Kate Buehler
St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.

The goal of this paper is to retell that story as completely as possible by establishing a context for its creation and following the trail of its subsequent ownership. The telling is based on organological arguments stemming from an examination of the gittern itself, on historical research involving people and places with which the gittern interacted, and social considerations which suggest how it was regarded and used in each setting. Hitherto unnoticed evidence on the instrument reveals that it went through three distinct orientations as a functional musical instrument: a medieval citole, an Elizabethan violin, and an eighteenth century violin.

The gittern has long been accepted to date from the early fourteenth century. I propose that the original construction of the gittern took place in East Anglia between 1310 and 1320. The style of the carvings on the gittern strongly suggest that the carver was a native to the East Anglian Decorated style. This tie is strengthened upon consideration of citoles portrayed in East Anglian artwork from this same period. The high quality of the workmanship suggests aristocratic patronage, and Edward II is a likely candidate.

The most tantalizing chapter in the gittern’s history is suggested by the silver peg box cover bearing the crests of Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, and a silver pin stamped with the date 1578. Using organological evidence in addition to social and historical considerations, I affirm that this silverwork is authentic, and that the gittern was transformed into a violin for Elizabeth by Dudley.

The gittern was modernized yet again in the eighteenth century, probably while it was owned by the Dukes of Dorset. It was sold in auction around 1769, and for approximately forty years circulated on the London market, finally being purchased by the Warwick family sometime before 1806. Restorative and preservative work in the mid-nineteenth century resulted in an electrotype copy owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The gittern has ultimately come to the British Museum, where it hints to thousands of admirers of the stories of its 700-year life.

Stewart Carter,
Wake Forest University, U.S.A.

Surviving treatises demonstrate that many nineteenth-century writers were familiar with the cornett. Some French authors, such as Berlioz, betray fundamental misunderstandings of the instrument, while German and Austrian writers had more first-hand knowledge of it. Franz-Xaver Glöggl's Kirchenmusik Ordnung (1828) demonstrates the continued use of the cornett in the churches of Linz. Jean-Georges Kastner's Supplément au Traité général d'instrumentation (1844) contains an eyewitness account of the instrument's use. Kastner's treatise is in French, but his report concerns a performance he heard in Stuttgart.

A study of surviving instruments reveals that construction techniques evolved as the popularity of the cornett waned. Cornetts were by this time largely a sideline for makers, who in some cases adapted techniques used in making other woodwinds to the manufacture of cornetts. Seven of the surviving cornetts from this late period represent a new form of the instrument, the three-piece straight variety, its articulated construction apparently inspired by contemporary flutes and oboes. For the manufacture of curved cornetts, makers adapted techniques used in the construction of such woodwinds as the oboe di caccia and the curved type of English horn and basset horn: X-ray photographs of a curved cornett from 1805 reveal how the instrument was "kerfed" or nicked in order facilitate bending with steam.

Surviving instruments further confirm Germany as the locus for the instrument in this late period. All six of the late cornetts that bear signatures were made in Germany, and five of these were made either in the instrument-making village of Neukirchen or within a radius of sixty kilometers.

Hugh Cheape
National Museums of Scotland
Edinburgh

The need for some curatorial expertise in the field of traditional music in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, given a growing volume of demand for information in the late-twentieth century, and a proposal in 1976 for a Festival Exhibition in this subject area highlighted gaps and obvious shortfalls in the collections of Scotland's national instrument. An acquisition policy was formulated in 1978-79 to fill some of these gaps and to study the history and the material culture of the bagpipe in Scotland in a more deliberate and systematic fashion. In the near-quarter century of the application of this policy, a relatively large and representative collection of Scottish, British and European bagpipes has been brought together in the National Museums of Scotland (themselves the creation of the National Heritage [Scotland] Act of 1985), and important collaborative initiatives developed with the Edinburgh Universitiy Collection of Historic Musical Instruments (since 1983) and the National Piping Centre in Glasgow (since 1995).

This paper give a detailed account of the piping collections of the National Museums of Scotland and of the exercise of this collecting policy, as well as new research and perspectives for ethnomusicology, to suggest that a collection of national and international significance has now been created for Scotland.

