Here you can read about the eighteenth-century musical instruments used in the recordings made for this site. Images of these instruments, and recordings of them being played, are available in the “Resources” section.

Instruments 1–4, and 6 were prepared for these recordings by Carey Beebe. Instrument 5 was prepared by Erin Helyard.

Instruments 1–4 were restored by Carey Beebe and are courtesy of Carey Beebe Harpsichords Australia.

Instrument 5 was used courtesy of the New Zealand School of Music, University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Instrument 6 was used courtesy of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.

Instrument 7 was used courtesy of Melissa Farrow.

Images 1–5 are by courtesy of Carey Beebe, image 6 by courtesy of the estate of Christopher Hogwood, image 7 by courtesy of Paul McNulty, and image 8 is courtesy of Oliver Miller and Melissa Farrow.

The instructions discussed in this section are the following:

1. SINGLE-MANUAL HARPSICHORD (Jacob and Abraham Kirckman, London, 1773)
2. DOUBLE-MANUAL HARPSICHORD (Jacob and Abraham Kirckman, London, 1775)
3. SQUARE PIANOFORTE (John Broadwood and Son, London, 1796)
4. SQUARE PIANOFORTE (John Broadwood & Sons, London, 1842)
5. VIENNESE FORTEPIANO after Anton Walter c. 1798 by Derek Adlam
6. VIENNESE GRAND PIANO after Conrad Graf Op. 318, 1819 by Paul McNulty
7. TRANSVERSE FLUTE (William Henry Potter, London, 1790s)

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1. SINGLE-MANUAL HARPSICHORD (Jacob and Abraham Kirckman, London, 1773)

Few of today’s harpsichord makers could aspire to accumulate a fortune matching that of Jacob Kirckman, reported by his friend, the contemporaneous music historian Charles Burney, as £20,000. The founder of a keyboard instrument making dynasty that was to remain active through the late nineteenth century, Jacob Kirchmann (1710–1792) was born in Bischweiler near Strasbourg. He went to England in the early 1730s to work with the harpsichord maker Tabel, and soon anglicized his family name.

The earliest of the perhaps one hundred and fifty surviving Kirckman harpsichords is dated 1744. A few years before this harpsichord was made, Jacob took his nephew Abraham (1737–1794) into the business, and the instruments were signed with both their names from then until at least 1790.

For various reasons, few original instruments can be considered in performance-ready condition, completely reliable and capable of satisfying the demands of a top harpsichordist. Most have been altered in some form or other, usually by hands of varying expertise. Many are sadly only curious relics.

With its well-preserved action, the 1773 Kirckman which was owned by the composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924) is an exception. The consistent and precise workmanship of Kirckman’s pearwood jacks has not been exceeded by makers then or since. The jacks retain their original tongues punched with curved mortises to suit crow quill, and sprung with boar bristle. The tuning pins are original and undrilled. Many of the action cloths are also original, having survived 240 years.

The listener may be quite startled that this harpsichord is endowed with means of expression, the so-called “machine stop”. This device was relatively common throughout the entire second half of the 18th century, even before that modern upstart, the pianoforte, had been heard in England. The machine stop pedal overrides the hand-stop levers, allowing the player to produce diminuendo and crescendo effects without lifting his hands from the keys.

In usual operation, all three choirs sound. As the pedal is gradually depressed, the 4 ́ is turned off, followed by the front 8 ́, leaving only the back 8 ́sounding. By this means, quite rapid effects can be made which are impossible even on a larger double-manual harpsichord.

Musical taste was changing, but two decades were to pass before these glorious instruments were supplanted by that modern upstart, the pianoforte.

