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A history of the Harpsichord

Article in Musicology Australia · November 2011

DOI: 10.1080/08145857.2005.10416531

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 Musicology Australia

ISSN: 0814-5857 (Print) 1949-453X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmus20

A history of the Harpsichord

Rosalind Halton

To cite this article: Rosalind Halton (2004) A history of the Harpsichord, Musicology Australia,
27:1, 138-142, DOI: 10.1080/08145857.2005.10416531

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i38 Musicology Australia vol. 27

The first part of chapter 6, 'Physiognomies of Bach's Counterpoint' is a totally

absorbing account of the quest to find Bach's bones in the late nineteenth century.
The exhumation of Bach's remains and their subjection to politically motivated
pseudo-scientific analyses are treated admirably by Yearsley, as is the following
account of the appropriation and manipulation of Bach by the forces of nine-
teenth-century nationalism and twentieth-century fascism. As regards
counterpoint, and in particular Bach's use of it, these trends were manifest in var-
ious ways, including the application of vocabulary such as 'universal', 'manly' and
'eternal truths', thereby serving the political agendas found in much Bach reception
history. Yearsley somewhat loses focus in the later parts of this chapter, especially
when he engages in reflective commentary on his own book and the legacy of much
unredeemable scholarship from the Nazi era. He closes with affirmations of how
counterpoint 'breaks through the confines of autonomous isolation and reveals
itself to be as much social practice as compositional technique' (p. 237) and an
exhortation that it 'is incumbent upon us to recognize the lasting value inherent in
the contrapuntal endeavour' (p. 238). Whatever one may think of these worthy
thoughts, this book overall is a remarkable synthesis of many cross-disciplinary
perspectives and an excellent contribution to Bach scholarship.

Denis Collins

Edward L. Kottick, A History of the Harpsichord

Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003. xvi, 557
ISUN O 253 34166 3 (companion CD)

d History of the Harpsichord: already the title reveals a shift in concept that has
taken place since the two classics of harpsichord writing, Frank Hubbard's Three
Centuries of Harpsichord Making and Donald Boalch's Makers of the Harpsichord and
Clavichord, I4oo-I84o. a Hubbard addressed himself squarely to makers, and to
players prepared to make the journey through a complex landscape of designs and
sound concepts; Boalch's text was primarily a catalogue of known instruments con-
taining a wealth of knowledge and useful material. Kottick's book sits somewhere
between the two but it is really a glossy encyclopedia designed to appeal to anyone
who has been to a concert where a harpsichord of some sort has occupied centre
stage, or maybe lurked side-on at the back of an ensemble. It will be invaluable for
students needing to write hastily on subjects such 'the earliest harpsichords' and
'keyboard instruments available to J. S. Bach'. Every harpsichordist and harpsi-
chord maker will find it convenient to own a copy of a book that contains so much
information, filling gaps of knowledge in areas that were simply unknown to ear-
lier researchers.

1. FrankHubbard, ThreeCenturiesofHarDsichordMaking(Cambridge,Mass., Harvard University

Press, 1965); Donald H. Boalch, Makers of the Harpsichordand Clavichord, i4oo-i84o (Oxford:
ClarendonPress,I974,2nd ed.; repr. 1995).
 Reviews i39