John Cranmer,
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff

Jayson Dobney,
Vermillion

Metal tensioning rods were first patented by Englishman Cornelius Ward in 1837. By the 1840s and 50s, other European drum makers were producing snare drums utilizing his ideas, or experimenting with their own tension devices. Very few of these drums seem to have been imported to America, which continued to use rope-tension instruments throughout the American Civil War and beyond. Banjo makers, both in England and America, did utilize metal tension rods as early as the 1840s. Ironically, many of the banjo makers, such as William Esperance Boucher, Jr., of Baltimore, were also drum makers, but they did not apply the same technology to drums. It was not until "Prussian drums" became available in catalogs by John F. Stratton, H.C. Barnes, and C.G. Conn in the 1870s and 80s that rod tension drums were widely available to American drummers.

American patents in the nineteenth century show that there was much experimentation in separate-tensioning, including patents from as early as the 1860s. It would not be until 1882 that Emile Boulanger of St. Louis would offer the first commercially successful separate- tension-rod snare drum in America. Still, American drums continued to be primarily either rope-tensioned or simple, single-tension rod drums typified by instruments produced by the Leedy firm of Indianapolis, Indiana, one of the largest drum manufacturers in the country, well into the twentieth century.

William F. Ludwig was so impressed by a German separate-tension rod drum that he acquired, that he tried to convince Leedy to make similar drums. After Leedy refused, Ludwig, along with his brother Theobald, started making their own drums, based on the German design, in Chicago. These drums were the first "modern" drums offered in America. By the mid-1920s Ludwig and Ludwig had grown in to the largest drum company in the world, and practically every American drum maker was producing separate-tension rod drums.

Danielle Eden
Sydney, Australia

This presentation is concerned with tracing the instrumental development of the piccolo from its initial production to the application of the Boehm system and alternatives, concentrating on the period since 1800, which required cohesive documentation. Patent specifications and their application to the piccolo will be discussed. Extant instruments presented include examples from collections not previously catalogued or displayed.

Niles Eldredge,
The American Museum of Natural History
New York

The next wave of innovation in cornet design reflects a decidedly British influence. Until the mid-1850s, the bells of all cornet à pistons, regardless of valve type, remained on the right side of the instrument. Though it was the Parisian maker A. Courtois who apparently was the first to place the bell on the left, it is clear that the instant popularity of this "reversed bell" (or "modèle anglais") in Britain, was the main impetus behind the eventual adoption of this form in virtually all cornets.

British manufacturers began making "reversed bell" instruments by the late 1860s, and the origin of the modern form of the Périnet valve seems to be closely correlated with these early efforts. The oldest known surviving Besson (London) reversed bell cornet is a single waterkey instrument with what has remained the modern "wrap" of the leadpipe-but with an experimental valve that is not quite in the modern configuration. This instrument is identical in all other respects to their slightly later Desideratum model-the oldest known essentially modern cornet, in production certainly by 1869, and with what has long since become the modern version of the Périnet valve.

Meanwhile Distin & Co. were selling, also by ca. 1869, their double waterkey modèle anglais Courtois copy-but with a valve design very similar to that of the Besson Desideratum. No known patents of this, the modern valve, have yet come to light-leaving to speculation at this point whether Besson and Distin & Co. independently and simultaneously came up with the modern Périnet valve, or (more likely) one maker copied the unpatented valve from the other. Based on documented Besson patents of earlier designs, it is arguably more likely that it was Besson, rather than Distin & Co., who first produced Périnet valves of the modern design. Both makers were clearly intent on capturing some of the British market share from the highly successful Courtois modèle anglais cornets that had become so popular over the preceding decade.

Robert Eliason,
Lyme, New Hampshire

Lloyd P. Farrar,
Norris, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Arnold Myers
University of Edinburgh

Henry Distin was English-born, but he died in Philadelphia in October one century ago. In his latter-day career in his adopted country he was styled in the press as "The last of the great Cornet Makers" (referring directly to Besson and Courtois as those who preceded him). Yet in a statement circulated widely by a competitor, a former Distin employee and associate asserted that Distin knew very well how to judge a good cornet but did not himself know how to make one. Between these two hyperbolic extremes may be found the true importance of a flamboyant personality who indeed influenced greatly the world of instrument manufacture, also the popularity of the then-new piston valve brasswinds and the explosive growth of brass bands during his lifetime.

Distin was the principal proprietor of Distin & Sons, dealers and manufacturers in London after ca. 1850 until the enterprise known as Distin & Co became the manufactory for Boosey & Co. Extant shop records with Boosey & Hawkes show the compartmentalization of the various components of brasswinds into crafts departments with eventual assembly and marketing through other departments; i.e., an application of a method of industrial large-scale production that Distin may have learned from his experience with established French makers, especially Guichard and his successors, where similar factory organization already was successfully in place.

