Dear colleagues,
I wonder whether anyone might be able to help me to locate the Erard (London) double-action harp numbered 1955, if it still exists, or might have any information about its history after it was sold on 11 February 1824 to a Miss Shearman of 73 Guildford Street, [London]. Students of the Erard ledgers might note that this date is an exception to the prevailing chronological sequence of numbering; the number 1955 would otherwise have been assigned some nine years earlier, in the early months of 1815. The harp had previously been out on loan; it was returned to the maker on 27 February 1821 but as the start of the loan was not recorded, the precise date of manufacture is not known.
I am interested in this double-action instrument because I am investigating an extant single-action Erard harp which is consistently numbered 1955 in the usual places, with no other number or countervailing indication anywhere to be found. This single-action instrument was evidently built as number 1955, with no expectation at the time that the same number would subsequently be assigned to a double. The single numbered 1955 is apparently a prototype or experimental model which, though it escaped formal inclusion in the ledger, must eventually have left the workshop one way or another; its condition attests to a history of use and repair. If it might be of interest, I will prepare a blog post about it. Meanwhile, I'd be very grateful for your help regarding the double-action no. 1955.
Kind regards, Lewis.
Hello Lewis, When you write that the single-action harp is "numbered 1955 in the usual places," do you also mean on the neckplate, or are you only referring to interior or hidden numbers on various parts of the harp? On 31 December 1822, Pierre Erard listed harp no. 1955 among the double-action harps for hire in the stock at Great Marlborough Street, but of course this is not new information to you, as it precedes the 1824 sale.
Best, Robert
Dear Robert,
Thank you for this very prompt and helpful reply.
Apart from the neckplate, the only externally visible instance of the stamped number 1955 on the single-action harp is on the underside of the neck:
Other instances include the inner face of the lowest shutter:
and the upper edge of one of the curved front parts of the pedalbox wall:
These are the only instances of which I have photographs immediately to hand but I could show them comprehensively in a more detailed blog post.
Best wishes, Lewis.
Dear Mike,
This is something on which I hope more experienced restorers and investigators might shed light. I don't know whether the letters accompanying the numbers are associated with particular patterns, models, batches of component parts, or individual craftsmen.
Best wishes, Lewis.
Dear Lewis,
Might your "single-action" no. 1955 be a harp that has double-action on only the D and A pedals?
Best,
Robert
Dear Robert,
That would indeed be an exciting transitional example..., but this is not one such. Among the salient features of this 'unofficial' (i.e. undocumented in the ledger) Erard no. 1955 are:
· That the neck has approximately the same width and curve as that of Erard’s double-action instruments of circa 1815;
· That the brass plates are wide enough to have accommodated two rows of fourchettes, the sliding bridge pins (most of which are missing, the instrument apparently having been plundered by a repairer) being placed approximately where the upper (semitone) fourchettes would be in a double; in consequence there is an unusually long afterlength of string between tuning pin and bridge pin;
· That the pedal-box is deep: the walls are 3 inches high (British Imperial inch = 25.4 mm), as in the double-action harps.
These features appear to bespeak of an attempt, once the double-action harp was well established, to standardise, where possible, the manufacture of the main wooden and metal components of the instrument. In most structural respects this example is built in the manner of the double-action harps of circa 1815. If, as the number 1955 suggests, the instrument was made at the end of 1814 or the beginning of 1815, it would seem to be a prototype of the later, relatively robustly built Erard single-action harp. There is no provision for even an incomplete upper row of fourchettes.
Conceivably the Erards also saw an advantage of strength in transferring to the single the broader neck which was essential to the double; it might have allowed the use of somewhat thicker strings, if desired.
Best wishes, Lewis.
Dear Lewis,
Thanks for the details on this unusual instrument.
The reason I asked is because serial number 1955 falls right in the period when Erard was making a series of student harps, with what could be described as partial double action; that is, single-action except for the D and A pedals, which are double. (I have seen two sich harps and for years I had mistakenly assumed that these were "transitional" instruments; an early stage before the "full" double action.) The London workshops built about 49 such harps between 1813 and 1827. According to an extant sales catalogue from c. 1815-1820, these harps came in three sizes: a small model ‘for young ladies between seven and ten years old’, an intermediate size ‘for young ladies between ten and thirteen years old’ and a large model ‘for young ladies between thirteen and fifteen years old’. The catalogue explains that at fifteen years old it was expected that young ladies can play a full-size harp. The Erard firm allowed families to exchange the above-mentioned child size harps from size to size as required, which is why so many of these harps were kept on hire.
