On 21/07/2017 00:52, Martin Spaink wrote:
> Hi all, I read BOLTON on the jack.
Yes, they are Bolton jacks. These were designed and made by David Bolton
of Middlesborough, UK, for use in his own instruments and in the large
number of harpsichord and virginal kits that he produced. David died in
February 2008, and as far as I know the jacks are no longer made. They
are, in fact, pretty serviceable. I may have a few odd spares, Martin,
if you need them - but it is a long time since I checked my stock!
In case anyone is interested, I have pasted in an obituary of David from
the British Clavichord Society Newsletter below my signature.
--
Peter Bavington
Clavichord Maker
291 Sprowston Mews
LONDON
E7 9AE
www.peter-bavington.co.uk
OBITUARY
David Hugh Bolton (1930–2008)
Christopher Stembridge, Bressanone, Italy
News of the sudden death of BCS member David Bolton on 23 February
arrived just as the previous Newsletter was going to press: sadly, he
never lived to see his article in that issue appear in print. Many BCS
members will have been introduced to the pleasures of owning and playing
a clavichord or harpsichord through making one of his kit instruments,
from the instrument making courses that he ran, or from his
participation in NORVIS, the early-music summer school based in Durham.
The following appreciation by Christopher Stembridge first appeared in
Early Music Review, and we are grateful for his permission to reprint it
here.
I first met David Bolton at the Early Music Exhibition in Earl’s Court
in 1991 when I begged him to sell me his unfinished demonstration model
of a short-octave fretted clavichord. This was badly needed in a
newly-independent Estonia. I also told him that I needed kits for many
of my students for making a later type of fretted clavichord, based on
Hubert or similar. He would think about it. Two or three years later he
came to my house in Italy with the prototype. We spent a week working
out the right stringing, and since then I and many of my students and
acquaintances have acquired such instruments in kit or finished form
from him. It is a great success. I once recorded on such an instrument
in David’s bathroom in Middlesbrough!
When, some years later, I asked him to help me find a way of getting
such things to Russia he saw little point in trying to send kits there
and suggested that we should find a competent craftsman. He would be
happy to provide plans and instructions and would even consider coming
over to help people finish their instruments. He spoke a beautiful
old-fashioned Russian – so convincingly that the ticket-office at the
Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg did not think of trying to exact from
him the inflated foreign tourist rate when he went there a couple of
years ago. He had learned Russian (along with Colin Tilney and others)
in a class that formed part of his National Service. He subsequently
visited Russia several times as a rep. for I.C.I., in whose employ he
worked from 1954 until 1980 when they paid for him to retrain as a cello
teacher. In Holland (1970-72) he had got interested in harpsichord
making, and after assembling a Zuckermann kit realized that there were
things in it that needn’t be, so decided to design a ‘basic kit’ to save
shipping costs for the customers.
Looking for a good woodworker in Russia proved to be like searching for
a needle in a haystack. As my friend the Dresden organ builder Kristian
Wegscheider pointed out, Stalin had destroyed the artisan tradition. In
Soviet Russia doors, furniture and even musical instruments were
produced in factories. Kristian suggested I should look for someone
working as a restorer in a museum. On my next visit to Moscow I met
Dmitri Belov, who not only proudly showed me some eighteenth-century
furniture he had restored in Arkhangelskoye museum outside Moscow, but
also proved to be completing his studies in organ and composition at the
Moscow Conservatory.
David invited Dmitri to stay in Middlesbrough for a month and learn how
to make his first clavichord. The visit was a great success. It spawned
great activity back in Moscow, and many Bolton-Belov clavichords now
exist, one of which may be seen at the Gnessin Academy of Music. David
made his last trip to Russia shortly before last Christmas when he
helped Dmitry make a pedal clavichord and spinet.
He has played an important role in helping early musicians, especially
those of modest means, to acquire instruments. I consider his
clavichords to be amongst the best made in recent times.
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