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  January 19th 2025

Broadwood 1829 FtGH

Bizzi Harpsichord 2008 For Sale

Broadwood 1829 FtGH

Perhaps it's a reflection of 'The Market' - and the increasing obstacles to exports to the EU and USA - but there are several pianos currently being offered Free to Good Home.  But this is surely the best example.  It is Broadwood number 37776, dating from 1829.  It was restored in 1992, and has been well cared for; it remains in good condition. Please see the Sale Page for full details of this opportunity.

Broderip & Wilknson c. 1800 FtGH

The hitherto successful firm of Longman & Broderip was declared bankrupt in 1798,  and taken over by Muzio Clementi and partners.  Soon afterwards, Francis Fane Broderip entered a partnership with George Wilkinson and continued to sell pianos very similar in style to those that went before under the L&B label.  Broderip died in early 1807, so this piano may be dated to the early years of the nineteenth century, probably very near to 1800.

It is now offered as a restoration project Free to Good Home.  Please see the Sale Page for pictures and details.

Bizzi Harpsichord 2008 For Sale

This elegant single-manual 2 x 8' harpsichord by Guido Bizzi was made as recently as 2008, but is sadly no longer played.  The matching stool is included in the sale.  Please see the Sale Page for pictures and details.

Kirckman Harpsichord 1786 For Sale

This magnificent instrument by Jacob and Abraham Kirkman is an example of the fully-developed English harpsichord, with the keyboard including the low FF#, an integrated music-desk, a nag's head swell, and a machine stop.  Please see the Sale Page for pictures and full details, including an explanation of the machine stop!  

Zuckermann Harpsichord 1978 For Sale

I have found these Zuckermann harpsichords to be remarkably reliable and pleasant to play.  This 1978 example has a compass BB - d3, but the lower notes may be tuned to a short-octave arrangement.  It is in full playing condition.  Please see the Sale Page for pictures and full details.

Gregori Harpsichord 1786 For Sale

This appealing harpsichord was purchased by the late John Barnes in 1953, and is still with the family.  Although reliably dated to 1786, the style is reminiscent of a much earlier age, perhaps reflecting the fact that it was made in rural eastern Italy.  It is now offered for sale; please see the Sale Page for pictures and full details.  

Broadwood 1790 For Sale

I'm happy to present another fine example of my favourite pianos, a first-generation Broadwood, with the original straight brass under-dampers - before hammers got bigger, strings thicker, the sound louder... all in the name of progress of course. But for the music of J C Bach, Haydn, Mozart - it's good to get back to the gentler sounds of the time.  This piano, N° 1461, is an example of the 'Elegant ' model, with a cross-banded case and a French stand. 

Please see the Sale Page for details

Ivory Sales in the European Union

 New Developments 2024 

This is now getting complicated, and I am sorry to say that I no longer feel able to offer any advice.  The background to the current situation is that the European Commission issued a Directive in 2021 (see below) the provisions of which are required to be enacted into law by all 27 member states. As of late 2024 regulations are appearing, notably for France and Germany, but it is not clear to me what these regulations are. 

I can only advise sellers and buyers to check carefully what they need to do to comply with the law in their particular case, which will often involve more than one country.

These notes, and some additional comments and case-studies have been added to the Ivory Page

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

For more images please see the dedicated page Christian Shean Spinet

 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.

I am 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.  Sadly, in view of the EU General Product Safety Regulation, effective from 13 December 2024, I am no longer permitted to supply these to EU countries or Northern Ireland. 

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.

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’ (2^nd edition 1974 and presumably 1^st edition 1956) has a variation of the muddle, ascribing ‘1664’ to ‘Thomas the Elder’, and ‘1703’ to ‘Thomas the Younger’.  Even the 3^rd 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!

  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..