Distin introduced like in-house departments in America where, drawing on his established reputation both as a player and a maker, he established in New York City, Philadelphia and environs and eventually in Williamsport, Pennsylvania large factories with steam-driven machinery and large workforces using several tools and techniques patented by Distin in America. Distin's brasswinds were widely advertised in trade journals and house advertizing periodicals under trade names such as "SUPERIOR", "HIGHEST GRADE", and "CELEBRATED" to an extent and to an effectiveness previously unknown in the industry there or in Europe. This aspect - the utilization of mass publications and the press to drive sales of a factory-produced line of instruments - possibly was the single most innovative contribution made by Distin.

Archival documents preserved in England and in many American cities, surviving trade publications and newspapers as well as numerous extant instruments bearing dual serial numbers (bell and valves) as well as an effusive trademark certification provide more detail about his life and methods of industrial organization than perhaps is found for any of his contemporaries among instrument makers. He emerges as a man who sensed the energy of the rising industrialization of all the old crafts - textiles, furniture, tool making, metals technology - and utilized this energy to found a series of industrial enterprises that left him at the end of his life able to retire respected as a great manufacturer of musical instruments. He lived out the closing thirteen years of his life sustained by this earned reputation and on a pension for himself and his family by the company that bore his name, HENRY DISTIN MFG CO. A number of tools patented under his name and several truly excellent patterns for instrument design also patented were uniquely brilliant inventions credited to him, even though it is probable that the technology of these may always have been achieved through the skills of his employees in London, New York, and Pennsylvania. He began his career as a horn player in a family concert quintet, but he ended his life as a famous industrial innovator. Much of what he did was idiomatic to the spirit of the age in which he lived, but also his manner of work made much of what he did appear fresh, exciting, and largely unique to the Distin persona.

Michael Fleming,
Oxford

Over the last few years, documentary evidence from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has provided increasing amounts of information about instrument-making in English cities other than London and has assisted those who seek a more accurate understanding of provincial music. Building on previous work about inhabitants of Oxford and York, new research into the people involved in musical activities in Oxford will now be presented and discussed. This will focus on people who made musical instruments, but will also include information about professional and amateur instrumentalists, and about some of the relationships between all these and other musicians and woodworkers. Some common sources of confusion in research about instrument-makers will be described and exemplified.

The information to be presented will support earlier findings about the nature of instrument-makers, particularly that for many, instrument making was only part of their work, so instruments were often made not by specialist instrument-makers but by people who may be better known for other activities. This raises important questions, such as how did English instruments attain their high international reputation ? The work also casts new light on some important names in the string instrument making world. There are indications that relatively obscure Oxford instrument-makers are connected with some better-known makers in London. It is possible that far from being backward, derivative or even parasitic in relation to London, centres such as Oxford provided not only the manpower but possibly also the foundation or driving force for significant developments in other parts of the country, including the capital.

Charles Foster,
Aberdeen

This presentation will give a detailed description of the construction and nature of the instrument with its unique fingering system, employing the little fingers of both hands. Demonstrations from a replica will confirm Herbert Myers' speculation that this instrument is indeed a narrow cylindrically-bored bass instrument, designed to be overblown at the 12th, with its unique fingering system enabling the notes between the two registers to be sounded. Whereas Tinctoris' dulcina, which he describes as imperfect, has a range of only a 9th, the Mary Rose shawm has been perfected, with a complete range of an octave and a 6th, plus one low note a 4th below, enabling it to play virtually any bass line in Tudor Music. No records appear to exist describing any instrument which can overblow in this manner, until the invention of the clarinet. This presentation will also illustrate, on slides, possible still shawms, and shawms playing in the company of pipe and tabor, and fiddle. Recordings of a band using the above instruments, from copies made from instruments recovered from the Mary Rose, will also be played.

Tula Giannini,
Pratt Institute

Edwin M. Good,
Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.

I wish to start further back. The piano action solves a particular mechanical problem: to propel the hammer to the string (and away from it) with speed that determines the volume of sound produced and is proportional to the weight or speed of the player’s finger on the key. The solution is by the means of leverage. I will proceed from the kinds of levers used and the ways they work to solve the piano’s problem.