Based on what you have written (and admitting that it is very difficult to say anything without actually having seen the instrument), I would guess that your no. 1955 is another kind of "student harp," of the type described in the aforementioned sales catalogue as: "SINGLE MOVEMENTS: The same shape as the Double Movement/To which instruments the Double Movement can be introduced for £31. 10s." [This model was differentiated from what was referred to as "Former Shape"; i.e., a "normal" single-action instrument that would not be able to have the double-action added to it]
Clearly the Erard firm was going out of their way to make the transition to the double action easier for their customers.
If this is the case, then there would not have been any other no. 1955 in a double-action version. This harp was simply given a "D" [Double] in the ledger because it was the simplest way to describe it.
As an aside, during the Munich conference I was often tempted to make the following comment: the Erard ledgers are so wonderful that we are often tempted to assume that everything is written down. Obviously, these were working documents kept by busy people who were not thinking of how they would be used by musicologists 200 years later! I have often come across key details that are missing from a ledger entry, or extravagantly decorated instruments with no mention whatsoever of any ornaments, etc. In the case of this harp, the "D" was probably added as a convenient quick description, as "S" would have been equally inaccurate.
There is only one other possibility that I can think of for this instrument: that it was a double-action harp that was later transformed into a single-action. This strange operation is documented in at least one London ledger entry from the period in question.
Presumably a physical inspection of the instrument could tell us if it is a single-action that was made in the size and shape of a double "with room to grow" (!) or rather a double-action that was "demoted" to a single-action.
Best,
Robert
Dear Robert,
Thank you. This is most helpful and illuminating. I don't think there are any signs that this particular harp was 'demoted' from double-action to single-action. I will examine it in this light and report any findings.
Best wishes, Lewis.
Erard partial-double-action harps
Dear Robert and all,
I am placing this under this heading not because it pertains directly to a harp numbered 1955 but because it is consecutive upon Robert’s helpful mentioning (4 Feb 2019, above) of Erard’s partial-double-action harps (made between 1813 and 1827), with two strings in each octave group (D and A) served by double action and five by single action.
Referring to the historical documents made available on the website of Clive Morley harps, I note that in what is described there as the 1st loan exhibition ('an unknown exhibition of stringed instruments') to which Joseph George Morley (1847-1921) loaned instruments for exhibition (http://0035926.netsolhost.com/Documents/1stLoanExhibition.pdf), the last item in the list of harps and related instruments, exhibit no. 123, is described as 'Erard’s child's sized PEDAL HARP, speciality, Single action on five notes, double action on D and A' (p. 28). As no measurements are given, it is not possible to tell which of Erard's three sizes this example was, although the description ‘child’s size’ might suggest the small model or the intermediate one.
The published pdf facsimile of the catalogue, which comprises just the section pertaining to harps and kindred instruments, does not include the title page, nor is the full title of the exhibition given. I have been unable to identify this catalogue among those of late nineteenth-century British loan exhibitions. As the 2nd loan exhibition, an excerpt of whose catalogue is also available (http://0035926.netsolhost.com/Documents/2ndLoanExhibition.pdf) was in 1894, it is implied that the first exhibition was earlier. I wonder whether anyone recognises the first catalogue and can provide particulars of date, organisers, and place of exhibition. Having checked a few accessible catalogues, I can confirm that none of the following are the same:
1. Guide to the loan collection and list of Musical Instruments, Manuscripts, etc. [edited by A. J. Hipkins], International Inventions Exhibition of 1885 (London: W. Clowes & Sons, 1885). This exhibition was held in the Lower Rooms of the Royal Albert Hall.
2. Crystal Palace. International Loan Exhibition of Musical Instruments, July to October, 1900. Official catalogue, with introductory article by Rev. F. W. Galpin... (Sydenham: The Crystal Palace Company, 1900).
3. A Special Loan Exhibition of Musical Instruments, Manuscripts, Books, Portraits, and other mementoes of music and musicians, formed to commemorate the tercentenary of the granting ... of a charter ... to the Worshipful Company of Musicians in 1604 ... June-July 1904 [A catalogue] ([London]: Worshipful Company of Musicians, [1904]).
