THE MUSICAL POTENTIAL OF MIETKE HARPSICHORDS

by Andreas Kilström

A Brief Description

The 1710 Mietke harpsichord will be the basis for these discussions, therefore a brief general
description of the instrument is warranted. We are looking at a single manual harpsichord with
the keyboard compass GG/AA - c'''. It has two registers at 8' pitch and a string scale of c''
=275 mm; a brass scale if we assume a pitch in the region of a' = 415p/s. The length of the
harpsichord is 2158 mm without the bottom frame and moulding and 2186 inclusive. The with
is approximately 840mm. The case height is around 225 including the bottom, which is
between the case sides and the entire instrument sits on a bottom frame which adds another
27mm to the height. The lid is in three pieces, although the portion that covers the key well is
missing. The harpsichord is supported on a stand of eight turned legs between an upper and a
lower stretcher. The case is made of walnut with the exception of the spine which is believed
to be alder. All interior structures are of pine. The soundboard is of spruce with barring in
spruce and a bridge of pearwood. The wrestplank is of oak with a cherry(?) veneer. The inside
around the soundboard is veneered in walnut and the keywell has scrolls to give the
impression of a thin cased instrument resting inside its outer, painted and gilded case.

The instrument is signed and dated on the top key: "Michael Mietke Instrumentmacher in
Berlin Anno 1710"

This harpsichord has been in Sweden at least since around 1800 and appears in the estate
inventory of the organist Anders Odendahl of Rogsta (near Hudiksvall) in 1818. "1 ste Symbal
med pedal och stol.....13: 16 (One harpsichord with pedals and chair). It does not appear again
in the estate of his widow and the history of the harpsichord before and after Odendahl still
remains to be traced. The pedal is no longer there but the evidence of a rather crude job still
remains. The harpsichord is in the same state as when the museum acquired it in the early
days of this century. The basic construction is still sound. There are no strings, but remnants
of wire on the wrest pins. Moths have found a good supply of food in the action cloth, but
enough remains to deduce original thicknesses. We can assume that the state of the instrument
is the same as in the early 19th century and from there trace our way back to the 18th century
and to the maker, Michael Mietke himself.
*

The production of harpsichord sound is a very complex affair which can be described as a
chain with the soundboard and case in one end as the resonator and the keyboard in the other
end as the 'interface' between player and instrument. The links between these ends consist of
jacks, quills, registers and strings. They all play their different but important parts and they all
inter-relate. It is the aim of this paper to describe that chain as found in the Mietke
harpsichord.

The Soundboard is made up of planks of reasonably fine grained and straight spruce sawed
on the quarter (the annual rings are perpendicular to the surface). It is very even grained and
there seems to be no attempt made to select certain types of planks for certain areas of the
soundboard, say fine grain for the treble and coarser grain for the bass. The planks are parallel
to the spine. The barring consists of a cut off bar with a slight bend towards the treble to
follow the shape of the 8' bridge and for bars in the area between cut off bar and spine,
perpendicular to the latter. The bridge is made up of two pieces, lap joined together: One short
sawn to shape piece for the extreme bass and one long straight piece that has been bent to
shape. The reason for this is probably that Mietke used a moulding plane to "stick" or produce
the profile on top of the bridge, whereas the profile on the bass hook would have had to be
scraped. This seems to be one of Mietke's working methods as the same thing is found on the
Charlottenburg double.

The soundboard is said to be the soul of a harpsichord and the sound produced is very much
dependent on how a soundboard is thicknessed, or perhaps more correctly: The relation
between thicknessing and barring. There seems to be two major schools of thought on the
subject. The first is the system with the cut off bar as demonstrated in the Mietke and having
its classical form in the Ruckers instrument. Here the general idea is to have the thickest area
under the tenor/bass region of the bridges and thinning out towards the edges and towards the
treble. A classical example of this system is the 1638 Ioannes Ruckers 'transposing' double,
where the soundboard tapers in thickness from 4.3 mm around G (R pitch) to slightly less than
2 mm in the extreme treble. There is also a tendency to repeat the hump in the bass area of the
4' bridge1. The second school advocates bars that pass under the bridge-s and there seems to
be no or very little deliberate tapering of thickness. The 1681 Vaudry harpsichord is a point in
case2. Here the soundboard does not deviate a lot from the average thickness of 3mm and the
intricate herring bone pattern of bars lends extra stiffness to the soundboard where it is
needed. Although this system is perhaps mostly associated with Italian instruments it is found
in English, French and German/Germanic instruments and it appears that both systems existed
side by side in those areas.

