Old Musical Instruments & Modern Reproductions!

[Gurn Blanston]

Yup, that's a beauty! Hope it shows up over here soon.

[petrarch]

Hello petrArch - that set looks fascinating - offered on Amazon USA for just over $50 - my only question is how is the English version - does it exist?  That would be my main decision for a purchase, i.e. something that I can read or watch - thanks for any inputs?  Dave 

The book is in french, english and german, so I guess you would be able to read it .

[SonicMan46]

The book is in french, english and german, so I guess you would be able to read it .

Thanks - I was reading a lengthy review on Amazon USA which explained the organization w/ the 3 languages presented kind of simultaneously - I do English, so no problem - about $55 on the Marketplace for those who may be interested - placed on my wish list -   

[SonicMan46]

Ellen M. Egger Quartet of Instruments - now listening to the Beethoven String Quartets performed by the Alexander SQ using this set of commissioned 'string instruments' made by Francis Kuttner in 1987 in honor of Egger.  The instruments are usually 'on loan' individually but are re-united for special performances or groups; in this instance, the recordings were made on this set of strings in 2008 (being held by the members of the ASQ in the pic below).

A small booklet came w/ the SQ set, so just quoting from the brief notes:  "the two violins were made on a 1705 Stradivari P form"; "the viola is made on a personal model"; and "the violoncello was constructed on a modified B form of Antonio Stradivari in 1709" - Kuttner spent much time in Cremona studying violin making and has received many awards; he divides his time between workshops in Cremona and San Francisco.  More information HERE, for those interested! 

[Gurn Blanston]

Dave & Antoine:

I just this minute bought this disk, we'll have a go at it. Looks quite interesting even though finding any info on it isn't easy. I'll report back.

Well, just peeled the wrapper off this one and am well into the first work (starts with K 7). The tangent piano is a 1786 Walter, not a reproduction. It sounds really cool, sort of halfway between a harpsichord and a fortepiano. My tangent piano works on Brilliant didn't come with any liner notes, so I didn't know too much about this little beast, but this disk has decent notes (no picture though) and good notes about the 2 violins used too. Particularly interesting since one is a Stainer replica and the other is a genuine 1764 Carcassi that was never "updated" so that it still has the high-arched top. origin of all the beautiful tones and overtones that a Baroque / Classical violin produces. In any case, this is a highly commendable disk, Dave, both for the music (which we all have several times over, I think) but especially for the wonderful instruments used, which are nonpareil!



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Now playing:
Th. Leininger (Klav.); I. Schau (Viol.) - Sonate D-Dur, KV7 - 3. Menuett I & II

[SonicMan46]

Yesterday, I left a post in the listening thread about a recording & composer new to me; the viola d' amore performer has a great website that explains the 3 discs in this series encompassing the 21 sonatas by Ariosti, which were preserved by a Swedish student working in London who copied each one - these manuscripts were stored in Stockholm, hence the name.

Another 'linked' site from Georgi's website was to the American Viola d'Amore Society of America - there are just dozens of CDs listed there; now, I have only a 'handful' of discs w/ this instrument, but for those who may look at the recordings on this site and already own a substantial collection, please leave some comments and/or recommendations!  I'm sure that many are now OOP - 

Ariosti, Attilio (1666-1729) - Stockholm Sonatas II w/ Thomas Georgi on viola d'amore (by Thomas Eberle, Naples, 1783) - 6 gut playing strings + 6 sympathetic strings; plus, Lucas Harris on archlute or Baroque guitar & Mime Brinkmann on violoncello - lot of information on Georgi's website HERE; picture below of some Eberle instruments w/ the 6/6 stringed-one likely similar to the one in this recording; excellent liner notes by Georgi; second of a 3-disc set on BIS - 

 

[SonicMan46]

Yesterday, I left a post in the listening thread on the disc shown below - an 18th century Spanish composer, overlapping D. Scarlatti & Boccherini - the music is a lot of fun w/ the guitar added; but of interest for this thread are the instruments used:

Justo - violin by D. Badiarov, Brussels, 2003 - based on 18th century instrument-making principles.

Joglar - violoncello by Benoit Fleury, Paris, 1758.

