Click on the b&w images for the big picture.Restoring the Clementi Fortepiano, from the Palacio de Queluz, Lisbon, Portugal
The object of this restauration was to bring back a totally unplayable and warped fortepiano to
its original state, so that it could be used as a concert instrument again. Jorge Gil of ‘Em
Orbita’, who recommended our firm for the restauration, was very clear about this.
This type of Clementi, probably dating before 1805, is relatively rare.
From Martha Novak Clinckscales’ Book ‘Makers of the Piano’ 1700-1820, it appears that about 14 Clementi ‘Grand Piano’s’ have
survived, nr. 14 possibly being the Queluz’ instrument, since the description calls it early 19th. century and the present
owner is supposed to be the ‘Museu Federico the Freitas’ in Madeira. I suppose that is was acquired from this museum by the Palacio de
Queluz. If this is not the case, we might have two of these Clementi Fortepianos in Portugal, but I consider that to be unlikely.
The exterior of the Queluz’ Clementi is in fact very similar, to nr. 2 on her list. (page 73):
Serial no. 544, (Queluz’, serial no. could not be deciphered). Date 1801-1802. Compass 5½ octave, FF-c’’’’. Length 221. Case
‘Sheraton Style’, Sheraton being a very famous maker of veneered furniture during that period.
No 3. on her list corresponds well to the length of the
‘Queluz’ i.e. 2.254m., making it improbable that the instrument was built after 1805. Clementi had his shop in London; we do not know if
he liked the name of the place: it was called ‘Cheapside’. Muzio Clementi was a composer turned entrepreneur;
we may safely assume that he was not himself sweating away at the instruments.
To quote Clinkscale: ’An Italian, he came to England
as a result of his having been sold to an Englishman, Peter Beckford. He moved to London in 1774 where he gave a series of succesful
concerts. He achieved great fame as a concert pianist, composer and teacher in Britain and on the continent. In 1798, Clementi, together
with a group of partners took over the Firm of Longman and Broderip…….which in 1822 when Frederic Collard joined the firm became known
as Clementi, Collard and Collard till Clementi died in 1832.’ (Clinkscale, page. 67).
One of Clementi’s students and general dogsbody during his tours on the Continent was John
Field, the first composer of ‘Nocturnes’. He was to be quite ruthlessly exploited by Clementi whose mercurial talents were not only
limited to the Fortepiano business.
London was, of course, not the only important place for the construction of Fortepianos, although
the Squarepiano Model was made in huge quantities for well to do citizens. But after all this was not where Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert
lived, worked and died. So there is a Viennese School of Fortepianomaking that has, in fact
become dominant in the 20th century reproduction of Fortepianos. Important names between 1790 and 1840: Stein, Walter, Streicher,
Graf.
Ludwig van Beethoven, possibly because of his progressive deafness,
showed very little appreciation for the Fortepiano and this may have something to do with its lack of status in many musical circles
today as well as a belief many people have in technological ‘progress’. However, these were
the composers’ tools and their compositions reflect this. The ‘newness’ and exitement of Clementis’ (who influenced Beethoven) and
Beethovens’ compositions, is smothered by an execution on the modern piano, but highlighted by an performance on a period instrument.
Our ears, used to the glib sounds of contemporary Steinways and Yamahas, can re-acquire the taste
and savour the exquisite sounds of instruments like these. It is not before 1880 with cross-stringing firmly
in place that the modern piano as we know it basically emerges with Steinway as its leader. (Crossstringing: strings do not run parrallel to
each other, blurring the clarity of the different registers) so there is a lot to savour.
As an aside I’d like to mention that there is an incredibly beautiful Steinway from the eighteensixties in the Yale Collection at New
Haven (USA, Conservator Richard Rephann).
But the need to accommodate an ever bigger audience forced all pianomakers to step up the power
of their instruments possibly at the expense of beauty and subtlety. It is ironic that the ‘fortepiano’ does not have a very
powerful sound which the ‘piano’, on the other hand, does have, even the lowliest of its species. With a generally shrinking
audience for classical music (especially chamber music) in present times, maybe Steinway could start to reproduce its own period instrument.
The Clementi and Broadwoods from that same period have been constructed in a very similar way to
the English Harpsichords of a few decenniae before. This was not a good idea, the tension on a harpsichord being much less, and even those
harpsichords had a severe tendency to warp. Fortepiano’s need a lot more tension, because a string struck by a hammer can generate much
less energy than a plucked string. Herewith a picture of this relatively light construction:
Click on the b&w images for the big picture.