Kottick's layout directs the reader to specific questions that s/he should be asking
while digesting the book's principal narrative of time and place--including matters
of repertoire with regard to instrument type, concisely presented in boxed text.
Among the most potentially useful of these text boxes are the tables summarizing
various instrument designs Such as 'The Blanchets and Taskins at a Glance' (p. 272)
and 'Characteristics of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century French Harpsichords
Compared' (p. 267). I have a feeling that these fenced-off sections will be read more
than the principal text, and that they will persuade the unwary that subjects are sim-
pler than they actually are (for example, not all seventeenth-century French
harpsichords have a scale of I3~ or under, and not all eighteenth-century French
harpsichords have two manuals). The layout is, however, designed to achieve the
laudable aim of making the reader think about various harpsichord issues--tuning,
voicing, disposition, etc.--immediately alongside the careers of makers and the dif-
ferent traditions of instrument making. There is an illustration of almost every
well-known harpsichord, as well as several unfamiliar examples, mainly in black and
white, and not as sharply processed as one would hope.
In many ways, the research accumulated over the decades since Hubbard's Three
Centuries has produced some new answers to old questions, and widened the three
centuries to twice that. If we compare the answers that can now be given about the
first harpsichord makers, and about instruments suitable for and relevant to the
music ofJ. S. Bach--both intriguing questions--we find an interesting contrast to
the answers given by Hubbard. On the origins of the harpsichord, both authors
draw on the same basic material; the instrument known as the eschequier, the draw-
ing of Arnaut of Zwolle (I44o), the earliest surviving Italian harpsichords. Kottick
makes little of Stewart Pollens' interpretation of Arnaut's drawing as a prototype
of the piano action,2 confining this idea to footnotes.
For Hubbard, this early history of the harpsichord takes up a few pages of intro-
ductory material within his section on harpsichord making in Italy. Kottick, on the
other hand, revels in the comparative wealth of material now available on this 'pre-
history' of the harpsichord, conferring on it the status of a whole 'Part I', complete
with an array of fascinating iconographical material: carvings from fifteenth-
century church decorations, German woodcuts of the same period and French and
Flemish paintings. The new early history of the harpsichord includes characters--
notably the luckless Hermann Poll, a Viennese 'medical astrologer' working at the
end of the fourteenth century, and chief contender for the title of inventor of the
harpsichord. And there is analysis, too, in the form of a lengthy description of the
clavicytherium c. i47o in the Royal College of Music, in relation to the Arnaut von
Zwolle drawing.
However valuable all this material is, it remains of academic rather than practi-
cal interest. Apart from the occasional appearance of the psaltery in mediaeval
ensembles, there is little evidence so far of a revival of early fifteenth-century harp-
sichord designs, or of players exploring possible uses for them.
Turning to the puzzle ofJ. S. Bach and what type(s) of harpsichord might suit
his music, we are in territory of urgent business as far as player and maker are con-
cerned. Here Hubbard, writing forty years ago, was circumspect--exceedingly so,
to borrow one of his favourite qualifiers. In the absence of instruments that could
be directly linked with Bach, he did not hazard a guess as to the type of harpsi-
chord sound known to the composer. But he was one of the first to query in print
2. StewartPollens,The Early Pianoforte(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1995).
I4o Musicology Australia vol. 27

