PLATE XXXIII.
THE EMPRESS HARPSICHORD.
REPRESENTS a Harpsichord of the largest size, the culmination of an instrument that had remained in use for nearly three hundred years, but, at the time this one was made, was about to be replaced by the pianoforte. This fine Harpsichord bears the joint names of Shudi and Broadwood, and was made at the house now known as No. 33 Great Pulteney Street, London, where the pianoforte business of Messrs. John Broadwood and Sons is still carried on. The instrument is numbered 691, and the books of the original firm show that it was made for the Empress Maria Theresa, and shipped on the 20th of August 1773, which happened to be the day after Shudi died. But he had for some time retired from harpsichord-making, and this instrument is really to be attributed to his son-in-law, John Broadwood. Burkhard Tschudi, or Shudi as he wrote his name in England, was of a noble Swiss family. He had established his business as a harpsichord-maker, in Great Pulteney Street, about 1732. Through Handel's friendship he became patronised by Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III., and was permitted to use the sign of "The Plume of Feathers" for his house. He was honoured with a commission from Maria Theresa's old enemy, Frederick the Great, to make two harpsichords for the "Neues Palais" at Potsdam, where they are still to be seen. One of them is described, with Silbermann's Forte Piano, in Dr. Burney's famous tour. Some years previously, Shudi had made a harpsichord and presented it to Frederick on the occasion of his victory at Prague, but the present writer could not find the instrument when he made a special visit to Berlin and Potsdam, in 1881. It may be said of Shudi and Jacob Kirkman, once fellow-apprentices, and afterwards competitors, that they left the harpsichord a more powerful instrument, and more varied in effect, by means of stops and registers, than it had ever been before.
Shudi was the inventor of the Venetian Swell (patented 1769), which he intended for the harpsichord. When the patent expired this contrivance was generally adopted in England, and becoming transferred to the organ, has remained, ever since, an important means of effect in that instrument. The figure in the Plate shows the Venetian Swell open, as it would be when the right pedal is put down. There are four registers and six stops in this instrument. Taking them in their order from left to right, we find on the left-hand side, the "lute," the jacks or plectra of which twang the first unison string, near the wrest-plank bridge, and give a more reedy sound than is obtained from the usual striking-places; the "octave," which, as its name indicates, acts upon strings tuned an octave higher, which are of shorter length, and lie below the others; and the "buff" (sometimes called "harp") stop, which partly mutes the second unison strings, throughout, by the contact of small pads of leather. On the right-hand side are the first and second rows of unison strings. The upper key-board has the first unison and lute only, while all the registers come under the player's control on the lower key-board. The machine stop, at the left hand of the key-boards, permits an agreeable change to lute and buff (harp) by using the left pedal and both sets of keys. Kirkman appears to have arranged his left-hand stops differently—buff, lute, octave. The dimensions of the Harpsichord here drawn are 8 feet 9¾ inches in extreme length, and 3 feet 4 inches in width at the key-boards. The great width of the key-board of the modern pianoforte renders it impossible, in designing one, to reproduce the special grace of the harpsichord.
Among composers, those who have best understood the genius of the harpsichord have been Handel and Scarlatti. The former, with his famous Air with variations in D Minor and the Presto following it, summed up the history and technique of the instrument, as far as it was then known. Scarlatti found such new features to display in technical contrivance and effect, that we are still attracted by an individuality the originality of which is, as yet, untouched by time. The only parallel instance, although resembling it in no other way, is that of Frédéric Chopin as a composer and performer on the pianoforte.
With the harpsichord went out the figured bass accompaniment, or thorough bass, that, for two hundred years, had been the foundation of a correct musical education. By degrees the training for technique and memory came to occupy that attention with pianoforte-players, which had been devoted to developing the fluency of improvisation expected from the harpsichord-player.
This harpsichord was lent by Mr. Victor Mahillon, of Brussels, to the South Kensington Music Loan Collection, 1885.