DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

332 HARPSICHORD HARRIS
gift of music, or of dead wood reviving as living
tone. But it was wlien the instrument went
out altogether that this enrichment of picture
galleries by the demolition of harpsichords was
most elfected. The number of Ruckers, how-
ever, known to exist has been extended by re-
search to seventy. There was great care in
artistic choice of wood and in the cabinet-work
of Tsclindi's beautiful instruments. One, formerly
in the possession of Queen Victoria, and
long preserved in Kew Palace, is quite a masterpiece
in these respects. It bears Tschudi's name,
spelt, as was usual, Shudi ; the date 1740 and
maker's number 94 are inside. The compass
is, as in the South Kensington Ruckers, Gj to /'",
witliout the lowest G(. Two, dated 1 766, are in
the New Palace at Potsdam, and were Frederick
the Great's. (See Shudi.) Messrs. Broadwood
have one dated 1771, with five and a half octaves,
Cj to/'", Venetian Swell and five stops, comprising
the two unisons and octave of the Ruckers,
with a slide of jacks striking the strings much
nearer to the bridge (also a Ruckers contrivance),
and producing a more twanging quality of tone,
the so-called 'lute '-stop and a 'buff '-stop of
small pieces of leather, brought into contact
with the strings, damping the tone and thus
giving a kind of pizzicato etfect. This fine instrument
was used by Moscheles in his Histori-
cal Concerts in 1837, and by Pauer in similar
performances in 1862, 1863, and 1867. There
13 also one in tlie Musik Verein at Vienna of
similar construction, made by ' Bnrkat Shudi
et Johannes Broadwood, ' and (lated 1775, which
belonged to Joseph Haydn. The latest harpsichord
by the Shudi & Broadwood firm is dated
1790. A Kirkman harpsichord dated 1798 is
in the possession of the editor, and is described
in Dannreuther's Ornamentation.
The variety of stops and combinations introduced
by different makers here and abroad at
last became legion, and were as worthless as
they were numerous. Pascal Taskin, a native
of Theux in Liege an*! a famous Parisian harpsichord
maker, is credited with the reintroduction
of leather as an alternative to quills ; his clavecin
'en peau de bufle ' made in 1768 was pronounced
superior to the pianoforte (De la Borde, Essai
sur la musique, 1773). Taskin's were smaller
scale harpsichords than those in vogue in Eng-
land, and had ebony naturals and ivory sharps,
and a Japanese fashion of external ornamentation.
There is one in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, dated 1786. In the Liceo Conmiunale
di Musiea at Bologna there is a harpsichord with
four rows of keys, called an ' Archicembalo.'
This instrument, according to Carl Engel, was
made by a Venetian, Vito Trasuntino, after the
invention of Nicolo Vicentino, who described it
in his wov^ L'Anlica ifasica ridotta alia moderna
prattica {Rome, 1555). The compass comprises
only four octaves, but in each octave are thirtyone
keys. A 'tetracordo' was made to facilitate
the tuning of these minute intervals. Thus early
were attempts made to arrive at purity of intonation
by multiplying the number of keys within
the bounds of the octave. Another archicembalo,
made by Cristofori in 1726, is in the
Mnseo Kraus at Florence. It has a double keyboard,
but is not enharmonic ; it was intended
to be used in an orchestra, the player standing.
Another of the curiosities of harpsichord-making
was the ' Transponielavicymbel ' described
by Praetorius (1614-18). By shifting the keyboard
the player could transpose two tones
higher or lower, passing at j)leasure through the
intermediate half tones. Arnold Schlick, however,
had achieved a similar transposition with
the organ as early as 1512 (Monatshe/te fiir
Musik-Ge.schichte, Berlin, 1869). A harpsichord
pedalier— Clavicymbelfiedal—according to Dr.
Oscar Paul, an independent instrument with
two octaves of pedals, was used by J. S. Bach,
notably in his Trios and the famous ' Passa-
caille '
; and
in his transcriptions of Vivaldi's
Concertos. Some large German harpsichords
had not only the two unison registers and an
octave one equivalent to 8- and 4-foot stops,
but also a bourdon, answering to 16-foot pitch.
John Sebastian Bach had one of this calibre ;
it formed one of the interesting objects in
Herr Paul de Wit's collection in Leipzig, and
has been transferred to the museum attached
to the Hochschule fiir Musik in Berlin.^ In
1901 harpsichords came to light containing
three keyboards, of Italian make and similarly
contrived, the octave being on the highest
bank, octava and cymbalum on the middle,
and unisons on the lowest bank. A fine speci-
men by Sodi is in the Metropolitan Museum,
be
New York. Lastly a ' ' Lautenwerke must
noticed, a gut -strung harpsichord, an instrument
not worth remembering had not Bach
himself directed the making of one by Zacharias
Hildebrand of Leipzig. It was shorter than
the usual harpsichord, had two unisons of gut-
strings, and an octave register of brass wire,
and was praised as being so like the lute in
tone, as to he capable, if heard concealed, of de-
ceiving a lute-player by profession (Paul, Gesch.
des Claritrs, Leipzig, 1868). Since 1888 harpsichords
have been made in Paris by the pianoforte
makers, Pleyel, Wolff & C«-, and S. & P. Erard.
The former firm have introduced original
features, one being the substitution of pedals
for hand-stops, the gradual depression of which
produces a crescendo, Messrs. Erard have been
content to reproduce a clavecin by Taskin, said
to have been made for ilarie Antoinette. [See
Clavichoei), Ruckees, Shitdi, Spinet, Vm-
GINAL,] A. J. H.
HARRIS, Siu Augustus Henky Glossop,
was born in Paris in 1852. He was in business
for a short time, and gained theatrical experience
from 1873 in Liverpool, JIanchester, and else-
1 A. J. Hipkins. Piano/orfe Primer, 1897, p. 91.