Zonderman - guitars (2) - five course guitar by R. Salvador, Housse, 1996 after 17th century Italian model; and six string instrument by the same maker after Petijean l'Aine, Paris, c. 1800 - 

Juan de Ledesma (c. 1713-1781) - Sonatas Violin y Bajo w/ Justo (violin), Joglar (violoncello), and Zonderman (guitar) - Spanish violin/viola player & composer; taught by the brother of Geminiani - Italian type compositions w/ Spanish influences (like Boccherini & Scarlatti); played on 'period' instruments - Fanfare recommendation reprinted HERE - 

[SonicMan46]

Another 'listening thread' transfer from this morning - Christine Schornsheim on fortepiano, a copy of an 1815 instrument - story below and at the builder's website; recording from 1990 - a wonderful disc but not sure about the oboe's origins?   

Devienne, Francois (1759-1803) - Oboe Sonatas w/ Burkhard Glaetzner (oboe), Christinie Schornsheim (fortepiano), & Siegfried Pank (violoncello) - Schornsheim is playing on a reproduction instrument by J.C. Neupert after an original by Louis Dulcken,  c. 1815 - Neupert's Website HERE describes and pictures the fortepiano copy (shown below, right); curiously, there is nothing in the liner notes about the oboe or cello!

The short-lived Devienne was a French woodwind virtuoso, and the first Professor of Flute at the newly established Paris Conservatory in the 1790s; he wrote hundreds of compositions, largely woodwind chamber music - I own just two other recordings of bassoon sonatas & concertos - need to at least obtain some flute works - any recommendations?   


 

[SonicMan46]

Well has been a while since I've visited this thread and I made the last posts - 

Recently, I purchased several discs from BRO of Hummel's Piano Works performed by John Khoury on a restored fortepiano by Jacob Pfister (c. 1820) - I was curious about the instrument, wrote the company (i.e. Music and Arts), and quickly received an e-mail response from Khoury himself; this also led to my purchase of his 3-CD set of the Anton Eberl Piano Sonatas et al in which 2 foretpianos were used; one was the restored Pfister fortepiano and the other a modern reconstruction of a pedal fortepiano (pics of the CD set & pedal instrument immediately below):

 

I ordered the 3-CD Eberl set from Khouri on the Amazon Marketplace - he included a couple of pics of the Pfister piano before and after restoration, and via our e-mails a description of his acquisition of the piano which is quoted below w/ the actual photos at the bottom; really amazing how this fortepiano was resurrected and then brought back into playing form - John's own notes in the Eberl offering are superb and describe the composer's life, the works individually, and also the pianos used.  If you are interested in this late classical-early romantic piano genre and the instruments used at that time, this set might be a consideration - 

The Pfister was quite a wreck when I first encounted it in a garage in Palo Alto in 1993.  It had lost it's legs many years ago so had always been on it's side & that's why noone had bought it.  Eventually someone did & they had some very poor legs made.  But the buyer tried to restore the piano but gave up in disgust as it needed so much work. That's when he decided to sell it & I was very lucky to see it right after it went up for sale.I bought it for a ridiculously low price. However, the piano needed a huge amount of work as the action was smashed up & broken with missing hammers, rotten cloth & decaying hammer  coverings. The sound board was split in several places & completely black with 150 years of filth & the bottom of the piano also had split open. It took about 6  months of hard work to get it back into good playing order.  But it is a really wonderful piano & probably the best made of my 6 other grands. It is heard at it's best on my 3-cd set of the complete Sonatas of Anton Eberl which was released in 2008.  The piano was restored by Bjarne Dahl & I have a restoration report with photos as work progressed on it.  The action was restored by Janine Johnson.....

 

[canninator]

Yesterday, I left a post in the listening thread on the disc shown below - an 18th century Spanish composer, overlapping D. Scarlatti & Boccherini - the music is a lot of fun w/ the guitar added; but of interest for this thread are the instruments used:

Zonderman - guitars (2) - five course guitar by R. Salvador, Housse, 1996 after 17th century Italian model; and six string instrument by the same maker after Petijean l'Aine, Paris, c. 1800 - 

Interesting, that is the six string in the picture and my first thought when I saw it was that it was no way near contemporary with the composer. I don't know when the pieces were published but most single strung guitars from this period were coming from Italy and France, Spanish guitars were still double strung. A description of the tuning from the original book/manuscript would probably inform us of the instrument the music was written for. Well, I'm guessing they must have done their homework 

[SonicMan46]

Interesting, that is the six string in the picture and my first thought when I saw it was that it was no way near contemporary with the composer. I don't know when the pieces were published but most single strung guitars from this period were coming from Italy and France, Spanish guitars were still double strung. A description of the tuning from the original book/manuscript would probably inform us of the instrument the music was written for. Well, I'm guessing they must have done their homework 

Reviewed the liner notes again since my post was 5 months ago - as to the time of publication, the works were in a book of violin & bass sonatas published around 1760; these were listed as just violin & bass works, but I imagine that other continuo support could be added and in Spain a guitar would seem reasonable?

