Tangentenflügel
ALTERNATE NAME(S)
- Tangent piano
Maker
Frantz Jacob Spath
Date1784 ca.
Place MadeRegensburg, Bavaria, Germany, Europe
Serial No.none
SignedOn wrestplank in front of the tuning pins, very faintly: Spath & Schmahl, Regensburg, 178[4]MarkingsIn front of wrestplank (covered by fallboard) has handwritten gauge markings, aligned with strings, in ITALIAN: Giale[a]= brass strings; Biache= iron strings
Some numbering also on top of wrestplank.
DescriptionThe action of the Tangentenflügel differs from the piano in that the strings are struck with wooden tangents, rather than piano hammers.
Compass: FF-f3 (5 octaves)
Two hand stops:
Left: lautenzug (cloth fringe on a sliding batten)
Right: Pianissimozug (leather moderator)
Left knee lever: una corda
Right knee lever: dampers
Ebony-capped naturals. Front arcades of black-stained pearwood. Sharps of black-stained pearwood, covered with bone.
Walnut veneer
Spruce soundboard
Stringing: bichord throughout
DimensionsLength of case: 220 cm
Total height: 84 cm
Width of case: 97 cm
Height of playing mechanism: 67.5 cm
Height without lid: 25 cm
Thickness of soundboard: 2.5-3 mm
Three-octave measure: 476 mm
String length: c2: 307 mm
(Kelly measurements:)
Length: 2194mm
Width: 984mm
Overall height: 840mm
Height of case: 247mm
Spine thickness: 16mm
Double bentside thickness: 12mm
Case bottom thickness: 23mm
Total wrestplank thickness: 60mm
Keyboard:
Three-octave measure: 476mm
Length of heads: 40mm
Width of heads: 21mm
String lengths, striking points:
FF: 1744mm, 86mm
C: 1575mm, 74mm
c: 1050mm, 56mm
c1: 608mm, 38mm
c2: 307mm, 23mm
c3: 160mm, 14mm
f3: 122mm, 10mm
ProvenancePurchased in 1987 from Bernhard von Hünerbein, Cologne, Germany. Previously in a private collection in Berlin.
Published References"18th-Century Instruments Shown in Black Hills," Newsletter of the American Musical Instrument Society, Vol. XIX, No. 1 (February 1990), p. 23.
Clinkscale, Martha Novak. Makers of the Piano 1700-1820 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 271.
Kelly, Rodger S. A Catalog of European Pianos in The Shrine to Music Museum, M.M. Thesis (University of South Dakota: 1991), pp. 52-59.
Koster, John. “Among Mozart’s spättischen Clavier: a Pandaleon-Clavecin by Franz Jacob Spath, Regensburg, 1767?,” Early Keyboard Journal, Vol. 25/26 (2010), pp. 153-223.
Kuronen, Darcy. "Keyboard Instruments at The Shrine to Music Museum," Early Keyboard Studies Newsletter, Vol. VI, No. 1 (October 1991), pp. 7 & 10.
Larson, André P. Amadeus: His Music and the Instruments of Eighteenth-Century Vienna (Vermillion: Shrine to Music Museum, 1990), pp. 26-27.
Paolo di Stefano, Giovanni. "The Tangentenflügel and Other Pianos with Non-Pivoting Hammers," Galpin Society Journal 61 (2008), pp. 95-96, 98.
“Recent Acquisitions Await New Galleries,” Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 16, No. 3 (April 1989), p. 2.
Credit LineRawlins Fund, 1987
Object number04145
On View
On view
1790 ca.