The 1710 Mietke soundboard is thicknessed in no haphazardous manner. We find the Ruckers
pattern of a 'hump' in the tenor /bass area and a quite pronounced thinning out towards the
edges. There is also another thick area centred around middle c. The reason for this, I believe,
is to be found in the hitch pin rail. It consists of two pieces, one 6 mm high for the treble part
and one 16mm high for the bass part. The join between the two lies in the g#º. This seen in
conjunction with the bridge which is a uniform 17/18 mm throughout, will give very different
stress patterns at the division point. The bridge is back-pinned (or double pinned ) for the
strings on the higher level hitch rail. These pins are quite low down on the side of the bridge
and set in a manner that will wrap the string around the bridge and apply a force that will tend
to pull up the far side of the bridge and press down the near side. Where the strings start from
the lower, treble, hitch rail, they will apply a downwards force on the bridge, perhaps strong
enough to deform a thinner soundboard and certainly strong enough to give a different
response from that of the back pinned high level strings. The Pythagorean string scale gives a
long section of bridge that runs at a very narrow angle to the soundboard grain direction. This
is unfavourable from a constructional point of view and is compensated by keeping the
soundboard thick. It is interesting to note that the soundboard is kept rather thicker than what
most makers today would consider prudent. I think the answer here is sustain. Mietke aimed
for a singing, cantabile kind of harpsichord sound.

The Keyboard. A harpsichord key is in effect a lever and there is a number of things that
have to be taken into account when deciding on a ratio of leverage for a key. If a key is
balanced around the middle of its length, the jacks will move upwards at the same speed as
the key is being pushed down by your finger. If a key is balanced at around a third of its

1
Measurements by Edward Turner 1977
2Measurements by Bill Debenham 1975
length, the jacks will move at double the speed of the playing finger. The speed of the quill is
a decisive factor of how the start of a note - or the ictus - will sound: The higher the speed the
more pluck. The 1:1 ratio is found in 18 c French harpsichords and the absence of an acute
pluck I believe to be consistent with the music of the clavecinists, where a lot of sustain and
holding down of keys is called for, music that is built on beautiful sounds rather more than an
interesting linear development. It is also consistent with the lightness of touch called for by
François Couperin in his Art de la Toucher le Clavecin, and such aesthetics as that of Dom
Bedos where the test of a good organ action is that you should be able to blow down a key. In
modern parlance: A user friendly keyboard. The Italians favoured a 1:2 ratio. It seems they
found a percussive attack an important aspect of the sound they produced. Perhaps the reason
is that Italian harpsichords often formed parts of ensembles, orchestras and operas and they
had to hold their own through a lot of noise. (I am not convinced that a rapid decay was
something actively sought after by the Italian makers). This of course gives an unfavourable
ratio from the point of view of the player and it is often the case that modern players find
Italian and other keyboards with a forward balance point uncomfortable to play. The Ruckers
instruments also have a 1:2 ratio (or slightly less) here it could be argued that the music they
were intended for was predominantly polyphonic (Bull and Phillips were active in Flanders at
the time) and the accentuated ictus helps separate the parts. It can be noted that as much as the
French loved the Ruckers sound, they did not like the way they played. Those harpsichords
that have been rebuilt in France have the typical French 1.1 ratio.

The 1710 Mietke has a ratio of 2:33, i.e. balance points quite well forwards. As the register
gap is angled, so is the rear of the keyboard and the balance rail to maintain the same
approximate ratio throughout the compass. ( I note here that the Charlottenburg single has an
angled balance rail, but not the double). It appears Mietke went for a pronounced pluck,
consistent with the music his instruments was intended for, solo literature of polyphonic
texture and ensemble work. However, to overcome the mechanical disadvantage Mietke
shaved off wood from his keylevers behind the balance point and it was found that a weight
of 3 - 5 grams on the key head was enough to push the key down. In this Mietke differs from
the Ruckers and those Italians that I have seen, where no attempt is made to compensate for
the disadvantage.

