Erard

Sébastien Erard’s (1752–1831) inventions have had an enormous impact on instruments and musical life and are still at the foundation of piano building today. Drawing on an unusually rich set of archives from both the Erard firm and the Erard family, Robert Adelson shows how the Erard piano played an important and often leading role in the history of the instrument, beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing into the final decades of the nineteenth. The Erards were the first piano builders in France to prioritise the more sonorous grand piano, sending gifts of their new model to both Haydn and Beethoven. Erard’s famous double-escapement action, which improved the instrument’s response while at the same time producing a more powerful tone, revolutionised both piano construction and repertoire. Thanks to these inventions, the Erard firm developed close relationships with the greatest pianist composers of the nineteenth century, including Hummel, Liszt, Moscheles, and Mendelssohn. The book also presents new evidence concerning Pierre Erard’s homosexuality, which helps us to understand his reluctance to found a family to carry on the Erard tradition, a reluctance that would spell the end of the golden era of the firm and lead to its eventual demise. The book closes with the story of Pierre’s widow Camille, who directed the firm from 1855 until 1889. Her influential position in the male-dominated world of instrument building was unique for a woman of her time.

Founding a workshop

Having obtained a crucial royal protection that allowed them to compete freely with their Parisian rivals, the Erard brothers concentrated on enlarging their workshop in order to meet the growing demand for their pianos—not only in Paris, but throughout France. The firm hired numerous skilled workers from German-speaking Europe, enticing them by offering a good salary and a stable contract. The success of the Erard firm depended on recruiting, training, and supervising their numerous employees, and stocking their workshops with great quantities of specialised raw materials for instrument manufacture. The Erards developed relationships with musical instrument dealers, musicians, and music teachers as an important way to extend their instrument-building empire across Europe.

TRaNsMOG-RiFiER: Fictional Narratives as Catalyst for Experimental Instrument Building and Musical/Artistic Collaboration

The authors report on their artistic research project TRaNsMOGRiFiER and highlight musician-specific approaches to creating with technology that privilege the sharing of tools and practical knowledge. The use of fictional narratives as a catalyst for instrument building and art making is at the foreground of the discussion. By rethinking DIY/Maker culture with an emphasis on collaboration and collective creativity, the authors highlight the tension between the production of fixed media output and practices that resist encapsulation. TRaNsMOGRiFiER underscores the benefits of hands-on learning and presents a collaborative artistic platform with a focus on open-ended processes and ongoing change.

Preparing the Digital Piano: Introducing bitKlavier

This article describes a new kind of digital musical instrument, a novel assemblage of the familiar MIDI keyboard with custom interactive software. Inspired by John Cage's prepared piano, our instrument both takes advantage of and subverts the pianist's hard-earned, embodied training, while also inviting an extended configuration stage that “prepares” the instrument to behave in composition-specific, idiosyncratic ways. Through its flexible—though constrained—design, the instrument aims to inspire a playful approach to instrument building, composition, and performance. We outline the development history of our instrument, called bitKlavier, its current design, and some of its musical possibilities.

Edition im Dialog: Das Kompendium des ʿAlī Ufuḳī (Istanbul, Mitte 17. Jahrhundert) in kritischer Edition und historischer Aufführungspraxis

The compendium of the Polish-born Ottoman court musician and interpreter ʿAlī Ufuḳī/Albert Bobowski, MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Turc 292, is a crucial source of the history of music in the Ottoman Empire and at the same time a highly individual document. On 626 pages it contains notations of the most diverse genres, song texts and many marginal notes relating to various aspects of music. Composed between the 1630 s and 1670 s in Istanbul, it can be understood as a still image of the predominantly oral tradition. This results in special challenges to edition and performance practice. In exchange with three Turkish experts in the fields of performance, musicology and instrument building, the present contribution explores possible interpretations and inspirations for a historically informed performance practice of Ottoman music on the basis of ʿAlī Ufuḳī’s notations.

Plucked-keyboard instruments built in Flanders as based on the collection of the Muziekinstrumentenmuseum in Brussels

The article touches on the topic of keyboard-plucked instruments, which were made in one of the most significant European centres – Flanders. The Ruckers family working there created unique works serving as an inspiration for subsequent generations of instrument makers as well as modern makers of copies of historical instruments. The text is aimed at presenting the history of Flanders and instrument building in that region, and analysing selected exhibits from the Muziekinstrumentenmuseum in Brussels. The names of authors of numerous old instruments still need to be determined or confirmed, and a thorough study of connections between families of builders, their relations with other makers, and the ornaments placed on instruments, may facilitate the identification. The article describes the history of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp, uniting artists and instrument makers. The most recognised representatives of this group were the Ruckers and the Couchet families, and biographical sketches of their selected members are presented further along in the article. There is also a description of different instruments from that region, such as: harpsichord (Flűgel), virginal, spinet, muselar, de moeder met het kind and ottavino. The conclusion includes an analysis of selected items from the Belgian museum which come from the region of Flanders and were built by the Ruckers and Rouchet families. These exhibits are distinguished by their structure, external appearance and history. The descriptions and photos will allow readers to learn more about the presented material. The text is addressed to people interested in the topic of the plucked-keyboard instrument making, as well as to harpsichordists who need to know about the origin of instruments. This kind of information is crucial for adjusting the right temperament, registers and articulation in a given piece. The knowledge about the types of historical keyboard instruments is equally important.

Instruments of Music Theory

This article explores musical instruments as a source for the historical study of music theory. The figure of Pythagoras, and his alleged penchant for the monochord, offers a way into this exploration of the theory-bearing dimensions of instruments. Musicians tend to think of instruments primarily in terms of music-making, but in other contexts instruments are, more broadly, tools. In the context of scientific experimentation, specifically, instruments help researchers come to terms with “epistemic things”—objects under scrutiny that carry specific (but as yet unknown) sources of knowledge within them. Aspects of this experimental practice can productively be transferred to the study of music theory and are explored in two test cases from different periods of musical theorizing (and instrument building): Nicola Vicentino’s archicembalo from mid-sixteenth century Italy, and Henry Cowell’s rhythmicon from early twentieth-century America.

Towards a New Treaty on Business and Human Rights

This article examines the legal as well as political feasibility of four potential options for a legally-binding international instrument in the area of business and human rights. The four options that the open-ended intergovernmental working group may wish to consider while negotiating an instrument are: (i) to clarify and strengthen the states’ duty to protect human rights, including extraterritorially; (ii) to oblige states, through a framework convention, to report on the adoption and implementation of national action plans on business and human rights; (iii) to impose direct human rights obligations on corporations and establish a new mechanism to monitor compliance with such obligations; and (iv) to impose duties of mutual legal assistance on states to ensure access to effective remedies for victims harmed by transnational operations of corporations. As these options are not mutually exclusive, the author argues that a hybrid instrument building on elements of the first and the fourth option may be the best way forward both in terms of political feasibility and improving access to effective remedies for victims.