Working from the three types of levers, I examine first the hammer assemblies as levers, then the ways in which keys are connected mechanically with hammer assemblies, whether operating directly on them or with intermediate levers. I look at the kinds of leverage provided by intermediate levers. And I investigate the ways levers move hammers in the three directions that pianos have required: upwards, downwards, and horizontally.

These issues form the taxonomical structure. I will discuss and illustrate the types and sub-types with action diagrams.

Ben Hebbert
St Cross College, University of Oxford,
Oxford, U.K.

Based on recent research into the Seventeenth century music trade, and including new information uncovered during the course of my doctoral study (The English Music Trade, c.1647-1725), this paper will illustrate the influences that fuelled the emergence of this group of makers, its demise less than fifty years later. Casting light on many celebrated figures such as Nathaniel Cross, Barak Norman and Richard Hunt, and also the cloudier figures of Robert Hubert (alias Forges) or the enigmatic Daniel Parker, this study will examine the social context in which different tiers of instrument makers lived.

William E. Hettrick
Hofstra University
Hempstead, New York

Freund's campaign began in The Musical Age on November 7, 1903, with his editorial "Burn the Old Squares at the Atlantic City Convention." Subsequent issues presented further inducements supported by letters of approval and reprints of newspaper articles from all over the country. Freund made sure that his name was mentioned at every opportunity, and that the bonfire ceremony during the convention was described in detail, especially the point at which he set his torch to the pile of kerosene-soaked pianos, reported to number one thousand. The event, of course, was deemed a triumph, but Freund's plan was not yet fully realized, for he continued to feature reports on "The Passing of the Old Square Piano" in The Musical Age. The issue of December 17, 1904, delivered his final salvo: a barrage of 281 articles, some rather colorful, culled from newspapers in 133 cities of the United States and Canada.

This paper will trace the full history of Freund's Great Bonfire from its inception to its final outcome, drawing on documentary evidence from a number of sources. Freund's influence, as a leading member of the musical trade press, on the retail piano business of his time will be evaluated. The presentation will also consider opposing views of his plan of destruction and its significance, including claims made by his journalistic competitors that the whole thing was a hoax!

Myrna Herzog,
Bar Ilan University
Israel

Herbert Heyde,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York

Lewis Jones,
London Metropolitan University

Alicja Knast
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland

Bruno Kampmann,
Paris

Some important valve improvements will be explained during this lecture: the Stoelzel valve with lateral port, the cor omnitonique, and the different patents on the système équitonique.

Sabine Klaus,
America's National Music Museum,
Landrum, South Carolina, U.S.A.

This serpent is most likely the one, which is now part of the Joe & Joella Utley Collection of Brass Instruments at America's National Music Museum. It is a rather unusual instrument of copper with flaring bell. In the attempt to find out more about its maker, who is otherwise unknown in the musical instrument field, I wrote to the archives in Mere in Wiltshire. This triggered an amazing discovery: There is a lot known about this person due to the research of a descendant of his, Ronald Bristow of Maidstone, Kent. The bulk of this knowledge comes from two handwritten notebooks of William Lander's in private possession. And - as one would wish - these notebooks confirm that Lander, who was a trained brazier, was concerned with the manufacture of brass instruments among other musical instruments and many technical inventions as well as every day items.

These notebooks give fascinating insights into the construction of the instruments built by Lander, the proportions behind them, how they were soldered or varnished, and which materials were used. Besides brass instruments, which were obviously Lander's main field of musical activity, a recipe for violin varnish and the construction of a harmonica are described. Also, some comments about other English instrument makers are found.

In my lecture I will give a short biography of William Lander, and discuss several of the entries on musical instruments in his notebooks, which are a new discovery in our field. Also, Lander's appearantly only surviving instrument, the copper serpent in the Utley Collection, will be subject of my lecture. I will attempt to shine light onto a talented musical instrument maker, working in a small, remote village in England, who was therefore forgotten over the centuries. In this respect, Lander might be represenative for many others yet to be discovered.

James B. Kopp
Hoboken, NJ, U.S.A.

1. A report from Basse-Marche (a province bordering Poitou) documented circa 1630 that untutored laborers and peasants played branles in four parts upon their hautbois et cornemuses, "without tablature or other aid".
2. Marin Mersenne (1636) made no reference to a musette de Poitou, although he pictured and described a quartet comprised of the conically bored cornemuse and three sizes of hautbois de Poitou: dessus (a detached chanter of the cornemuse), taille and basse.