Felting. The next link to be considered in our chain of sound production is the 'interface'
between keys and jacks: The felt. This it might be argued is not a part of the sound
production, but the amount felt does to affect the sense of pluck and even the volume of sound
produced. This phenomenon can be demonstrated by playing the upper manual from the lower
through the coupler. The sensation is one of distance. Too little felt makes for mechanical
wood noises. Dr Burney complained in his Italian journey how little attention the Italians paid
to the mechanical subtleties and how their harpsichords rattled4. Too much and too soft felt
will give a 'dull' action with little sensation of where you are in the movement of the key and
jack. It seems that Mietke went for a 'crisp' action. For his keys he used a woven wool cloth of
slightly less than two mm thickness. Under the rear of the keys he used two layers that were
stretched and fastened by means of nails at each end of the keyboard. These nails are bent
outwards to ensure a good stretching. On top of the keys there are two layers that are glued
down. This will render the felt even stiffer. At the other end of the jack movement, in the jack
rail there is another, brown, cloth of which two layers are sewn together. Closest to the jack
rail is a very coarse sisal cloth apparently saturated in glue and put in place. This taken

3
c''' = 1:1.48, bb = 1:1.56, GG = 1:4, BBb = 1:1.57
4
Charles Burney: Music, Men, and manners in France and Italy 1770, London 1974
together will render a sensation of playing with the jacks. At the start of the movement there
will be very little 'give', or compression of felt, before the jacks start their course and there
will be a soft, but definite stop when the jacks hit the felt in the jack rail. The jack rail in itself
is a stiff piece of wood (unidentified) that will not give way much to the pressure of the jacks.
On the balance rail there are two little oblongs of leather glued down on top of each other in
front of the balance pins to lift the keys off the rail. Under the front edge of the keyboard
there is a piece of felt that in reality serves no purpose. This felt is regarded in Italian
harpsichord as being the limiter of the key movement. I believe it is more often a fail-safe. In
the Mietke when the jacks stop in the jack rail there is still about a 10mm gap between keys
and felt and besides the arcades will hammer down on the front rail and prevent the keys from
ever making contact with the felt.

Jacks. Our next link is the jacks. They are made in two sets with damper slots on opposite
sides. The significance of this is not clear. As a person who is often engaged in harpsichord
regulation, I can see that it is an advantage to have a clear view of the quill - string relation
with the damper flag on the far side. The bottom of the jacks are cut very neatly at a slightly
oblique angle. The puzzling thing about this is that both registers are cut the same way
relative to the jack face. This means that the back register follows the downwards slope of the
key levers in their rest position and will have a tendency to tip over forwards, towards the
player, thus following the curve of the movement and with no tendency to get jammed in the
box register. A jack of the front register, on the other hand, will have a 'heel' that rest on the
key, rather than its entire bottom. Why this should be so has occupied my mind a great deal; it
would have been very neat to have the front register doing the same thing as the back one. It
might be that it is a carry over from double manual practise. If the top keyboard moves in and
out for the coupling and if the entire jack bottom does not rest on the key lever ever in the
uncoupled position (part of the jack is behind the key lever), it would not do to have it sloping
down towards the rear, because when the keyboard is pushed in for the coupling the jack rises
and the flag will come off the string and the quill - string alignment will be altered.. It is far
safer to have the front of the jack touching the key. It can also be noted that the front jack will
stand flush on the key in the depressed position.

When trying to assess the level of the key at rest, the 'give', compression, of the felt and taking
into account some shrinkage of the case, one arrives at a figure of 8 - 9 mm for the
downwards movement of the key heads, the depth of touch. This can be considered to be a
very comfortable touch and the accidentals will stand well clear of the level of the naturals,
being about 10mm above in their resting position.. If the depth of touch can only be surmised,
the distance between the pluck of the two jacks in the choir can be measured more accurately.
It appears that they will make contact with their respective string at about a difference of one
millimetre measured at the key head with the front register being the first to pluck. This is a
very important aspect of the regulation of harpsichord action called staggering. The quills in
a choir must not pluck simultaneously; the finger will find too much resistance in getting
through the pluck. Nor must they be to far apart; the ear will perceive separate notes, not the
blend of two or more registers playing together. naturally, it is important for the player that
these aspects, key dip and staggering should be uniform throughout the compass. In the 1710
Mietke this is very well executed. The distance from jack bottom to quill is a uniform 104
mm +/- 0.5 mm throughout. It might seem puzzling that both registers should be the same, but
it must be seen in conjunction with the keys in resting position. They slope downwards
towards the tail quite markedly and the tips of the quills will find themselves approximately
3.5 mm for the front register and 5mm for the back register. It is of interest that the distance
from quill to top of jack is somewhat smaller for the bottom octave. This is probably to give
extra headroom as the bass requires heavier quilling and there will be more resistance and
longer travel before the string is released.(Another aspec balance pins to lift the keys off the
rail). Under the front edge of the keyboard there is a piece of felt that in reality serves no
purpose. This felt is regarded in Italian harpsichord as being the limiter of the key movement.
I believe it is more often a fail-safe. In the Mietke when the jacks stop in the jack rail there is
still about a 10mm gap between keys and felt and besides the arcades will hammer down on
the front rail and prevent the keys from ever making contact with the felt.