(Notes on the instrument by Carey Beebe)

Pitch: A415
Further information: The 1773 Jacob & Abraham Kirckman is #BMO-1025 in Boalch-Mould Online. https://hpschd.nu/cln/kirckman.html

Single-manual harpsichord by Jacob & Abraham Kirckman, London, 1773

2. DOUBLE-MANUAL HARPSICHORD (Jacob and Abraham Kirckman, London, 1775)

With its crossbanded mahogany veneer and elegant brasswork, the 1775 Kirckman is a typical example of the comprehensive late eighteenth-century English double-manual harpsichord, capable of playing anything in the repertoire. The five-octave ebony and ivory keyboards have sixty notes FF,GG–f''', lacking the bottom FF♯. There are the same three sets of strings as the single-manual 1773 Kirckman, but four registers of jacks. The so-called front 8 ́ (unison) choir is doglegged—when engaged, it plays from both upper and lower keyboards. The back 8 ́ and 4 ́ (octave) play from the lower keyboard. In addition, there is a lute or nasale register on the upper keyboard, an extra set of jacks plucking close to the nut and producing a rich and pungent harmonic structure.

This harpsichord also has a “machine stop” pedal, but of the simplest variety. It overrides only the 4’ stop lever, allowing the player to engage and disengage this register without lifting the hands from the keyboard.

(Notes on the instrument by Carey Beebe)

Pitch: A430
Further information: The 1775 Jacob & Abraham Kirckman is #BMO-1031 in Boalch-Mould Online. https://hpschd.nu/cln/kirckman-1775.htm

Double-manual harpsichord by Jacob & Abraham Kirckman, London 1775
Inscription on the 1775 Kirckman nameboard batten

3. SQUARE PIANOFORTE (John Broadwood and Son, London, 1796)

Scotsman John Broadwood (1732–1812) moved to London in September 1761 to apprentice with Jacob Kirckman’s main competitor, harpsichord maker Burkat Shudi (1702–1773). Marrying Shudi’s daughter in 1769, he became a partner in the business in 1770, and its effective head from 1771. Broadwood’s Journal first mentioned square piano sales in 1778. In 1795 he took his son James Shudi Broadwood into partnership, and the instruments from then until 1808 were signed John Broadwood and Son. In the mid-1790s when this instrument was built, their annual output of square pianos numbered about four hundred. While Broadwood ceased production of square pianos in 1866, their output of grands and uprights continued. The business underwent several permutations and survived until the 1990s.

The 1796 Broadwood rests on a French stand, complete with music shelf. It is double strung throughout its five-octave compass FF–f’'', and has the simple English action where the relatively tiny leather-covered hammers are pushed towards the strings by a leather-covered button set on a thin brass rod in each key. There are cloth dampers on brass levers below the strings, and no handstops or pedals to vary the tone.

This piano was offered for sale at Sotheby’s Early Musical Instruments auction in December 1985, but passed in. The pre-eminent Sydney antique dealer W F Bradshaw purchased it and imported it to Australia soon afterwards.

(Notes on the instrument by Carey Beebe)

Pitch: A425
Further information: The 1796 Broadwood square is #CEP-7401 in Clinkscale Online. http://db2.earlypianos.org/dbport2/URL12.aspx?CEPNO=7401

https://hpschd.nu/cln/broadwood.html

Square pianoforte by John Broadwood and Son, London 1796

4. SQUARE PIANOFORTE (John Broadwood & Sons, London, 1842)

On Monday 9 January 1843, a humble square piano left the London factory of John Broadwood and Sons with nine other instruments and was loaded onto the barque Fanny bound for New South Wales. It arrived in the colony seven months later.

The 1842 Square #54792 was Broadwood’s least expensive model. In polished mahogany, the ‘School-room pianoforte’ was priced at 37 guineas — about GBP3450 today. It was entered in Broadwood’s foreign ledger to the account of entrepreneur Captain Ranulf Dacre, who was a regular Broadwood trade client for two decades, but it’s not yet known which Sydney establishment the piano sold through or for what price.

Pianos of the early Victorian period are frequently encountered today, but rarely in such a remarkable state of preservation. Action parts made from a variety of organic materials are subject to wear and deterioration. An instrument that manages to survive the vicissitudes of climate or vermin often succumbs to the ministrations of well-meaning tuners and technicians of varying experience and skill levels in their attempts to keep it playing satisfactorily. This piano, however, shows no sign of adverse environmental effects, and to judge from the minimal wear of its ivory keycovers, it wasn’t played excessively.

