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Harpsichords Extraordinaire Two Keyboards, Each with a Story to Tell

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Harpsichords Extraordinaire Two Keyboards, Each with a Story to Tell TREASURE Harpsichords Extraordinaire Two keyboards, each with a story to tell ! 1900, no one in America was building acquired the harpsichords. Pianos ruled, and that Dolmetsch in was that. Then in 1905, the French- 1929, and ju- born musician and instrument maker nior Ralph Kirkpatrick IArnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940) arrived in ’31, later an acclaimed harpsi- Boston, where he spent the next six years chordist and musicologist, con- building clavichords and harpsichords with certized on it at Paine Hall the piano makers Chickering & Sons. Dolmetsch next year. was “the man in front of the ‘early-music’ The 1906 harpsichord has revival in the United States,” says Mariana two keyboards, or “manuals.” In his foreword Quinn, manager of Piano Technical Services Dolmetsch used ebony for to Hubbard’s Three (PTS) at Harvard. Early-music aficionados the natural notes and ivory Cen turies of Harpsi- sought to build authentic reproductions of for the accidentals, yielding a color chord Making (1965), ancient instruments and to perform centu- scheme that reverses the conventional one. Kirkpatrick writes ries-old pieces in ways true to their origins. Its beautiful case, with ivory inlays, may be of hearing about Two extraordinary harpsichords, one of Indian rosewood, according to PTS senior “two graduate stu- which Dolmetsch built with concert technician Paul Rattigan. dents in English…who had built what I Chickering in 1906, re- Piano keys trigger hammers, but pressing believe was a clavichord....it became per- side in the PTS work- a harpsichord key raises a jack with plec- fectly clear to me that Frank Hubbard and shop in Vanserg trum that plucks a metal string. A “choir” William Dowd did not in any way embody Hall, both in need is a set of strings; Dolmetsch gave the Har- the enthusiastic ineptitude that so fre- of full restora- vard instrument two eight-foot choirs and quently is to be encountered among those tion. Harvard a four-foot choir (which sounds an octave persons infatuated with old instruments.” higher), reviving the style of celebrat- Their maiden e"ort is a single-manual ed French harpsichord makers harpsichord with no pedals and a range of the eighteenth century, such of less than four and one-half octaves, as Pascal Taskin. or about half that of a piano keyboard. Riding on the coattails of Like the Dolmetsch, the instrument has the early-music revival, Frank no home at Harvard: climate-controlled Hubbard ’42, A.M. ’48, and rooms suitable for delicate old harpsi- William Dowd ’44 built the chords are in short supply. second harpsichord, pictured at Hubbard & Dowd built some of the best left. The two young men indepen- harpsichords in the world until the firm dently pursued apprenticeships dissolved in 1958. Both men continued the with disciples of Dolmetsch, then craft afterward. Frank Hubbard was pre- founded a harpsichord company paring to teach a class at Mather House in 1949. The instrument seen here, on harpsichord making when he died in bearing serial number 1, is their 1976. The Hubbard & Dowd legacy lives first creation, modeled on a design by the on in Framingham, Massachusetts, where Flemish Ruckers family of Renaissance Hubbard Harpsichords continues to build harpsichord makers. quality instruments. !#.$. Photographs by Jim Harrison Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746.
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