Welcome to
Friends of Square Pianos
This is a website for anyone who owns, or would like to own, a square piano, or possibly a spinet. Or a harpsichord, or a clavichord... Or anyone who is just interested, and would like to learn a little more.
Please get in touch with me, David, on friends.sp@btinternet.com with questions, comments, or just to say 'Hello'. This is a site for everyone, especially those new to the world of Early Keyboard Instruments. And of course, we very much appreciate the support of those with more experience.
Update December 10th
A Perfect Christmas Gift
Gardiner Houlgate Sale - Results
20th-Century Harpsichord at Piano Auctions
This nicely-built and practical harpsichord - believed to be from a John Storrs kit, was sold at Piano Auctions on Tuesday, December 10th for £950 hammer-price. Apologies for my earlier mistake about the date. As this is a post-1974 instrument, in order to comply with the law the auctioneer had no option but to remove the ivory keytops.
Please see the Auction Page for pictures and details.
A Perfect Christmas Gift
Are you looking for a Christmas gift for a friend, or perhaps even for yourself? There are not many recordings of square pianos, and this is one of the best I have heard. Six delightful sonatas for flute and piano by JCF Bach, played by Jochewed Schwarz and Ashley Solomon. It is perhaps the best example I have heard of the true early square piano sound, the 1769 Zumpe & Buntebart in the Cobbe Collection.
To order CD click HERE
Gardiner Houlgate Sale 6th December - Results
This important sale featured seventeen early keyboard instruments, including fourteen from the Collecton of Michael Turner. Results were variable - some more than expected, some perhaps disappointing. This beautiful Shudi & Broadwood harpsichord failed to reach the estimate, and was not sold. Please see the Gardiner Houlgate page on this website for pictures and details of all the instruments, and all the prices realised.
Four Squares in Switzerland For Sale
A small collection of square pianos is offered for sale in Switzerland; the instruments are being sold from an inheritance. The vendor is not a specialist but is willing to help as best as possible. All the instruments are in need of a restoration. The instruments will be sold all together.
Please see the Sale Page for details.
William Phillips c. 1815 For Sale
The elegant design and decoration of this piano looks back to Ancient Greek and beyond, and forward to Art Deco. We don't know much about William Phillips, except his address in Little Tower Hill (next to the Tower of London). However, the distinctive design of the piano suggests that the actual maker could have been Leukfeld .
Please see the Sale Page for details.
Dolmetsch Clavichord 1936 Sold
Arnold Dolmetsch was a true pioneer of our early keyboard world, and he led an amazing life. Grandson of an organ-builder, and son of a piano-maker, he was born in Le Mans in 1858. In the early 1880s, he studied at the Brussels Conservatoire and at the Royal College of Music in London. Throughout the 1890s he gave many concerts on period instruments, and began restoring them in his workshop. Between 1894 and 1897 he made six large clavichords, three 'Beethoven' pianos, and his first harpsichord. After several trips to the USA, Italy, and France, he settled in the United States and made harpsichords, spinets, virginals, and clavichords with the piano-maker Chickering & Sons in Boston, Mass. during the period 1905 - 1911. Due to the recession in the USA, he relocated to Paris, where he worked with Gaveau. It was here, that after the suggestion by Violet Gordon Woodhouse, he developed the now-familiar four-octave clavichord. In 1914 he returned to England, and after some time in London in 1917 established the family home and workshop in Haslemere, Surrey.
Arnold Dolmetsch died in 1940 at the age of 82, so this 1936 instrument still enjoyed his personal touch. This is a lovely clavichord - there were several enquiries very soon after it was listed, and it has been sold. Please see the Sale Page for pictures and details.
Christian Shean Spinet at Byrne's Auction
Sold for £6,800
This handsome spinet was in the auction of Byrnes, Chester, on November 20. Christian Shean was working in London from c. 1753. By 1760 he had moved to Edinburgh, where he died in 1794. Five spinets by him are recorded in Boalch-Mould Online; this could be a sixth. One is in the Edinburgh Collectons, dated 1782, and inscribed 'Christian Shean from London'. This one appears to say simply 'London', which could imply that it was made not later than 1760. But it is in a beautiful mahogany case with the 'harpsichord' compass of FF, GG - f3, typical of the later British spinets, and suggesting a date in the 178os.
