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Harpsichords and Related Topics

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From:
"Shields, Michael" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 19 Feb 2016 17:07:13 +0000
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From a purely linguistic point of view, the German word 'Pedalflügel' can mean either a piano or a harpsichord with pedal (but not a pedal clavichord). 

There is a description, in a music novel by the German author J.J.W. Heinse entitled "Hildegard von Hohenthal" (1796), of someone using organ pedal technique on a 'beautiful english' pedal pianoforte. There it is called a "Pianoforte mit Pedal". The description contains some critical comments on the voicing, action, ease  of playing, lack of equal temperament of the instrument, and on the need for every pianist to be able to tune a piano. Instruments by the Augsburg builder Stein are superior, and have a lighter touch, etc. I haven't read the novel myself yet, just the passage with the pedal piano, but it looks musically interesting. For those of you with the leisure and the German. Heinse was born in 1754 and died in 1803, and had a job as "reader" for the archbishop of Mainz (whatever that was- hopefully less boring than it sounds). I am not sure if the English Pedalflügel is a novellistic fiction, a German adaptation of an English instrument or whether one could have been imported pedals and all from England. Anyway, it's definitely a pianoforte.

Michael Shields, Galway
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