Harpsichord
Date1530 ca.
Place MadeNaples, Italy, Europe
Serial No.none
SignednoneMarkingsnone
DescriptionThis harpsichord, with 45 notes (C/E to c3) and a single 8' register, is among the oldest playable strung keyboards. In typical Italian style, the instrument, with its thin walls, was kept in a separate outer case.
Material:
Beechwood key levers; boxwood (Buxus) naturals with trefoil keyfronts cut from two layers of veneer applied to the front ends of the levers painted blue; sharps of pearwood (Pyrus or a closely related species) stained black. Keyframe of spruce (Picea; back rail sampled); guide rack of poplar (Populus); balance rail of linden (Tilia); key guide slips of beech. In the typically Neapolitan manner, the keyboard rests on a framework glued to the bottom, and slides like a drawer into slots in the wrestplank support blocks.
Case walls and moldings of maple; bottom board of fir (Abies); wrestplank of pear (Pyrus etc.); belly rail of spruce (Picea). Typical Italian construction with the walls applied to the edges of the bottom.
Molded nut of maple in two straight sections mitered between c1 and c#1. Soundboard of fine-grained quartered-sawed spruce (Picea); molded bridge of maple, bent to its curve, with mitered-on bass section. A cutoff bar is visible just behind the bridge-side edge of the rose.
Original decorative features include the maple moldings applied around the upper and lower edges of the case exterior; a molding around the upper edge of the case interior; and a compound molding around the edges of the soundboard and wrestplank ends. The keycheeks are carved in the form of cornucopias on a stippled background. The soundhole in the soundboard, approximately 86 mm in diameter, is surrounded and covered by an extraordinarily fine geometrical rose made from several layers of veneer, two molded rings of wood, and (over the opening) carved wood.
The gilt and painted decoration are, at least in part, later additions.
There have been some musical alterations, none of which have substantially affected the integrity of the instrument. Probably first, the harpsichord was attached to an organ underneath. At, presumably, a later stage, probably in the mid-to-late 17th c. or perhaps in the 18th, a second 8' was added, and a small rectangular hole was cut in the spine to install the new box guide. Probably at a somewhat later stage was the addition of pedal pulldowns for the lowest six notes.
DimensionsOverall:
Harpsichord: 1722 mm long by 658 wide (excluding moldings); 202 high.
Outer case: 1823 mm long by 707 mm (excluding the lid)
Length (without moldings): 1722 mm
Width (without moldings):
658 mm near bottom at keyboard front;
661 mm at keycheek tops near nameboard
Height: 202 mm (maximum)
Width of keywell at keyboard front: 638 mm
Tail angle: 32¾º
Keyboard:
3-octave measure:
at keyboard front: 495 mm
at keyboard rack: 496½ mm
on the jack guide: 494 mm
Natural heads 34 mm long; sharps 63 to 65 mm long, 12 to 13 mm (mostly about 12½) wide (not significantly tapered in width), 11¼ to 12 mm high (approx. 8½ mm above natural surfaces); key levers (beech) 287 mm long; natural boxwood cover overlap lever fronts by 3 mm; natural front (boxwood cover) to balance 118½ mm; sharp balance line 11½ mm behind natural line; natural balance to back end of lever 171½ mm; scribed line on top of levers 33 mm from back end.
Case walls: 4¾ mm thick, parts of bentside slightly less, down to about 4½ mm.
Bottom board mostly 13 to 15½ mm thick.
Diameter of hole in soundboard for rose, approximately 86 mm.
String lengths in mm
C/E 1310
F 1299
c 1040
c1 525
c2 279
c3 133
ProvenancePurchased in 2009.
In 1924, Alejandro Bianchi (of Ramón J. Cárcano, a rural hamlet near Villa Maria, Córdoba Province, Argentina) purchased the harpsichord from Stabilimento Musicale Maestro Enrico Canz, Santa Margherita, Ligure, Italy.
After Bianchi's death in 1990, his heirs discarded the instrument, but it was salvaged and purchased by Jorge González, who restored it and made it available for concerts in Buenos Aires.
Published ReferencesKyle MacMillan. "On the Dakota Prairie, Where Instruments Are Fine Art," EMAg (Early Music America) 28, No. 3 (September 2022), p.46.
John Koster. "History and Construction of the Harpsichord," The Cambridge Companion to the Harpsichord (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 2-30
Koster, John . “The Early Neapolitan School of Harpsichord Making,” in Domenico Scarlatti en España / Domenico Scarlatti in Spain, Luisa Morales, ed. (Garrucha, Almería, Spain: Asociación Cultural LEAL, 2009), pp. 47-80 (especially p. 72 and figs. 3, 7, 11, 12, and 13).
Wraight, Denzil. The Stringing of Italian Keyboard Instruments c.1500 – c.1650, Ph.D. thesis, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1997, no. 641.
CDs:
Vicens, Catalina. Il Cembalo di Partenope - A Renaissance Harpsichord Tale. Carpe Diem Records CD-16312, 2017.
Credit LinePurchase funds gift of the William Selz Estate; Clifford and LaVonne Graese; and Rawlins Fund, 2009
Object number14408
On View
On view