The auctioneer's estimate was £300 - £500; it did rather better than that at £6.800.
For more images please see the dedicated page Christian Shean Spinet
Z is For Zumpe!
Gardiner Houlgate Sale 6th December
Everybody wants a Zumpe! This 1773 example by the maker who introduced the piano to London Society is the final instrument to be announced in the splendid array of early keyboard instrument from the Michael Turner collection to be offered in the Gardiner Houlgate December sale.
Johannes Zumpe came from Fürth in Saxony to London some time before 1760, and initially worked for Burkat Shudi. In 1761 he set up his own workshop at 7, Princes Street, Hanover square, originally making 'English Guitars'. His first known piano is dated 1766, and he quickly established the fashion for the new instrument, aided by the interest of J C Bach and Queen Charlotte - both also from Germany. Concerts given by J C Bach in London were the first on the new instrument. He was soon joined by other makers, and this marked the beginning of the successful piano industry in London and the United Kingdom.
About 60 of his pianos are known, many in museums. It is rare for an example to be offered for sale.
Please see the Gardiner Houlgate page for details of this and the other early keyboard instruments in the sale.
Spinet by John Storrs of Chichester
For Sale
I have great respect for the instruments of John Storrs of Chichester (my home city). Active in the late twentieth century, he was a pioneer of advanced woodworking techniques to enable his kits, when carefully built by a competent amateur, to make practical and good-sounding instruments. Please see the Sale Page for pictures and details.
Jane Austen -
After 250 Years, Her First Song
Please click here for more details, and to support Penny's initiative via her Crowdfunding appeal.
David Law
For many years, David has been our favourite supplier of his beautiful replica brasswork for early keyboard instruments. But he has been rather quiet lately. I have just spoken to him - good to hear his voice. But he is not well these days, and he has asked me to offer the following bulletin: He had a bad fall earlier in the year, which resulted in a complex fracture to his thigh and hip, needing metal implants. He is out of hospital and back home, but his mobility and general health are seriously impaired. He sometimes spends a short time in his workshop, but he his limited in what he can do. He has a backlog of promises and enquiries, and additionally has difficulty operating his computer, and so asks for our understanding and patience. If anyone does wish to contact him, the best way is by his mobile phone.
On behalf of all of us, I wished him well, and assured him that he was in all our thoughts.
Plans for Keene & Brackley Spinet -
Now Affordable!
The famous Keene and Brackley spinet is rightly the model for many reproductions, both amateur and professional. I am happy to announce that by courtesy of the copyright owner of John Barnes' original plan, we are now able to offer copies at an affordable price; they are now available through Friends of Square Pianos for just £20, plus carriage at cost. Please note that this is the original plan taken from the original instrument in the picture, not the EMS kit version which had two added sharps for GG# and d3#.
Even if you are not going to build an instrument yourself, anyone with an interest in spinets will find this plan fascinating.
Please see the new page Plans For Sale for details of plans of spinets, harpsichords, and clavichords offered at reasonable prices.
Bespoke Tuning Hammers
Early keyboard Instruments, whether originals or replicas, do require more frequent tuning than modern iron-framed pianos. The costs of professional tunings mount up, and it can also be a problem finding a tuner who is happy to work with our ancient instruments. For this and other reasons, most of us do our own tuning. To offer some help to those thinking of having a go, I have prepared a short PDF guide, available on request.
It is very important to have a properly-fitting tuning hammer, which should bear on a good portion of the two flat faces of the wrestpin (tuning-pin). If the fit is too sloppy, the corners of the pin and the socket of the tuning hammer will be damaged, and the backlash makes accurate tuning difficult anyway. If it is too small, it will grip the top of the pin only, with the same result.