   Personnel records from 1625-61, however, help to identify the missing musette. On occasions when the cornemuse player used a windcap instead of the bag, his chanter was called dessus de musette de Poitou. The bass instrument was also played with a windcap (basse de musette de Poitou). One dessus chanter and the taille were normally played with the bare reed taken into the mouth, being called dessus (or taille) de hautbois de Poitou.

3. Two famed members of the Hautbois et musettes de Poitou apparently commuted between sharply contrasting fingering systems. Jean Destouches (active 1620-38) and Jean Hotteterre (active 1650-66) played hautbois de Poitou in the royal quartet, presumably using conically bored instruments with an "open" or oboe-like fingering system. Yet both men were also noted as players of the bellows-blown, cylindrically bored musette de cour, which used a "closed" system, opening only one finger at a time.
4. Mersenne reported that four, five or more cylindrical bagpipe chanters (chalumeaux ordinaires, in different sizes) were played in French consorts.
5. Pierre Borjon de Scellery (1672) raised the possibility of combining two or more musettes in consorts with other woodwinds; context suggests that he was referring to bag-blown musettes de cour with extended ranges. Mersenne also mentioned that certain double-reed, conical instruments played the bass part in "consorts of musettes and voices".
6. The "Mémoire sur les musettes", written circa 1740 by the court flutist Michel de la Barre, should be understood as an obituary for the musette de Poitou, which fell from favor under Lully and Louis XIV circa 1661. The musette de cour, favored by both these absolutists, continued to enjoy popularity until the 1740s.

James K. Makubuya,
Wabash College, USA

In my most recent research, I was fascinated by the discovery that from time immemorial, the culture of the Baganda has been known to have put the ehoma to a multitude of uses; and that despite recent modifications in the Baganda's life styles as a result of modernity, the ehoma continue to have a place not only in the major royal palace functions and events but also in the most solemn, and joyous cultural ceremonies, rites and rituals of the commoners, as well as in such other identifying and unifying cultural events. Prior to discussing the musical and contextual functions of the ehoma, the paper will start with a brief look at the structural design of the ehoma as artifacts of the Baganda; specifically the paper will highlight the fact that regardless of whether they are used by the royalty or the commoners, the ehoma are made in only two basic shapes: the cone-shaped and the cylindrical ones.

After discussing the musical roles and functions illustrated by audio and video clips from traditional ensembles, the paper will examine and discuss other non-musical roles the Baganda assign the various ehoma types. The non musical functions to be discussed as performed by the ehoma will range from the multifarious cultural events in people's life cycles, ceremonies, rites and rituals to cultural roles that include enhancing and/or facilitating specific ceremonies, as well as being symbolic representations in the socio-cultural positions of power. These non musical roles of the ehoma will be discussed in three basic categories including the communicative, the ceremonial and the symbolic.

The presentation will in conclusion examine the argument that owing to the central role they play and the extent to which they are used in the tradition of the Baganda more than any other instrument, the ehoma should justifiably be metaphorically referred to as the 'heart' of the Ganda culture.

Darryl Martin,
University of Edinburgh

The instrument will also be discussed in relation to stringing and pitch standards that have been proposed by various modern authors. The similarity between the surviving Palmer instrument and the dimensions of an instrument measured by James Talbot in c. 1690 show that similar instruments were used throughout the seventeenth century in England, and the basic similarity between the Palmer and the orpharion illustrated by Praetorius will also be discussed. In particular, the paper will consider the stringing materials used for the top string and the bass strings with particular reference to string and string-making technologies.

Panel session: the Timpani

Jeremy Montagu, Edmund Bowles and Harrison Powley

Edmund A. Bowles

This brings up a number of important issues, such as the role of the conductor (who may either be encouraging his timpanist in these matters or simply doesn't care), the implied freedom of the timpanist to interpolate (why not the strings or winds ?) in the face of an orchestra otherwise playing from the score, the relative importance of trying to faithfully realize the composer's intentions (performance practice), and the whole question of whether the timpani are ensemble or solo instruments.

Harrison Powley,
Music School of Music
Brigham Young University

Jean George Kastner in his Méthode de timballes (ca.&nbps;1845) recounts that at the turn of the 19th century the first timpanist in Berlin "executed a concerto for timpani that used ten different drums and pitches" and that "he ran from one drum to another on a kind of gallery, threw his sticks in the air, and made the most extraordinary movements without his playing suffering." Kastner also mentions that the concerto used eight trumpets and orchestra to accompany him. On the placement of the drums, Central European timpanists, then and now, prefer to have the larger drums on the right side. In performing the multiple timpani works, performers may arrange the drums in a semicircular or even circular array. My research reveals another and possibly more practical approach to drum placement.