This instrument is also significant for its unquestionable provenance. It remained for several generations with a prominent colonial dynasty at ‘Kirkham’, the family estate near Camden of NSW Surveyor-General John Oxley. Oxley himself died in 1828 so never saw or played this piano: It was most likely purchased by Oxley’s widow, Emma, in 1845 on her return to NSW from three years in Europe with her two sons. The piano remained in the Oxley family until 1982, when it was purchased by W F Bradshaw from Eleanor Oxley, a great-granddaughter of Surveyor-General Oxley.

(Notes on the instrument by Carey Beebe)

Pitch: A430
Further information: https://hpschd.nu/cln/broadwood-1842.html

The 1842 Broadwood square is #CEP-8691 in Clinkscale Online. http://db2.earlypianos.org/dbport2/URL12.aspx?CEPNO=8691

Square pianoforte by John Broadwood & Sons, London 1842

5. VIENNESE FORTEPIANO after Anton Walter c. 1798 by Derek Adlam, Welbeck UK 1991 (Courtesy of New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington) 

Anton Walter (1752–1826) lived and worked in Vienna during the final quarter of the eighteenth and first quarter of the nineteenth centuries, a period during which Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert also resided there.

In 1784, Mozart purchased a Walter piano, and his patronage would no doubt have made Walter’s reputation. Mozart’s own Walter piano survives in the Mozart Geburthaus Museum, Salzburg, but as it has been greatly altered since he owned it we will never know exactly how it sounded or felt.

This fortepiano is a copy of a c1798 Walter which survives in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnburg. It has a sixty-three note FF–g''' compass with a triple-strung treble. There are two knee levers under the keyboard: The right lever raises the dampers; the left engages the moderator which interposes a set of cloth tabs between the hammers and the strings so that the hammers strike the strings through the cloth to produce a muted tone.

(Notes on the instrument by Carey Beebe)

Pitch: A430
Same model Viennese Fortepiano after Walter c1798 by Derek Adlam, from the former Christopher Hogwood Instrument Collection.

6. VIENNESE GRAND PIANO after Conrad Graf Op. 318, 1819 by Paul McNulty
   (Courtesy of Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney)

The instruments of Conrad Graf (1782–1851) represent a pinnacle in the development of the piano. This fortepiano is a copy of an instrument housed in Zamek Kozel (Goat Castle) near Pilsen, Czech Republic.

The pianos Graf built between 1810–1820 while heavily strung, are lightly proportioned in relation to hammer head size and soundboard thickness. The result is an instrument that retains the Classical Viennese clarity but edging towards a Romantic bloom.

This piano is triple-strung for almost its entire compass of CC–f''''. Its hammers are covered with between three to six layers of Haarscharf leather from a kind of hybrid goat-sheep. There are four pedals: Una corda, half moderator, full moderator, and damper lifter.

Both Beethoven (during his middle and late periods), and Schubert would have been familiar with this type of fortepiano from Graf.

(Notes on the instrument by Carey Beebe)

Pitch: A430
Further information: https://www.fortepiano.eu/materials-graf-op-318-1819/

 
Viennese Grand Piano by Paul McNulty after Conrad Graf 1819.

7. TRANSVERSE FLUTE (William Henry Potter, London, 1790s)

For this recording, we used a mellow-toned original flute by William Henry Potter, London, from around the 1790s. The Potter workshop was an esteemed and highly regarded establishment in London. The firm was well known for their progressive flute-making which influenced instrument makers both in England and the Continent throughout the nineteenth century.

This boxwood flute has four keys which are fitted with pewter plugs rather than leather pads, an example of the Potter patent flute, designed by William’s father Richard. The headjoint is lined with metal, it has a tuning slide for easy pitch adjustment and the bore is more narrow than other English flutes from that period, giving it a bright, striking tone quality. For certain notes demanding a stronger quality, Melissa used the louder keyed fingerings, and chose more subtle options in the cross-fingerings for the sweeter phrases.

(Notes on the instrument by Melissa Farrow and Erin Helyard)

Transverse flute by William Henry Potter, London, 1790s.