Tuning-hammers are available from Lucy Coad or David Law - see 'Suppliers' page of this website. Alternatively, I am now able to offer a limited number of hand-made hammers tailored to your own pins, either directly or via a template. Please see the Tuning and Tuning Hammers page for details
I have made a number of very short and lopsided hammers; these have proved popular with owners of Broadwoods and other pianos with the pins at the back, and also with spinet owners. In both cases the lid makes tuning difficult (unless it can be thrown right back) and these special hammers can help. They don’t look as elegant as the long-stemmed symmetrical type, but they are quite practical!
The Spinets of the Hitchcock Dynasy - Names, Numbers, and Dates
The second of these two essays builds on the first ('1664 and All That' - see below) and offers a new interpretation of the data concerning the establishment of Thomas Hitchcock as the leading spinet maker. It explains the somewhat confusing numbering sequences, their relationship to dates of manufacture, and the change on the nameboard from Thomas to John. As before, the piece is rather long to transfer directly to this page, so please open the PDF below.
Adobe Acrobat document [1.2 MB]
1664 and All That
Some confusion still surrounds the early life and career of Thomas Hitchcock. When was he active? Who was ‘Thomas Hitchcock the Elder’? One of the first histories of keyboard instruments in Britain was written by Edward Rimbault (pub. 1860). He tells us that “John [!] Hitchcock made these little instruments of a compass of five octaves. Several specimens still exist bearing dates between 1620 and 1640” It is likely that Rimbault mistook front numbers for dates, and numbers as high as this would indeed have carried the name of John Hitchcock, but it seems surprising that he had apparently never seen Hitchcock spinets carrying numbers which could not possibly have been dates, such as 1460.
Perhaps the most important early historian for keyboard instruments was Alfred Hipkins of Broadwoods. He compiled the catalogue for the 1885 International Inventions Exhibition, and used this experience for his 1888 book ‘Musical Instruments – Historic, Rare, and Unique’. It is in this book that Hipkins makes the notorious statement “…Thomas Hitchcock, whose autograph appears in spinets from 1664 and 1703.”
His famous 1896 book ‘A Description and History of the Pianoforte’ repeats this as “Thomas Hitchcock’s written dates found within instruments made by him cover the long period between 1664 and 1703.” But he then goes on to note that Hitchcock was the first to number his instruments, so he did realise that the numbers on the nameboards were not dates.
As so often happens, later authors followed these statements as unchallenged facts, and the misunderstanding is repeated in James (1933) and Russell (1959). Boalch ‘Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord’ (2nd edition 1974 and presumably 1st edition 1956) has a variation of the muddle, ascribing ‘1664’ to ‘Thomas the Elder’, and ‘1703’ to ‘Thomas the Younger’. Even the 3rd edition (1995) still has the entries, but the editor (Charles Mould) does realise that something is not quite right, and offers the plaintive statement: “…1664 does seem early for a wing spinet in London, and the date may have been misread. If it were possible to locate this, and the other early Hitchcock instruments, it would be possible to be more precise about the identity and dates of the members of the Hitchcock family in the early years of their workshops.”
So it was that, having kept a low profile since 1885, the mysterious ‘1664 Hitchcock’ emerged from the shadows. This is the story of an important little spinet – it is my privilege to be part of the story.
The essay is a bit long to transfer to this page directly, so please open the PDF below. All comments welcome!
Adobe Acrobat document [942.5 KB]
Making a Spinet
Some of you may have followed the construction - starting from a pile of wood - of this replica of a remarkable and important instrument. The spinet is now complete and playing well, and has gone to its new home in the Sigal Music Museum in South Carolina. Please see the Spinet Page for the story.
About the 'Webmaster' (David Hackett)
My only claim to respectability is that Carl Dolmetsch once offered to take me on as an apprentice. This was in 1962, when I had just shown him my first clavichord, and been his guest at Haslemere. However, he also advised me that it would be better to go to University, and I accepted his advice. Early Keyboard Instruments have therefore remained a hobby, and now happily retired, I am able to spend a bit more time enjoying them - and encouraging others, I hope..
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