The performers decided to add a guitar to these sonatas - the Baroque guitar was used in Sonatas I & IV; the pre-Romatic guitar (their terms) in Sonatas III & V; no guitar in Sonata II.

The guitarist, Bernard Zonderman, did additional studies in 2005 and obtained a Masters' Degree in lute, theorbo, and baroque guitar from the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, so is well aware of the string history before, during and after the times of these compositions - as to the Spanish guitars that existed and were used in the mid-18th century, I cannot answer that question w/o doing some research - 

[SonicMan46]

Well has been a few months since a post to this thread, so lets come TTT! 

Galuppi, Baldassarre (1706-1785) - Keyboard Sonatas w/ Luca Guglielmi performed on 5 different period type instruments - all are pictured in the liner notes but in B&W small images, so I'll just described the instruments used:

Harpsichord copy by Tony Chinnery, 1995 after a Michael Mietke, Berlin, 1710.

Harpsichord copy by Kerstin Schwarz, 2009 after a Cristofori, Florence, 1698.

Fortepiano copy by Kerstin Schwarz, 1997 after Cristofori, Florence, 1726.

Clavichord copy by Kerstin Schwarz, 1999 after  Schiedmayer, Germany, 1782.

Organ restored by Marco Renolfi, 2006 after Battista & Conconne, 1752.

Wonderful recording spanning the period of these keyboard innovations and changes - the Accent recording is superb - worth a listen (or a purchase) if interested in these times - 

[Szykneij]

I picked up this recording yesterday while rummaging through a local Goodwill shop -- Haydn Concerti for Lira.



I mentioned it on the Purchases Today thread and Antoine Marchand was able to give some interesting background information about it.

Congratulations! That Haydn disc catched my eye because it was a pioneer recording. AFAIK, Hugo Ruf was a gifted harpsichordist and a pioneer himself of the revival of the Early Music. I think his complete recording of the concerti for lira organizzata (played on the proper instrument, not the usual transcriptions by Haydn himself) were unique for more than 30 years and, even now, nobody has recorded the complete set again on that weird instrument. 

I've just finished listening to it and the music is delightful. The lira organizatta blends beautifully with the traditional strings and viola da gamba used on the recording, sometimes sounding like a recorder and at other times like a glass armonica or pipe organ depending upon the stop and range used. I suspect that had another means of powering the instrument been available at the time, it would have been more popularly utilized. The player had to crank the instrument with one hand while playing the notes on the keyboard with the other. These pieces were written for two liras (liri?), but Hugo Ruf plays both parts on a lira that is electrically powered, allowing him to use both hands.

Not much info on this instrument is available on the web, and searching can get confusing since it is sometimes referred to as an "organ hurdy gurdy" although it is drastically dissimilar to a real hurdy gurdy.

[Szykneij]

Here is a photo of the lira organizzata used for the recording from the back of the album cover. Much bigger than those held by the women on the front cover illustration.

[Gurn Blanston]

I picked up this recording yesterday while rummaging through a local Goodwill shop -- Haydn Concerti for Lira.



I mentioned it on the Purchases Today thread and Antoine Marchand was able to give some interesting background information about it.
 
I've just finished listening to it and the music is delightful. The lira organizatta blends beautifully with the traditional strings and viola da gamba used on the recording, sometimes sounding like a recorder and at other times like a glass armonica or pipe organ depending upon the stop and range used. I suspect that had another means of powering the instrument been available at the time, it would have been more popularly utilized. The player had to crank the instrument with one hand while playing the notes on the keyboard with the other. These pieces were written for two liras (liri?), but Hugo Ruf plays both parts on a lira that is electrically powered, allowing him to use both hands.

Not much info on this instrument is available on the web, and searching can get confusing since it is sometimes referred to as an "organ hurdy gurdy" although it is drastically dissimilar to a real hurdy gurdy.

I've been hearing about that record for years. AFAIK, it hasn't ever been converted to CD. I would be thrilled to have it. I have a couple of the concerti and one of the notturnos on actual lira, but that's all there is. My favorite recording of the notturnos is not even on PI, it is by Consortium Classicum, where the lira parts are played on a tiny barrel organ, IIRC. It sounds very cool, but still can't compare to the real deal.