Of the virtuoso timpanists identified in the late 18th century, the most important as a composer of several works, perhaps written for himself as soloist, is Georg Druschetzky (1745-1819). The bulk of his music is unedited in the Hungarian National Library in Budapest. Characteristic of Druschetzky's approach to writing for multiple timpani is his consistent use of the timpani as primarily a melodic instrument, often doubling the woodwinds or strings. To illustrate his style we will focus our attention on his Partita and Concerto, both using six timpani. Druschetzky probably wrote these works in the last few years of the 18th century. While in Budapest I found a diagram of a six-drum arrangement for the Partita on the back of the timpani part, this had not been previously microfilmed. The six drums are to be arranged as three pairs tuned to perfect fourths, the larger of each pair to the players right, G-c, A-d, and B-e. In the timpani part to the Concerto, are stickings written by an earlier timpanist, perhaps Druschetzky himself. These stickings reveal this unusual paired arrangement of the timpani. Also preserved with the materials for the Concerto are two versions of a cadenza appropriate to the first movement.

This paper discusses these performance issues and will be illustrated with slides and recorded musical examples.

Elizabeth Ndagire
Kampala, Uganda

The paper will then highlight, examine and discuss the role of endingidi in the specific contextual and cultural traditional setting for which it is used by the Baganda as a folk instrument assigned in their culture. These contexts which include entertainment, social, political and ethical commentaries as well as traditional taboos will be briefly examined in the cultural setting and the extent to which they cement the cultural roots and provide catharsis to both the players and listeners.

Finally, using my personal experience with endingidi, I will conclude my paper presentation by examining the extent to which all the above elements that will have been discussed highlight the power of the endingidi in creating a lasting musical and cultural impact to both the players and listeners in the musical culture of the Baganda (people in Uganda.

Jenny Nex
Royal College of Music,
London

Francesco Nocerino
Naples, Italy

Salient characteristic of the "tiorbino" to emerge from the documents examined include an outer case, an ivory keyboard, the presence of two stops, a fully chromatic bass octave down to c,, a stand and the difficulty of tuning these instruments. Finally, the argument that the tiorbino is a keyboard instrument is further supported by Filippo Bonanni's engraving in the Galleria Armonica in the Palazzo Verospi, with the accompanying description by Michele Todini.

Grant O'Brien
University of Edinburgh

This paper attempts to analyse and to understand the original state of this harpsichord and, using a statistical analysis of the original string spacings in conjunction with the unit of measurement used to design these, to determine its country of origin.

Beryl Kenyon de Pascual,
Madrid

Claviorgana, i.e. all keyboard instruments that combine strings and organ pipes, have a long history in Spain that can be traced back to the 15th century. The earliest instruments were owned by kings, church dignitaries and the nobility, which suggests that they were not especially intended for use in church. In the 16th, 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, however, we find references to claviorgana in cathedral chapter records.

The advent of the square piano from abroad during the 1770s and later imports of organized pianos gave an impulse to the production of such instruments in Spain. Claviorgana were again aimed primarily at amateur and lay musicians. Contemporary newspapers are a useful source of information and a survey of the advertisements placed in Madrid newspapers during the last quarter of the 18th century has yielded quite a detailed picture of the types of organized pianos available then. Most of the makers in Madrid seem to have been organ-builders, both Spanish and foreign, while imported models came mainly from England.

Six organized pianos have been located in Spain: (1) a square instrument with a single manual by Buntebart and Sievers; (2) a two-manual square model made by Francisco Flórez; (3) a one-manual square instrument with Longman and Broderip's label; (4-5) two by the Swiss-German organ- and piano-builders Franz Otter and Johann Kyburz, one of which is a large square instrument with two manuals, seven organ registers and the piano element as well as a pedal for military-music effects; and (6) a grand piano in the German or Viennese-style from the early 19th century with a register of free reeds.

There is evidence that an upright piano with organ pipes was made in the second half of the 19th century but it does not appear to have survived.