As for the actual quillsit is impossible to state with any degree of certainty that they are
original. They do, however fall into two categories. The majority which are white and uneven
in execution, some very pointed and others blunt, seen from above as a trapezium (trapezoid)
with the base at the jack and the tip under the string. I take the material of these quills to be
chicken or goose. The second group is made from a dark brownish grey quill. They are all
2mm or slightly less at the base and pointing to 0.5 mm at the tip. They are quite short,
passing under the string by less than one mm. For what the information is worth, they are
between 0.3 and 0.4 mm thick. Here again the execution is faultless, an even and symmetrical
narrowing down towards the tip which ends in a clean, straight cut. Most quills in this group
still bend very nicely and evenly, not only a prerequisite for good sound production, but also
an assurance for long life. What is interesting, suggesting these quills to be the remnants of an
older regulation, is that they are clustered at the ends of the registers and particularly on
accidentals that would come relatively little in use. The only notes to have both plectra of this
older stratum are Eb and bb’’. Pointing the quills to a narrow tip I believe to be essential for
focusing the sound, to enhance the fundamental and having the harmonics as a result, rather
than having it deduced from the harmonics. Another important aspect is that the quills are
angled upwards by approximately 5°. This not only facilitates the the return of the quills
without [them] getting stuck on the strings, but also as Grant O’Brien points out in his
Ruckers book5, pulls the jack towards the string and ensures safe plucking. This could also be
important for the dynamic response of a harpsichord. There is no method known to me that
can place a quill accurately in time and space, so we shall have to satisfy ourselves with the
knowledge tat the work was competently done by somebody who knew about harpsichord
regulation.

The Significance of the Angled register gap. One further aspect of of the jacks and registers
is the angled and tapered register gap. In the following table a comparison is made between
the 1710 Mietke, the 1725 false inner/outer Goccini and the 1679 J J Couchet (for want of a
2x8’ harpsichord from the Ruckers school)

5
Grant O’Brien: Ruckers p. 125
Comparison of plucking points
Instrument C long C short cºlong cºshort c'long
c'short c''long c''short c'''long c'''short
Mietke 1710
sounding length 1691 1653 1050 1011 525 502
275 264 138 130
plucking point 169 139 145 116 121 94
98 71 74 48
plucking point in % 10 8.4 13.8 11.5 23 18.7
35.6 26.9 53.6 37
Goccini 1725
plucking point in % 9.6 9.4 14.3 13.3 22.2 19.7
32 27 42 32.6
J J Couchet 1679
plucking point in % 12.1 9.9 13.5 10.5 17.8 13
29.8 20.5 53.1 34.3

The angling of the register gap is often seen as an Italianate feature, but I would like to point
to a very early German harpsichord, the Hans Müller, Leipzig instrument of 1537., Which not
only has two registers in an angled gap, but a third set of jacks very close to the nut, which in
effect gives an extremely tapered gap. Could there be a lost tradition of maximising the
difference in plucking point. All three known Mietkes have this feature, although the three
register double has the least taper and - at present - the 8' registers together and the octave
furthest away, which to me seems to negate the idea of separation. Dieter Krickeberg points to
an anonymous south German or Austrian late 17th century instrument, now in the Cortauld
Institute, London, that also shares the trait of widely separated plucking points. The angled
gap could be a result of a short string scale: In order to keep the plucking points within reason,
from 10 - 50%, it is necessary to come away from the nut in the bass and to stay clear of the
soundboard bridge in the treble. It is slightly paradoxical that the angled gap should give
higher treble values than the straight gap of the Flemish harpsichord, but this is due to
difference in scale.

