He played these works with a normal harpsichord that he has rebuilt into a 3-compassed instrument. In spite of that I was dealing with only the building of lutes, the idea of reconstruction made me think. The story of the instrument, which always waked my memories when I was listening to my friend's, Gergő's records, also encouraged me to carry out my plan.
The short story of the instrument
We do not know exactly how far the origin of the lute with keyboards dates back.
The forerunner of the keyboard instruments with gut strings probably was Virdung's harpfentiv from 1511. After Henry VIII.'s death, in 1547 two long virginals were found.
They were in good condition and built according to the harp-style.
Adriano Bachieri reports in his books that he had seen an 'arpicordo leutat' /it may have meant the lute-harp/ built by Michael de Hodes. They referred to this instrument as 'arpitarrone' and it had 24 white and 16 black keys.
The legendary luteharpsichord, which has a special place in the musical history, had neither representative samples nor any useful documentation.
Any appreciable information about this instrument could be found only in old musical works. It is known that J.S.Bach himself supported the development of the luteharpsichord and he had at least two instruments.
The scientific literature mentions 5 luteharpsichord-builders of that time:
Johann Nicolaus Bach (1669-1753)
He was the relative of J.S.Bach and an organist in Jena. His instruments were 5-octaved.
His 3-compassed luteharpsichords costed 60 thalers each and according to Jauernig it counted a large amount of money at that time.
Johann Cristopf Fleischer (1676-1732)
He had found out the luteharpsichord in 1718 and later the theorba-harpsichord.
Zaccharias Hildebrand (1685-1770)
Martin Agricola, Bach's pupil has also reported about his instrument and Adlung writes about Hildebrand's wing-shaped instrument in his publication.
Johann Georg Gleichmann (1685-1770)
Christian Ernst Friderichi (1709-1780)
He had invented the perpendicularly stringed harpsichord.
Towards the end of a musical period, J.S.Bach seeing the next one, kept his eyes open to the further development of traditional instruments. The musician-genius supported the attempt to combinate the pleasant voice of the popular lute and harpsichord /that he liked more/ with great enthusiasm. According to his ideas in 1720 he had a luteharpsichord built at a 60 thalers-price. In accordance with an inventory in Leipzig, after his death, in 1750 there were these instruments in his possession: decorated harpsichords in the value of 80 thalers, simplier harpsichords in the value of 50 thalers, similar in smaller size in the value of 20 thalers, luteharpsichords in the value of 30 thalers, lutes in the value of 21 thalers.
The luteharpsichord also appears in the description of Johann Friedrich Agricola from 1768.
The author remembers that around 1740 he had seen a luteharpsichord in Leipzig and it was built by Zaccharias Hildebrand for J.S.Bach. Its size was smaller than a normal harpsichord but in other respects it was similar. Every double gut strings were stretched out. With one compass, in the manner of theorba, turning both of them on, it sounded as it was a professional lute-player playing. Hildebrand's instrument was completed by the summer of 1739, when Wilhelm Friedemann Bach went to visit his father with 2 lute-players: Johann Kropfgangs and Silvius Leopold Weiss.
We can find written documents about the luteharpsichord in the musical encyclopedia of J.G.Walther from 1732. It informs us rather information of the instrument makers than the real technical datum of the instrument. The books of Banchieri and 2 works of Adlung, which deals with mainly the building of organ, also refer to the luteharpsichord. Between the descriptions we can find referrings to the external shape of the instrument and to its chords.
Because of the incomplete descriptions the attempt of the exact reconstruction of this instrument could be imagined only supporting by hypothesis.
Adlung claims that the luteharpsichord can be made either by keeping the shape of the harpsichord /that means a short body with a shape that reminds us to the wing of a bird/ ,
with an oval outline or with other shapes. In his musical work he wrote the following:
'The silky voice of the lute that can be heard in a luteharpsichord too is attained by the gut strings and by the correct usage of the length of the chords. It sounds at that exact place where the fingers pluck the chords. Such an instrument can be made with one, two or with three finger-boards. The plucking of the chords can be made with different plectrums /crow feather, quill or leather/. We have to use two chords for each key similarly to the double chords of the deepest voices. The theorba-harpsichords, which differ only in the bass domain and in their bigger size, also belong to this group.'