the so-called 'Bach disposition', with its 2 x 8", i6" and 4", devoting an appendix of
three pages to the case against the i6" stop as an original feature of the few German
harpsichords then known.
Hubbard did not live to see the discovery and attribution to Michael Mietke of
two instruments at Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin (also home of the dreaded
'Bach disposition" instrument), which in I985 transformed the landscape of what
was known about harpsichords available to Bach into something simpler and less
grandiose: the single manuals with 2 x 8" and the double-manual harpsichord with
x 8, 4". It was around this time, too, that makers began to draw and make repro-
ductions of Saxon instruments such as those of the Gr~ibner family, of the
Fleischers, Zell and Vater of Hamburg-all, maybe a considerable distance from
J. S. Bach, but closer conceptually to his music than the later eighteenth-century
French double-manual instruments on which his music was regularly performed
and recorded till these discoveries, and all offering advantages of clarity for Bach's
contrapuntal textures. Ironically, Kottick suggests that the large harpsichord pur-
chased by Bach for Prince Leopold of Ctthen may have been a Mietke
harpsichord with a 16"; but he concedes that it cannot be proved as the instrument
no longer exists.
In his treatment of eighteenth-century German harpsichords, with its impor-
tant ramifications for our understanding of one of the major harpsichord
repertoires, Kottick has much to add to the picture given by Hubbard. Here, as
with the history of Ruckers and Italian harpsichords, research by instrument
restorers and makers has contributed an astonishing amount of detail over the past
twenty-five years, opening new avenues for understanding harpsichord history.
Whereas Hubbard reported his own findings and observations, Kottick assembles
and sums up work from a new and vast range of sources. His History draws on
recent major studies, such as Grant O'Brien's work on the Ruckers harpsichord
tradition, Denzil Wraight's comprehensive documentary work on Italian harpsi-
chords, Sheridan Germann's research on the Mietke instruments and the clues that
decoration gives for attribution and dating, to name only a few.
It is only fair, however, to acknowledge the debt that these researchers owe to
Frank Hubbard, whose stated purpose was 'to record the tradition of harpsichord
making as they might have been transmitted to young apprentices in any one of
the several countries in which the craft flourished') This astonishingly bold and
yet pragmatic aim in fact set the tone for much of the work done subsequently, by
researchers/makers such as those named above, in the rigorous examination,
description and measurement of components of harpsichord constructions, as well
as the search for signs of instrument rebuilding and redesign.
Kottick follows Hubbard in the framework of national traditions, outlining use-
fully in one of the text insets the principal differences between the Italian and
Flemish designs. One idiosyncrasy that not all will want to adopt is the odd con-
cept, apparently pioneered by the English maker Michael Thomas, which he refers
to as 'International Style'. Taking into this category French, English and German
instruments of the seventeenth century, Kotfick suggests that they show elements
in common which justify considering them as a distinct 'style'. One might simply
see this as an attempt to avoid calling them 'Others', as it turns out that there are,
in fact, enough essential differences to require a further two categories. The idea of
makers having a sense of their 'internationalism' before the eighteenth century is
3. Hubbard, Three CenturiesofHarpsichordMaking, Preface.
 Reviews i4i

hard to picture, especially without the framework of the guild system, which seems
to have been confined to Antwerp and later Paris, and which brought with it the
sense of defining and controlling the activity of harpsichord making within a spe-
cific area.
The illustrative compact disc that accompanies Kottick's monograph has the
potential to transform the value of A History of the Harpsichord from that of a use-
ful reference to a contribution of outstanding interest. In practice it falls short of
realizing this potential. I can find no trace of any attempt by Kottick to relate the
argument of the book to the instruments on the disc, indicating perhaps that the
exact line-up of items was not available while the book was being written. The disc
presents a very mixed bag of instruments in all sorts of states of repair and disre-
pair, some recorded very close (e.g., the i785Jacques Germain harpsichord); others
apparently using a microphone in the next room, perhaps in an attempt to mini-
mize action noise. Apart from the Flemish Martin van der Biest virginals (i58o) ,
surely one of the loveliest recordings of a historic keyboard instrument, the early
period is represented by some quaint and nearly defunct virginals and spinets. The
choice of a Frescobaldi Toccata recorded on an ailing anonymous instrument to
illustrate German harpsichord building is eccentric indeed, collector's piece though
it may be. The single example of a piano, a Portuguese instrument by Manuel
Antunes of i767, serves the purpose--whether intended or not--of making the
surrounding quilled instruments sound outmoded and ill at ease. As the Reverend
Twining wrote to Charles Burney in i774, when the contest for survival between
piano and harpsichord was at its height: 'If it [a newly acquired fortepiano] has
deficits which a good harpsichord has not, it has beauties and delicacies which
amply compensate, and which make the harpsichord wonderfully flashy and
insipid when played after it' (quoted in Kottick, p. 388).
It should be said that the role of such a CD is doubly important in today's world,
where historical harpsichords in most museum collections are cordoned off, and
beep if one should get too close. The modern student's opportunity to experience
the tactile/auditory world of sensations from a diverse range of historical keyboard
instruments is thus severely curtailed compared with that of earlier generations of
harpsichordists. Rather than Kottick's generalizing tables of'instrument t y p e s . . .
compared at a glance', then, it would be more useful to have exact descriptions and
scalings of the instruments heard on the disc. Few untrained listeners are able to
distinguish the various registral combinations on harpsichords; thus the track illus-
trating all the possibilities on the i756 Kirkman harpsichord is one of the most
successful items on the CD, while the zaniest track is an arrangement of the intro-
duction to Handel's Zadok the Priest, in which the empire of the harpsichord fights
back with all its crescendo resources against the inexorable march of the piano.
Despite an attempt to relate harpsichord sounds to instrument designs, Kottick
pulls back from the admittedly difficult task of placing harpsichord music and
playing in his history of instruments. This leads to some puzzling omissions. For
example, Franqois Couperin rates only one entry in the index; and that in relation
to Brahms as his first editor. If Couperin's thoughts on voicing and the nature of
harpsichord sound could well have been used to enliven the discussion of French
instruments, it is left to the reader to supply this from other sources.
Equally astonishing is the relegation to a single line--in a text of 47~ pages--
of the influence of Gustav Leonhardt, the pivotal figure for nearly every
European-based harpsichordist working today within the context of historically
 I42 Musicology Australia voL27