So, unfortunately, the ‘Queluz Clementi’ had severely warped under the tension of the strings,
resulting in a cocked-up ‘cheek’ (the right-hand or treble side) that made it absolutely essential to take the instrument apart.
To make this possible,
the soundboard and pinblock (where the tuning pins are) had to be removed. The connection between the ‘cheek’
and the bentside had to be taken apart. This also involved removing a very ornate part
of the case veneer, with the ‘Sheraton motives’ on both these surfaces. ‘Removing’ here
means very carefully soaking out all these separate parts with the help of damp cloths. A very time consuming job, requiring a lot of
patience. The next picture shows partner C. Kraan at work.
We are very grateful to Christopher Clarke one of the
‘grand old men’ (except that he isn’t very old) of Fortepiano making and restoring, that he was willing to help us out with his advice,
this decision being the most difficult one to take.
So the pinblock was replaced with a copy: the same
material (oak, and the same direction for the grain of the wood. The same measurements: if you realise that the standard pinblock of an 18th.
century French harpsichord has a thickness of 5 cm. and that this one was only 3.5 cm. thick , you can imagine why we would have loved to
keep it a little thicker. But the position of the action within the instrument made this absolutely impossible. The pinblock needs to be
tapered, otherwise the hammershank would bump into the pinblock on its way to the string, as the picture shows. (The distance between the
hammer rail with the pistolgrip form and the pinblock is only a few mm. in the Clementi.)
(Model made by Ronald V. Radcliffe, from Giraffes,
Black Dragons and other Piano’s)
Making a new pinblock had the advantage that the original tuning pins could be used again.
New dovetails where made for the cheek/ bentside joint.
The case sides have been made of oak. Restoring the complicated Sheraton motive on the case was
difficult, some of the veneer ‘strings’ had to be replaced and a special mould had to be made to reproduce the pattern. Here it still is
in its unrestored state.
Now that the case had become straight again, it was
time to bring back the soundboard to its original condition, being quite heavily damaged with severe cracks in the treble, a broken bridge
and ribs that had become unstuck.
Every part of the ribbing seemed to be original, the ribs being fairly thin, so conceptually this
was not a difficult part. Everything has of course been reglued with hot bone glue as it had been in the past, making the restoration
process reversible. Since the ‘Palacio de Queluz’ is a fairly humid place, as is our shop in Amsterdam, care was taken not to dry out
the soundboard too much before putting it back in. The hitchpin-rail (a strip of wood on top of
the soundboard, glued into the bentside, that has to carry the tension of the strings with this type of Fortepiano, had to be replaced since
it didn’t look too reliable.
After the hitchpins had been put in, the instrument was ready for stringing.
Till the end of the ninteeneighties, restorers had a tough time deciding which was the correct material and size for the instrument they
worked on. One could not rely too much on the strings that were still present, because these instruments were very often restrung with
heavier sizes. But Malcolm Rose, one of the pioneers of historical
stringmaking, had, together with David Law, very patiently compiled stringing data from
restorers all over the world.
Together with the fact that the old English
Fortepianomakers already used string gauges, deciding the right kind of stringing and tension
was not too daunting a task.
It should be mentioned here that a restoration of this kind is not without its controversies: it
is possible that within 25 years the instrument needs to be restored again to keep it into playing order. With every restoration some
historical material disappears, as was already argued around the nineteeneighties by the then Conservator of the Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments, Nicolas Meeús. Therefor it would be better to make a copy, leaving the
instrument itself alone. The copy would not have been more expensive, but for the public it would lack the charm of the genuine thing. Also,
in reality, the copy is almost never commisioned. It seems to be easier to acquire the funds for a restoration, propably for the same reason:
it appeals more to the imagination of those who hold the purse strings.
After this it had become time to concentrate on the Clementi’s action, which had to be entirely
rebuilt. But first a discussion of the two major action styles for grand pianos around 1800:
The essentials of the English action used by Clementi, go
back to the inventor of the Fortepiano, Bartolomeo Christofori, of whom some Fortepianos have survived from the period 1720-1726. A similar
type of action was used around 1750 by the famous Silbermann Organ and pianobuilder family, but by 1790 the ‘Viennese’ action was well
established where German was spoken.
What are the pro’s and con’s of these actions? The
reputation of the ‘Viennese’ action is for precision and subtlety, enabling the player to create every possible kind of nuance.
