Ascanio Maione

General
21

Dear Matthew, all,

| mdaillie Matthew Daillie
June 9 |

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Can I pick your brains a little more, Lewis? Do you know whether there has been much further research carried out since the articles on Italian split-keyed instruments in the early nineties by Christopher Stembridge and Denzil Wraight (links below)? I am particularly interested in evidence of early 16th century Italian poylgonal virginals with split keys (some modern makers such as Alan Gotto do offer such models).

I’m afraid I don’t know of any extant pre-1550 examples with, or showing signs of having had, split keys.
But as extra keys are referred to as early as by John Hothby (d 1487) (apparently then referring to an extension to F# of the widespread Gb-B disposition of the Pythagorean scale) it’s reasonable to assume that some existed; and it wouldn’t be difficult, informed by later examples in which split Eb/D# and Ab/G# were relatively common, to adapt a pre-1550 model to accommodate say four extra strings in the middle octaves, where the foreshortened string scale would be quite accommodating.

We know from Gioseffe Zarlino that Dominicus Pisaurensis made him a 24-notes-per-octave harpsichord in 1548, that Zarlino depicted a 19-notes-per-octave harpsichord ten years later in Le Istitutioni Harmoniche (Venice, 1558), and that he disparaged instruments with superfluous keys (perhaps meaning Vicentino’s, with 31 and 36?).

I suggest that while 19 notes per octave would just about be feasible in polygonal virginals, perhaps by deepening the case a bit, 24 or more would be much better suited to a harpsichord.

Best wishes,

Lewis.

22

Thank you Lewis, that’s very useful information to have. I suppose the choice of compass (C/E-f’’’ or the later C/E-c’’’) and octave span would also have a bearing.

Best wishes,
Matthew

23

Harking back to Matthew’s initial message about the cimbalo cromatico and archicembalo, I have the impression that the 24-tones-per-octave example in Johannes Keller’s video (below) is simply a normal 2x8ft harpsichord (by Tony Chinnery) adapted by the insertion of an alternative four-row keyboard which deploys the familiar 24 strings per octave in a new way (hence 24 rather than 19 or 31).

Whereas the jacks of Vito Trasuntino’s 1606 31-tone-per-octave instrument all face the same way, in a single row (making the case unusually wide), those of Vicentino’s 36-tone-per-octave archicembalo, in three closely grouped rows, are divided between left- and right-facing. To reach the correct jacks, the tails of several of Vicentino’s slender keylevers (he provided two beautifully printed, full-sized, fold-out plans) have L-shaped lateral extensions. Presumably Markus Krebs’ substitute keyboard for Chinnery’s harpsichord must work in essentially the same way. It’s an elegant and economical way of – even temporarily – repurposing an existing instrument

Best wishes,

Lewis.

24

Referring back to the discussion in June of Ascanio Mayone and ‘chromatic’ and ‘enharmonic’ harpsichords, I see that I missed Matthew’s call to identify the maker of my copy of Vito Trasuntino’s 31-tone-per-octave clavemusicum omnitinum, and for photographs.

I made it myself, in 1986, following the published drawing made while the instrument was being restored in the GN Nuremberg, and informed by restricted examination of the instrument once it was back in Bologna (restricted because it was still in a splendid crate and could only be examined from above).
It was used in a few seminars and concerts in London in the late 80s but at the time only two people, one of whom had it on loan for a while at the Warburg Institute, showed serious interest in getting to grips with its keyboard. The Royal College of Music, where I was teaching Renaissance music at the time, was less enthusiastic about it than I’d hoped…
Thereafter I kept it at London Metropolitan University for about 25 years, using it sporadically in teaching, and it saw a spate of use in the early 2000s, when the Centre for New Musical Instruments and Tony Salinas (then a PhD student aligned with the Centre) were intensively involved with microtonal musics.
After a period languishing on its spine, behind other instruments, in my basement at home (hence the lack of photos here), it needs some attention: some of the most severely cranked keys, which are close to the limit of what will work (depending, as they do, on the stiffness of the balance pins, in unusually deep mortises in oak levers), need adjustment; a few of the quill (sic) springs of the 3-mm-thick jacks need replacing; and the wide cypress soundboard has a repairable crack. As Lorenzo da Pavia wrote when recommending his somewhat neglected, second-hand 1494 paper-piped organ to Isabella d’Este, ‘it wants the attention of its master’. I hope to revive it later this year.

The future, and future location, of the instrument are, frankly, in doubt. Although I still hope to arrange some performances using it, and don’t, ideally, want completely to part with it, I would be interested to hear of suggestions for its better use, or expressions of interest in playing it. Although playing as far as the third order of keys (like an ordinary 19-tone keyboard) is fairly straightforward, use of the more elevated fourth and fifth orders requires familiarisation and learning new chord shapes.
Aside from its intended tuning in 31-TET or, according to the accompanying monochord, a slightly unequal approximation thereto (effectively a circulating variant of quarter-comma meantone, allowing unrestricted modulation), many other tunings are possible, including, for example, one affording alternative pure fifths above quarter-comma meantone temperament of the frontmost two or three orders of keys. This can have a wonderful effect with voices or with instruments of flexible pitch which can closely approach just consonances above, in effect, a meantone-tempered bass (thereby avoiding the meandering pitch associated with polyphonic singing in ‘just intonation’).

Best wishes, Lewis.