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Now playing:
Scottish National Orchestra / Neeme Jarvi - Rimsky Korsakov  'Christmas Eve'  - 'Christmas Night' - 'Ballet of the Stars' - 'Witches Sabbath' - Polonaise - 'Vakula and the Slippers'

[Gurn Blanston]

I've been hearing about that record for years. AFAIK, it hasn't ever been converted to CD. I would be thrilled to have it. I have a couple of the concerti and one of the notturnos on actual lira, but that's all there is. My favorite recording of the notturnos is not even on PI, it is by Consortium Classicum, where the lira parts are played on a tiny barrel organ, IIRC. It sounds very cool, but still can't compare to the real deal.

Well, I'll be dogged! I had that disk all along and didn't even know it!  The Vox version (with just 3 concerti) has never been available to me, but it seems that Brilliant bought the rights and put it in the Big Box!! It would have been cool if the packaging was a little more informative that way. 




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Now playing:
Scottish National Orchestra / Neeme Jarvi - Rimsky-Korsakov Orchestral Suite from 'Le Coq d'Or'  pt 1 - Introduction and Dodon's sleep

[SonicMan46]

Well, I'll be dogged! I had that disk all along and didn't even know it!  The Vox version (with just 3 concerti) has never been available to me, but it seems that Brilliant bought the rights and put it in the Big Box!! It would have been cool if the packaging was a little more informative that way. 

Gurn - thought that I had a number of those works on the disc below, but NO just one of the lira concertos (Hob VIIh:1) & 2 lira on a Notturno (Hob II:32), along w/ another notturno & several divertimenti.  Now Amazon is offering the Ruf CD as a MP3 download for $9 w/ track listings of Hob VIIh:1 to 5 - I've not yet checked other download sites, but I may go that route & just burn the files to a CD-R; however, and as usual I'd love to have the liner notes!  Dave     

P.S. Thanks Tony for putting this Ruf recording in the musical instrument thread!

[Gurn Blanston]

Gurn - thought that I had a number of those works on the disc below, but NO just one of the lira concertos (Hob VIIh:1) & 2 lira on a Notturno (Hob II:32), along w/ another notturno & several divertimenti.  Now Amazon is offering the Ruf CD as a MP3 download for $9 w/ track listings of Hob VIIh:1 to 5 - I've not yet checked other download sites, but I may go that route & just burn the files to a CD-R; however, and as usual I'd love to have the liner notes!  Dave     

P.S. Thanks Tony for putting this Ruf recording in the musical instrument thread!

Yeah, that's what I had too, Dave. And IIRC, they had one concerto in the Naples version and another in the London version (flute & oboe). Here is another time when not getting the Big Box comes back to haunt you...      

However, there are no liner notes to speak of, so nothing missed there. I would bet that the back of Tony's LP has more info than all 3 CD's put together...




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Now playing:
Haydn, Franz Joseph - Hob 08 06 Marcia in Eb

[Szykneij]

However, there are no liner notes to speak of, so nothing missed there. I would bet that the back of Tony's LP has more info than all 3 CD's put together...

Yes, there's lots of information there. When I originally scanned the photo from the back of the album, I tried to include more of the description but the forum software wouldn't allow me to post it because the file was too big. I had to go back and crop and shrink the photo so it would go through. If you know of any way around this, I'd be happy to post an image of the album liner notes. With my limited typing skills, it would probably take me forever to rewrite them manually.

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes, there's lots of information there. When I originally scanned the photo from the back of the album, I tried to include more of the description but the forum software wouldn't allow me to post it because the file was too big. I had to go back and crop and shrink the photo so it would go through. If you know of any way around this, I'd be happy to post an image of the album liner notes. With my limited typing skills, it would probably take me forever to rewrite them manually.

Tony,
I don't know if you use a photo hosting service or not. I use photobucket.com which is free. If you upload the photo to one of those then you can post a link to it here and it will show a small version in your post, but if someone clicks on it then it goes to full size and can be read. Or alternatively, I can download and 'play' with it to make it smaller file size but still quite readable. Big scans can be a real handful to deal with, as I've learned!   



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Now playing:
Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater / Gergiev  Gautier Capuçon  (Cello) - Tchaikovsky Op 33 Variations in A on a Rococo Theme for Cello & Orchestra pt 6 - Variation V: Allegro moderato