The
‘English’ action, however, is capable of producing more powerful dynamics. (Which is why in 1818 Beethoven, as a promotion, received a
Broadwood Grand specially made for him, but by that time his deafness had already progressed
too far to appreciate the difference.)
With regard to subtlety however, it should be mentioned that English Grands have a secret weapon
that I have not yet found in Viennese Fortepianos: the true ‘una corda’.
Shifting the keyboard to use only two strings in the
choir, is normal and present also in modern grand pianos. English Grands, however, by removing a lever to the right of the keyboard, thereby
using one string only, are capable of whispering. (This can be heard on the recording the author has produced of the instrument, of which he
hopes it will be obtainable in the museum itself one day.)
Viennese instruments on the other hand, apart from the
later ones having sometimes all kinds of ‘bells and whistles’, do have a ‘moderator’, a strip of cloth that can be put between the
strings and the hammers, also producing a wonderful sound, but less clear.
'Viennese' Action
(From: John Koster, Keyboard instruments, Catalogue of
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
‘A’ which is held in position by a spring and
grabbing with its beak the end of the hammershaft ’B’. The exact position of this ‘escape’ defines the release of the hammer.
Some of the Viennese builders, notably Bösendörfer
were so attached to this type of action that they held on to it as long as the year 1860. But with the heavier hammerheads, necessary
for a bigger sound, this action lost its special advantages.
English Action
From both diagrams it becomes clear that the English Action (that evolved into the modern piano
action as we know it) is the more direct one. The hammer is hinged on rail
‘A’ looking not unlike a pistol grip and resting on rail ‘B’.
Lever ‘C’ is almost -but not quite- touching the hammer socket. (All relevant parts protected by leather to prevent unwanted noises.) As
soon as the key is depressed, the hammer is thrown upwards towards the string. At the same time the jack ‘F’ -with the damper- is lifted
so that the string can sound freely.
Now we come to the crucial part of any piano action, we
need an escape, otherwise the hammer would block the string and one would hear a very unpleasant sound. With the help of a spring that is
lodged in the key, lever ‘C’ is held in contact with regulating screw ‘D’. This screw defines the exact point where lever ‘C’
will be pushed back so that the hammer can fall back unimpeded. Back-check ‘E’ should prevent its bounce after that. When the player
releases the key, the lever will fall back to its original position.
Rebuilding the action:
Some of the hammershanks were broken and had to be replaced, all the bearings of the moving parts
had to be replaced and the leather of the hammerheads had to be renewed as well.
Taking the action apart and rebuilding it, also implies regulating everything again. In this
respect we are also indebted to Christopher Clarke, who during an ‘Antwerpiano Symposium’, organised by the renowned fortepiano and
harpsichord player Jos van Immerseel, gave detailed instructions in a paper he presented to the
symposium about the setting up of different types of actions after they had been rebuilt.
After the restauration I now have a certain bias towards the English Action, because you can
regulate it (using screw ‘D’) with the keyboard remaining in the instrument. Viennese pianos can only be regulated outside the
instrument with the help of a ruler simulating the height of the strings.
This concludes this article, originally written for IPPAR , the organisation in Portugal that commissioned the restauration. Many thanks to my partner in
business Christiaan Kraan whose special project this was and who gave almost a year of his life to this work.
Sources and recommended
reading:
The Pianoforte, Rosamund Harding, rev. 1978, Gresham
Books, ISBN 0905418 31-x
Makers of the Piano 1700-1820, Martha Novak Clinkscale,
Oxford UP, 1995 ISBN 0-19-816323-1
Giraffes, Black Dragoons and Other Piano’s, Edwin M.
Good, 1982, Stanford UP, ISBN 0-8047-1120-8
Men, women & pianos, a Social History, Arthus
Loesser, 1954, Simon and Schuster.
A Handbook of Historical Stringing Practices for
Keyboard Instruments, Malcolm Rose, David Law, 1991, Publish by the Authors, M. Rose, Englmish Passage, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2AP, UK,
ISBN 0-958590-05.
CD recommendations:
The Queluz Clementi:
‘Clementi & Co, works by Clementi and his
Contemporaries.
For recordings on a Walter and a Silbermann Copy take a
look at Jacques Oggs’ website,
jogg.org
For recordings on English Fortepianos check out Richard
Burnett.
Other recommended performers are Jos van Immerseel,
Andreas Staier, Jörg Demus and Trudeliese Leonhardt. You can find them all on the internet or in a specialised CD shop.