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Harpsichord

Maker José Calisto

Date1780

Place MadePortugal, Europe

Serial No.none

SignedInscribed on the nut: JOZE CALISTO 1780
DescriptionThis wonderfully preserved instrument is typically Portuguese in both its design and decorative style. The single manual, with boxwood-covered naturals and ebony-covered sharps, has the common eighteenth-century Iberian five-octave compass of GG to g3 (61 notes). There are two registers at 8' pitch; the front register is permanently engaged, while the back register is controlled by a hand stop on the right side of the keyboard. A second hand stop on the left controls a buff stop affecting the front 8'.

The robust case, made mainly of spruce, is painted dark green on the exterior and veneered with Brazilian tulipwood on the interior. The original music desk is mostly of rosewood (palisander), as are the moldings and blocks around the keyboard. In typical Portuguese fashion, the instrument rests on trestles with cutouts in the shape of inverted hearts.
DimensionsThe instrument is scaled for brass strings with the speaking lengths doubling at each lower octave throughout most of the compass. This accounts for the imposing size of the harpsichord, which is 2,516 mm long, almost the length of a modern concert grand piano. Although the string scaling is similar to that of harpsichords and pianos made in Florence by Bartolomeo Cristofori, which were known in Portugal, the overall construction and most details of its action and soundboard layout are closer to those of northern-European harpsichords.

Length of spine (without bracket at front): 2516 mm
Width (measured over the nameboard): 955 mm
Length of cheekpiece (without bracket): 646 mm
Length of tail: 250 mm
Tail angle: 88 1/2 degrees
Height (including bottom, which is applied to the bottom edges of the walls): 227 mm
Top edge of walls down to soundboard: 65 mm
Wall thicknesses (including ineterior veneer): 15 to 16 1/2 mm
Width of wrest plank: 231 mm in bass, 227 mm in treble
Register gap: 38 to 39 mm
3-octave span: 493 mm
Natural heads: 38 mm
Sharps, length: 81 mm at their bottom; 76 mm at top

Back 8' string length (mm)
g3: 84
c3:131
c2: 255
c1: 503
c: 987
C: 1802
GG: 2009

ProvenancePurchased in 1999 from Wolfgang Ruf, Emmetten, Switzerland.
Published ReferencesBoalch, Donald H. Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord 1440-1840. Third edition, edited by Charles Mould (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 263-264.

Koster, J. "Rare 1785 Silbermann Spinet Only Example Outside of Europe," America's Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter, 26, No. 2 (May 1999), p. 3.

-------. "A Rare Portugese Harpsichord by José Calisto, 1780," America's Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 26, No. 3 (August 1999), pp. 4-5.

-------. “Towards an optimal instrument: Domenico Scarlatti and the new wave of Iberian Harpsichord making,” Early Music, Vol. XXXV, No. 4 (November 2007), p. 597.

-------. "Traditional Iberian Harpsichord Making in its European Context," Galpin Society Journal 61 (2008), pp. 8, 9, 13, 62.

John Koster. "History and Construction of the Harpsichord," The Cambridge Companion to the Harpsichord (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 2-30

Skyrm, Susanne, ed., with assistance from Calvert Johnston and John Koster. Anthology of Eighteenth-Century Spanish Keyboard Music for Organ, Piano, Harpsichord, or Clavichord (Colfax, North Carolina: Wayne Leupold Editions, 2010), p. x.

CDs
Schenkman, Byron. The Art of the Harpsichord from Cabezon to Mozart. 2017.

Lanzelotte, Rosana. Pedro Antonio Avondano, Sonatas. Portugaler Audiopro (No. 2014-2). 2005.

Robert, Anne. Carlos Seixas, Sonates pour Clavecin (Vol. II). France: Optical Disc de France, BNL 112868) 1997.

Credit LineRawlins Fund, 1999

Object number06204

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