in the World, 8 November 1790).

Boalch-Mould Online allows statistical analyses that would have been nearly impossible in the print editions. We searched the database for surviving instruments of each type from various regions and plotted the results on this graph. The findings show the percent of instruments of that type from that region: The first bar showing, for example, that 39% of the surviving harpsichords were made in the United Kingdom.

Public Houses and Taverns

2023-05-22 by Lance Whitehead

Public houses and taverns occasionally feature in the lives of harpsichord makers working in London: as places of abode, of work and sometimes of recreation. 

William Rock (c1744–1800), for example, combined the role of vintner with that of harpsichord maker, and ran the ‘Horseshoe and Magpye’ on Bridge Street, St Margaret Westminster, during the period c1754–65. Thus, three anonymous newspaper notices concerning the sale, tuning and repair of harpsichords at this venue in the early 1760s probably all refer to Rock. 

The organ and harpsichord maker John Crang (1717–74) seems to have mostly lived in public houses: an advert in the Daily Gazetteer (16 August 1740) refers readers to the ‘Elephant and Castle’ without Temple Bar, and he subsequently had premises at the ‘White Lion’ in Wych Street, St Clement Danes (from c1750 onwards). 

Living and working arrangements in the Shudi and Kirkman households

2023-05-01 by Lance Whitehead

It is easy to assume that family members of harpsichord-making dynasties all lived and worked in the same premises, particularly if instruments survive with more than one name attached. However, this was not necessarily the case. While the firm of Shudi & Broadwood made harpsichords until at least 1791 inscribed with both their names, for instance, there is new evidence to show that from at least the time of his marriage in 1779, Burkat Shudi the younger resided not at 33 Great Pulteney Street, St James Piccadilly, where his brother-in-law John Broadwood lived, but in Park Court, St Margaret Westminster.

Similarly, while there are 60 harpsichords inscribed with the names of both Jacob and Abraham Kirkman (uncle and nephew), the two lived separate lives and may even have run separate workshops. During the period 1760–70, Abraham Kirkman is recorded as a rate payer for premises in Great Pulteney Street, while Jacob Kirkman paid the local taxes on premises in Broad Street. Subsequently, they lived next door to each other: Abraham at 18, and Jacob at 19 Broad Street. Moreover, there is only one insurance policy in the name of both Jacob and Abraham Kirkman (1772), and while Jacob insured a complex of workshops, warehouses and sawpits in Castle Lane, Southwark in 1779, it was Abraham who insured the workshops at 19 Broad Street in 1780 and 1781, suggesting that the two worked at different locations from the late 1770s onwards. 

John Wilbrook: Tabel's Man

2023-04-21 by Lance Whitehead

Relatively little is known about the harpsichord maker John
Wilbrook, a German émigré who worked in London during the 1720s and 30s. Recent archival discoveries, however, suggest that he may have succeeded to the workshop of Herman Tabel in Oxendon Street, St Martin in the Fields. This helps make sense of the inscription on the underside of the soundboard of the 1730 Wilbrook harpsichord (BMO-2052): Johannes Wilbrook Londoni Fecit, Tabels man. 

A 1682 Rectangular Virginal by Salodiensis/Salodij

2023-04-21 by John Watson

User Staas Bruinsma alerted us of this virginal, now entered as BMO-2231. With its untouched patina intact and its musical function restored, the instrument comes from the collection of Prof. Dr. R. Ewerhart, sold at auction by Galerie Moenius in Wassenach, Germany. The BMO entry includes links to the online auction catalog entry with background about how the instrument was discovered in a northern Italian henhouse. 

  To see the BMO entry, click the photo at the left and check out the YouTube video demonstration by Els Biesemans and the auction entry in the links dropdown at the top of the BMO Details Page.

Schmahl Family Clavichords

2023-04-23 by Peter Bavington

Three generations of the Schmahl family were prominent clavichord makers for around thirty years at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. They made both fretted and unfretted instruments: Christoph Friedrich Schmahl (1739–1814), in particular, made fretted clavichords with a full five-octave compass, a comparatively rare type. Schmahl family clavichords have a distinctive and elegant style of keylever carving, in a ‘spoon’ pattern; finding this on an unsigned clavichord is one of the pointers which may lead to a Schmahl attribution.

At least 22 clavichords signed by, or attributed to, members of the Schmahl family are known to exist today. 14 were listed in the third edition of ‘Boalch’; it has now been possible to trace five more and add them to the BMO database, and also to improve and update the existing entries. Work continues to establish the facts about several others.