David Rachor
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa

In order to recreate the original sound of bassoons, reeds ideally should be made using the same methods and materials used when the instrument itself was made. However, problems abound for us interested in making reeds based on historical principles. Constructing a bassoon reed using 18th and early 19th century sources, one quickly discovers that many very important details are missing, even though several sources provide a fairly detailed outline of the methods used. Following instructions given in the most detailed sources, namely Cungier, Ozi, Froelich and Almenraeder, one cannot make a playable reed. [By playable reed I mean a reed that a professional period bassoonist could use in a professional period orchestra.] Even when one compiles information given collectively in all four sources, one cannot make a playable reed. Many of these missing details pertain to the thickness of the gouge and the general scrape of the reed blades, but there are numerous other missing links as well.

An important element in making historical bassoon reeds is the cane that one uses to construct the reed. It is my opinion that one cannot make a historical bassoon reed using the same cane that one uses to make modern reeds. If one uses the softer cane that I believe typically was found in the 18th and early 19th centuries, one can make a playable reed using historical reed-making techniques.

In the paper, I will outline the necessary steps given in 18th and 19th century sources to make a reed for a period bassoon. I will discuss the missing details of reed construction, specifically as it pertains to dimensions of gouge and scrape, that I have discovered necessary to make a playable bassoon reed, and will discuss my recent research into cane hardness conducted at the United States National Forestry Laboratory.

Jean-Yves Rauline
Univerité de Rouen, France

The example of the Upper Normandy societies proves the opposite, and on the contrary, a much more pragmatic attitude was the rule: because of lack of finance, instruments were usually replaced one at a time often by second hand models; the most efficient systems for wood-wind were not adopted for reasons of tradition and because the technique required was far below the level of the great virtuosos; on the other hand, improvements and new brass instruments developed by Adolphe Sax-saxhorns and saxo-trombas, but also saxophones-had enormous success because of their quality, regularity of timbre and because they were easy to play. However, to imagine that the Upper Normandy wind band movement was too conservative, would be incorrect: there was certainly some hesitation in adopting the official diapason, but the invention of the "cécilium" is evidence that a local conductor could be ingenious when it came to making up for lack of players...

Albert R. Rice
Fiske Museum,
Claremont, California

Malcolm Rose
Lewes, East Sussex, U.K.

After a brief description of the instrument, I will consider what kind of instruments Theewes may have seen and made during his apprenticeship in the Netherlands, and how these experiences may have influenced the design of the London harpsichord. I will then explain the circumstances of Theewes's move to London with his family, and trace some details of his life there from church and state records. Lastly, I will show who the original owner of the claviorgan was, where he lived, and how close a friendship he enjoyed with some of the leading musicians of the time. It becomes clear that some of the greatest virginalists must have known the claviorgan at first hand, making it of even greater significance than we have realised before.

Gabriele Rossi-Rognoni,
Galleria dell'Accademia, Museo degli Strumenti Musicali
Florence, Italy

Maximiliaan Rutten
Miami, Florida, U.S.A.

The significance of the art case piano can hardly be underestimated. Art case pianos stand at a crossroads of art history: they combine every aspect of the fine arts, ranging from oil painting and furniture design, to the fine crafts of 24-karat bronze gilding techniques and the lost art of marquetry inlay patterns. They were often built for royal families and aristocracy and often designed by famous designers, furniture makers and architects. They were often owned for their social status, or simply as trophies of personal success. They are now celebrated as icons for Western culture and they have become symbols of individual expression.

Following shortly after the 300th anniversary of Cristofori's invention of the modern piano, this lecture will explore 3 centuries of history of the art case piano, their social and economic significance, the techniques used to decorate them, their symbolism and their value as cultural icons of Western civilization. The lecture will tie a link to the year 2003, in which three of the most prominent art case piano builders, Steinway, Bechstein and Bluthner, will celebrates their 150th anniversary. Other manufacturers, like Broadwood, Erard, Pleyel, Gaveau, will also have their place in this lecture.

Carolyn W. Simons

The first known bowed keyboard, the Geigenwerk, was invented by Hans Haiden of Nuremburg in 1575. In an attempt to produce a keyboard instrument with the ability to create dynamic expression along with an indefinitely sustained pitch, Haiden designed the Geigenwerk, a keyboard instrument whose strings were bowed by a moving band of horsehair or by turning resined wheels. In the last 20 years Haiden's instrument has been reconstructed from the woodcuts in Michael Praetorius's Syntagma Musica by makers in Germany, Japan, and the United States. The Geigenwerk to be discussed in this paper was built in 1985 by Kurt Reichmann of Frankfurt and is located in Lissberg, Germany. A privately-owned 2002 Geigenwerk by Akio Obuchi of Japan will also be referred to and heard.