Keyboard Dimensions. We know from J. F. Agricola of Bach's preference for keyboards of

small dimensions and I quote from the English translation in the Bach Reader:

"Anyone who is in the habit of placing his fingers properly will know that he need never stretch
a finger out straight in playing. Why then does he need such long manuals? As far as the width of
the key is concerned, it is known that particularly in Brandenburg the keys are made narrower than
elsewhere, but no man yet has got his fingers stuck between the semitones....The French very
rightly make even the keys of their harpsichords shorter than in Germany; but no one has yet
complained about it. The semitones must anyway be a little narrower at the top than at the bottom. That is
how the late Kapellmeister Bach required them to be, and he, for the above mentioned reasons, also liked
short keys on the organ.6

We can assume that Bach preferred the Brandenburgisher key dimensions for the ease of
playing and reach they provided. Certainly Mietke's keyboards belong among the smaller
ones. His octave is 156 mm giving the stichmaß (three octave span) 468, which could be
compared to the Ruckers at 166.7 (500), typical Italian values, Giusti 171 (514), Christofori
164 (493) or Goccini 162 (486). Mietke's French contemporaries share the small keyboard (as
Agricola stated), Vaudry 155/6 (467) Denis 155 (465), to be compared with Taskin at 159
(477) and the modern piano: 165 (495). The touchplates are quite short, 35 mm (Vaudry 34,
Taskin 36). As Herr Kapellmeister Bach required, the accidentals have sloping sides, being 9
6
Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel: The Bach Reader, New York 1945, p 258.
mm wide on top and just above 11 at the base. Many keyboards of this period have quite
straight sided accidentals, thus rendering any straying in between them uncomfortable and
possibly resulting in wrong notes. The distance between the accidentals is around 12 mm for
the three group, f#,g3 and bb. As in many keyboards of the period the d key affords a wider
space between its surrounding accidentals, 16 mm. Some of J S Bach's music can be quite
daunting when approached on a modern keyboard. A good example is the a minor fugue from
the first part of the Wohltemperiertes Klavier, repeatedly calling for tenths to be reached.
When played on a 156 mm octave, it is within reach of an ordinarily sized hand, except for
the coda, where one has to resort to Praetorius's suggestion of using your nose.

The Relationship between the Three Mietkes. There can no longer be any doubt as to the
maker of the two harpsichords in Charlottenburg. The white harpsichord and the 1710 single
are almost twins. They originally had the same compass and still have the same disposition.
The key well scrolls and the register levers are identical. The white harpsichord originally had
its levers separated; the screw hole for the pivot is still there in the treble part of the wrest
plank. The bridge and soundboard is a completely different matter. The bridge has a narrower,
more tapered cross section and the fact that there is no traces of bridge pins having been
moved about points to it being a replacement. The soundboard wood is of a different quality,
having wavy grain whereas the 1710 single and the Charlottenburg have the same kind of
straight grained spruce. Krickeberg and Kirnbauer suggest that it could have been repaired by
the Osterleins after the sacking of Charlottenburg in the seven years war 1760. They point to
the similarity of soundboard wood with the 1792 Osterlein in the Berliner SingAkademie. An
interesting aspect of the history of the White harpsichord, is the fact that the nut is a
replacement, which has been lengthened by joining on pieces. This suggests two alterations
before the change of soundboard. One that necessitated a replacement bridge (change of
pitch?) and a second that required a compass extension. The nut, it can be pointed out, has a
Franco-Flemish cross section.

For me, when first seeing the double, was like meeting an old friend. Outwardly it has the
same appearance as the 1710 instrument. The case bottom moulding is the same. The apron of
the stand is identical, as is the front cross of the lower stretcher. On the inside, the soundboard
has a similar structure and even the rich brown golden colour is the same. The 8' bridge is
identical in shape and in moulding (although of a different wood, beech). Even the back
pinning follows the same system: Low on the distal side for the tenor region and coming up
on the top surface for the bass hook. As already mentioned, there is a lap join between the
main part and the hook and very interestingly, another lap join quite close towards the spine,
which is the ravalé join to gain bridge surface for the extra notes. The mouldings around the
inside of the case are similar as are the jack rail supports. There is evidence of realigning of
the string band in the form of plugged bridge pin holes. These however are found in the
middle region of the bridges, the treble section being free.