J. G. Morley loaned several instruments for the second and third of these exhibitions. If the date of the ‘1st loan exhibition’ could be ascertained, it might help to trace the partial-double-action harp loaned the Morley ledgers.
One such harp, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, is illustrated in Laure Barthel, Au cœur de la harpe au XVIIIème siècle (n.p.: Garnier-François, 2005), p. 138. Not surprisingly for a small instrument, it has 41 rather than the usual 43 strings; the lowest, which has no fourchette, is GG, so the top note is the normal eb''''. As the open ‘A’ and ‘D’ strings were apparently to be tuned a semitone lower than their normal single-action counterparts (this is implied by their sounding lengths in relation to their neighbours), they have a second, gapped row of fourchettes above the main row, which latter corresponds to that of the normal single-action instrument. The first five fourchettes (giving AA, BB, C#, D#, and E, assuming E flat major tuning) are placed near the lower edge of the neck; then, as in the double-action harp, there is an upward step in the line of fourchettes, corresponding to the same E-F transition from overwound to plain gut strings as in the 43-string harp.
Two features except this design from the principle of modular interchangeability of single- and double-action neck mechanisms found in Erard’s harps from about 1814 onwards: (1) the neck, though just wide enough to accommodate two rows of fourchettes, the nut pins, and tuning pins (the AA, D and A tuning pins are necessarily very close to the upper edge), is significantly narrower than that of the fully double-action harp; and (2) in order to achieve a reasonably consistent angle of side-draught from nut pin (arranged in two rows, separated by the linear equivalent of a semitone) to tuning pin, the pattern of spacing of the tuning pins (in a single row, apart from AA, D and A), though rational, is markedly uneven, in a way which would serve the continuous nut line of either the single or normal double action instrument poorly.
PS. Regarding the tuning and intended use of the 'A' and 'D' strings, with their apparent downward extension by a semitone in relation to the single-action harp (as implied literally by the sounding string lengths), adherence to the common E flat major tuning for the single-action-like scale defined by the C, E, F, G, and B nut pins and the co-linear (i.e. spatially uppermost) fourchettes on the A and D strings would give this open-string tuning: Eb, F, G, Abb, Bb, C, Db. While it would be advantageous to have both Db and D#, to gain Abb in preference to A# would seem to be anomalous, so it seems likely that the open A string would commonly have been tuned to the flat rather than the double flat.
As this kind of instrument, explicitly intended for young players, was effectively an extended form of the single-action harp, lacking the full capacity of the double action, it would be helpful to have the insights of experienced players, familiar with the repertoire and techniques of the second decade of the nineteenth century, as to how the additional notes afforded by the A and D strings might have been used.
Dear Lewis,
Morley lent harps to a London exhibition in 1892. I believe this was held at the Royal Aquarium in Westminster. In a notice published in Musical News, vol. 3 (1892), we read that "Mr. Morley, the well-known collector of South Kensington, is exhibiting an almost complete set of harps of all ages." (p. 199). Unfortunately I cannot find any references to specific instruments, but this description seems to correspond to the list you referenced in your last posting.
Best, Robert
Dear Robert,
Thank you; 1892 and 1894 would make sense of their being '1st' and 2nd' exhibitions. From the four catalogues I have seen, it is clear that Morley varied the instruments shown, presenting, between [1892] and 1904 a remarkable array of kinds of harp. Taking the exhibitions together, the 'almost complete' claim in the Musical News was, allowing for what would have been known and available in Britain at the time, not too great an exaggeration. If these lists might be of interest to others I will prepare a conspectus.
Best wishes, Lewis.
Dear Lewis and Robert,
Please see the below photo taken of the 1892 Morley journal, listing the harps sent to the Royal Aquarium, more or less matching the 1st loan exhibition document on the Morley. website. I'll skim through the 1894 journal when I've a spare hour. With regards to the Erard chid's harp, a journal entry on 7 July 1892 prices them at £30 (around £10-£15 more than a fourchette single-action), Grecians at £40, and Gothics at £65. Incidentally, an actionless child's harp (maker unknown, though probably not Morley at this stage) could be had for £10.
Mike
This from 10 December 1894 - didn't take as long as I though to locate this entry.