informed performance, and inspiration to many makers. To Kottick he is merely 'a

historically oriented postwar harpsichordist' (p. 444)- Without an example of
Leonhardt playing an instrument by Skovronek (one of few non-American mak-
ers to be acknowledged) the disc lacks an illustration of arguably the most
influential turning point in the history of harpsichord playing and making in the
twentieth century.
In both cases, it might be argued that this is a history of the harpsichord, not of
harpsichordists. Yet the career ofWanda Landowska is given in reverent detail. It
is interesting to read that more than one critic of the time--though struck by her
playing--referred openly to the problem of the harpsichord in large concert halls:
its 'weak and non-carrying quality' (p. 428). Was this perception--the discrepancy
between the grandeur of the artist and the 'almost inaudible' instrument she
played--the factor that led to the engineering of those massive, unreal sonorities
heard in the recordings through which Landowska's playing is now known?
This anomaly remains perhaps the most critical problem for harpsichordist in
today's concert conditions. Whereas guitarists have almost universally adopted the
solution of electronic amplification in the concert hall, harpsichordists are still
trapped in an unwillingness to face the problem that the more impressive the
sound of their recordings, the greater are audience expectations of the five event,
and inevitably the more disappointing in most cases. The conditions for playing
harpsichord music have simply changed beyond recognition from the days in
which the great harpsichords of the past were built, leading to inevitable distor-
tions in perception. Unless more imaginative solutions are found for this ongoing
problem, it is difficult to see Kottick's concluding dream for the harpsichord being
realized: 'a new aesthetic, one in which the harpsichord may play a part.., perhaps
[as] an instrument separated from early music, existing independently, with a
viable contemporary literature and enthusiastic contemporary audiences' (p. 47o).
This book should appeal to a new and more numerous readership than previous
major studies on the harpsichord, and thus has a central part to play in dissemi-
nating knowledge normally confined to specialist journals and exchanges between
makers. At the same time, it leaves the door open for others to describe the ways
in which harpsichords, their makers, composers and players all form part of the
same history, rather than coinciding by chance as the accompanying CD seems to
suggest.
Rosalind Halton

T h o m a s Tolley, Painting the Cannon's Roar." Music, the Visual Arts

and the Rise of an Attentive Public in the Age of Haydn
Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2oor. xx, pp. 486. ISBN O 7546 0393 8

The title is so enticing that one can hardly help opening this book with unrealis-
tic expectations. Whatever these are, it is quickly apparent that this treatment of
Haydn's life and music through the eyes of visual arts historian Thomas Tolley has

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