As for the keyboard compass, a tell tale feature of Mietke's methods is the moulded rail in
front of the keyboard. The moulding does not extend all the way to the ends of the batten, but
stops short by about 40 mm at both ends. This batten is common to all three instruments. In
the 1710 harpsichord the with of the unmoulded sections coincides exactly with the width of
the keyboard endblocks. In the white harpsichord this symmetry is seriously impaired by the
two narrow endblocks which only occupy about a third of the unmoulded sections of the rail.
In the double, however, the endblocks do coincide with the rail, suggesting either that the rail
has been altered to fit the ravalé endblocks, or that it has not been altered that much. This
much is clear: The space available for the keyboard is around 45 mm wider than the 1710
instrument. Given a similar width of endblocks, 40 - 45 mm, there is space for two more
naturals, perhaps FF, GG, AA - d'''. If this is so, only one natural has been added and the
keyboard might not have been shifted more than 11 mm (½ the with of a key) to the left,
leaving the string scale as it was. It might be that the whole keyboard is renewed. The
endblocks, though consistent with the white harpsichord, are not the same as in the 1710.
Krickeberg and Rase report that the naturals are black stained pearwood7 and as I recall the
arcades looked different on the two manuals. The balance rails are not angled, which is not
consistent with the attention Mietke gave to his action. Moreover, the numbering on the jacks
is not made by the same hand as wrote on the 1710.

Conclusion. I hope to have shown how Mietke conceived his instruments and in particular the
setting up of the action. To me it is quite evident that everything is well thought out and
superbly executed. It is hardly surprising that his instruments were praised throughout the
18th century and that Bach should have chosen him as the maker for the court harpsichord at
Anhalt - Cöthen.

Literature

Adlam, Derek: Restoring the Vaudry. Early Music Vol 4 No 3 July 1976, p 255 f f.

Bach Dokumente Band II, Leipzig 1969.

Boalch, Donald, ed. Mould Charles: Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord 1440 - 1840, third edition,
Oxford 1995

Burney, Charles: Music, Men, and Manners in France and Italy 1770, London 1974.

David, Hans T. and Mendel Arthur: The Bach Reader, New York 1945.

Debenham, Bill: Technical drawing of the 1681 Vaudry harpsichord, London 1975.

Germann, Sheridan: The Mietkes, the Margrave and Bach, in Bach, Handel and Scarlatti, Tercentenary Essays,
Ed. Peter Williams, Edinburgh 1985.

Griewisch, Matthias and Kilström Andreas: Technical drawing and documentation of the 1710 Mietke,
Stockholm 1997.

7
Henkel, Hubert: Beiträge zum historischen Cembalobau. II, Kielinstrumenten, Leipzig 1979.

Hubbard, Frank: Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making: Cambridge, Ma. 1965.

Kilström, Andreas: A Signed Mietke Harpsichord, FoHMRI Quarterly

Kilström, Andreas: The Hudiksvall Mietke, Harpsichord and Fortepiano Magazine

Kirnbauer, Martin and Krickeberg, Dieter: Sophie Charlotte und die Musik in Lietzenburg, Berlin 1987.

Krickeberg, Dieter and Rase, Horst: Beiträge zur Kentniss des mittel- und norddeutchen Cembalobaus um 1700,

O'Brien, Grant: Ruckers, A Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition, Cambridge 1990.

Rase, Horst: Technical drawing anonymous German harpsichord, (Charlottenburg single), Berlin 1983

Rase, Horst: Technical Drawing anonymous German harpsichord, (Charlottenburg double), Berlin 1983.

Smend, Friedrich: Bach in Köthen, Berlin 1951

Stengel Walter. Alte Wohnkultur in Berlin und in der Mark, Berlin 1958.

Tagliavini, Luigi and van der Meer, John Henry: Clavicembali e Spinette dal XVI al XIX Secolo, Bologna 1986.

Turner, Edward, Technical Drawing of the 1638 I R double harpsichord, Edinburgh 1977.

As always, I am indepted to Matthias Griewisch for a constant exchange of ideas.