Another bowed-keyboard model is the mid-nineteenth-century piano quatuor by Baudet of Paris. Based on the principle of transferred vibrations, the piano quatuor uses a revolving cylinder to rub fiber appendages attached to the strings. The vibrations excited in these fibers transfer to the strings, causing them to sound. Baudet's advertisement claims that the piano quatuor can produce all the effects of a string quartet. Extant examples may be found in numerous European museums; this paper will deal with the one belonging to the Württemburgisches Landesmuseum in Stuttgart, restored in the last decade.

The Technisches Museum in Vienna houses the third instrument to be presented, a recently renovated Streichklavier built by the Hofmann and Czerny piano firm in 1915. Similar in principle to the Geigenwerk, but unique in application, it uses revolving leather bands to excite the strings. In its impressive black-lacquered grand piano case, the Streichklavier was an exhibition instrument, intended to tour major European cities.

These three instruments represent some of the most successful attempts to achieve the continuous sound of bowed strings and dynamic flexibility from the relative ease and polyphonic capabilities of the keyboard. The inherent acoustical challenges of this combination are great; these examples will demonstrate different ways builders rose to those challenges and produced unique contributions to the musical scene.

Susanne Skyrm,
Vermillion

The percussive pedal trend never quite caught on among piano builders in the United Kingdom (perhaps due to the innate good taste of the populace), but some pianos did possess pedal mechanisms that allowed the pianist to manipulate volume and timbre. The grand piano by Thomas Loud (probably made sometime between 1805 and 1810) in the Russell Collection of Early Keyboards possesses several such devices. The left pedal, which normally reduces the number of strings struck by each hammer from three to two, can be depressed even further when a latch is lifted on the treble keyblock, reducing the sound to a true una corda. The right pedal has two parts side-by-side which are normally pressed together but can be pressed separately enabling the player to raise the treble or bass dampers selectively. The effects made possible on this instrument range from a harp-like timbre to music box effects to tones that are barely audible.

In this lecture-demonstration I will give a brief explanation of special effects pedals in general, explain the mechanism on the Loud piano and play representative pieces that will highlight the unique sound effects possible on it. I will perform music by composers from both the British Isles and the Continent who were working in the transitional period between the late Classic and early Romantic eras and who were familiar with the sound possibilities on the grand pianos being manufactured at the time. Such composers may include, but will not be limited to, Jan Dussek, John Field, Muzio Clementi, Henri Herz, Jan Vorísek, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

E. Bradley Strauchen,
The Horniman Museum & Gardens
London

This was a marked departure from the horn playing landscape in England in the first decades of the nineteenth century. A cursory survey of horn players and their instruments during these years reveals a strong Austro-German presence. Examination of surviving horns by contemporary English makers yields many examples with the wide, sharply flared bore profile characteristic of Austro-German instruments. But while the valve horn gained a foothold in Germany after its first appearance c.1814, the English followed the French in eschewing this change. The horn virtuoso Giovanni Puzzi, who dominated horn playing in England from 1817 to c.1855, was a firm adherent of the natural horn and played French-built Raoux instruments throughout his career. The development of distribution networks for Raoux horns during the second half of the nineteenth century heightened the accessibility and popularity of these instruments, and the sound of the French-style horn became a characteristic of English orchestras. The original horn section of the London Symphony Orchestra, formed in 1904 and referred to as "God's own quartet", is a notable example. The section, which included A.E. Brain, was lead by Dresden trained Adolf Borsdorf, who played a modified L.-J. Raoux horn that previously belonged to Puzzi.

This paper will explore the gradual shift of English preference from German to French-style horns and sound quality through consideration of instruments, players and performance practice during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It will refer to a number of horns in collections that delegates will have an opportunity to view during the AMIS and Galpin Society meeting.

Benjamin Vogel,
Lund, Sweden

Elizabeth Wells,
Royal College of Music Museum of Instruments
London

To be illustrated with slides and a recording of the Kirkman harpsichord that was formerly owned by Carl Engel and then by Hipkins.

Kelly J. White,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.

Despite the leading role of Boosey & Co in British wind instrument manufacture, there has been no systematic study until now of the firm's archives relating to woodwinds. These documents record in detail the instruments they produced and in many cases to whom they were sold. This paper surveys the operating practices of a major woodwind manufacturer and how they responded to changing musical demands in the period 1857-1931.

Lance Whitehead,
Royal College of Music,
London

This page updated: 12.8.03; re-published 14.2.13