According to the range of voice and the tuning of Fleischer's instruments, presenting in 1718, we don't have any reliable information. The only thing that we know is that the range of voice used was 3 octaves.
The theorba-harpsichord had 3 chords for each key, 2 of them were gut chords and the third was a metal one. The luteharpsichord originating from J.N.Bach, which was completed later than Fleischer's, was completely gut-stringed. Its constructer provided the instrument with 3 keyboards /like the lutes have/ in favour of the tone-stages. He used only one chord-line in the 4 octaves range of voice from the trilinear C to the upper C allowing that later it may approach the 5 octaves range of voice of the theorba-harpsichord. For this he took the double stringing into account. Considering the stringing of the luteharpsichord, it would be ideal to use different chord-thicknesses for each of the adjacent sounds irrespectively of the quality of the material. However, Adlung states that we won't even find so many kinds of chords from the upper C to the trilinear one. According to him, we have to adopt the chord distances from the lute and we have to set in the distance between the chord-suspension and the place of the plucking with the help of the small spacers. In a certain distance from the 25mm wide fret, placed at the top, all the chords of the luteharpsichord were strengthened showing a
criss-cross pattern in the section of the bass chords but after this it moved on in tiers.
The same chord-thickness could be used for many voices, just like in the case of the lute. Keeping the characteristics of the construction of the lute, the tuners and the frets of the luteharpsichord were also made of wood.
The voice of the luteharpsichord cannot be compared to the sounding of any kind of lutes. According to this description Adlung was really enthusiastic: 'The luteharpsichord is the most beautiful instrument among all of the keyboard instruments after the organ. 'He separately emphasized that by using the roundish frame copying the lute, we can reach a much better sounding. If the roof is slight enough and the chording is correct, the instrument sounds as if we were listening to a lute plucking by fingers but with much greater tonal prosperity. It is because of the resonance of the interior space of the instrument, the bigger volume of the instrument and the quaver characteristics of the chords as they sweeten the sounding voice.
That's why J.N.Bach asked the best lutist to say a comparative opinion as he was playing on the luteharpsichord. The voice was completely the same as a real lute's voice.
Another description attributed the same characteristics to this instrument. The tonal prosperity is fascinating, its voice is so strong as it was 3 lutists playing together.
/Making use of this opportunity, I would like to say thank to my friend, Sándor Szabó for the translations of special literature. /
About the sources and about their absence
Because of the early death of my father, András Romanek, he could pass me only the basis of lute-making. After 26 years had come and gone I became the master of making different instruments. The acquired knowledgement and experience gave me safety in instrument-making and with the help of this I could start building this entirely new instrument.
The elders wrote about the luteharpsichord's voice ardently. From the antecedents we know that there weren't many items about the building-strategy but the fact that its voice was considered to be the most beautiful, gave me no doubt that I have to choose this type.
Because of the fact that the technical datum and the required materials of the luteharpsichord weren't available for me, the plan of the reconstruction remained only a dream for me for a long time. At first I've made a normal harpsichord without any professional help to get to know the mechanic and static secrets of the instrument. Later I could find a steady, dry material. I was thinking of the building of the instrument more and more often. I raised the question: What did Bach want? He wanted a lute-voiced harpsichord. That was my starting point and that I had to regulate the instrument in proportion to a 5-octaved harpsichord keyboard. What difficulties did emerge?
I had to build a grandiose but light lute-corpus that can bear a great tension. If we expect the voice of a contemporary lute, we have to build it similarly. It must give sound from the bass-lute to the octave-lute and the fret sticked on the roof must carry the burden of 124 chords.
With the help of the calculometer of the firm, Pyramid specialized to produce historic chords, we can figure out the graduate, the thickness of the chords and the stretching force for each voice. The resonance roof must carry a 360kg weight gross load. However, I could rely only on my own feelings according to how much does the whole frame would carry.
I could study a really good lute-building method from my father and this technic mixes the formal possibility of building and the static safety. Developing this method, in 1999 I could start the reconstruction of the luteharpsichord according to my own ideas.
