Paris – 42 rue de Varenne – 75007 Paris Tel +33

A Unique and Highly Important Neapolitan double-manual Cembalo-Tiorbino (Theorbo-Harpsichord)
attributed to Gasparre Sabbatino
Naples, Circa 1710
Exhibited: Ritorno al Barocco, da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, Naples, Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, 12
December 2009 - 11 April 2010, illustrated exhib. cat. vol.II, p.14-15.
Compass: GG without GG# to f3.
Disposition: 2 x 8 foot brass-strung stops on the lower manual, the back 8 foot with buff-stop slider; 1 x 8 foot gutstrung tiorbino stop on the upper manual, the registers and slider operated by brass hand-stops set into a panel
above the key-blocks.
Pitch: A 440.
Dimensions:
Total Height: 3 ft. 5 in. (104 cm)
Total Length: 8 ft. 10 in. (270 cm)
Total Width: 3 ft. 6 in. (107 cm)
Height with lid open: 6 ft. 3 in. (190.5 cm)
The instrument:
Paris – 42
rue de
– 75007
Paris 3Tel
42(96
22 cm)
18 87
Fax9+33
1 45
49 31 15
Length
8 ft.Varenne
4 ½ in. (255
cm) Width:
ft. 1+33
¾ in.
Height
in. (23
cm)
London – 23 Berkeley Square – London W1J6HE Tel +44 20 7629 0905 Fax +44 20 7495 4511
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This remarkable theorbo-harpsichord (the most appropriate English expression for a combined cembalo and
tiorbino) is currently the only known example of an important class of keyboard instrument to have survived with its
original disposition essentially intact. Indeed, the principal literature in English on the subject is an article entitled
'The Tiorbino: An Unrecognised Instrument Type Built By Harpsichord Makers With Possible Evidence For A
Surviving Instrument' (published on the Claviantica website www.clavantica.com of Grant O’Brien, incorporating a
translation of an article by Francesco Nocerino entitled 'Il tiorbino fra Napoli e Roma: notizie e documenti su uno
strumento di produzione cembalaria', originally published in Recercare, Fondazione Italiana per la Musica Antica
della Società Italiana del Flauto Dolce, Vol. VII, Rome 2000).
Written prior to the discovery and restoration of the present instrument, the surviving instrument referred to is a small
spinet in the Teatro della Scala Museum in Milan (Catalogue Nº MTS-TP/04). However, the same article refers to
extensive archive material indicating the production in Italy, particularly in Rome and Naples of theorboharpsichords, whose description in contemporary documents leaves no room for doubt that at least some were of
exactly the same type as the present instrument with three courses of strings, two of metal and one of gut.
The present harpsichord is of an extremely unusual disposition for an Italian instrument in that it has a double rather
than a single keyboard. Furthermore the specially constructed high nut and bridge for a third set of strings at 8-foot
pitch is clearly intended for a special purpose. In examining and analysing the instrument with a view to restoration
to playing condition, the restorer, Olivier Fadini, observed indentation marks on the upper nut which clearly
indicated that the instrument had once been strung with gut rather than metal on the upper bridge played from the
upper manual.
In the absence of a clear signature, it has been possible to attribute the instrument to Gasparre Sabbatino with
unusual security by direct comparison with the single-manual harpsichord by Gasparre signed and dated 1712 in
the Beurmann Collection at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. The very distinctive wide-grained nonaromatic cedar of the soundboard placed at an angle of approximately 4 degrees to the spine, the construction and
cut of the registers, and the double moulding on the jackrail are in all cases identical, to the extent that it cannot be
merely a case of common generic Neapolitan features. Indeed, case mouldings show evidence of being made by
the same moulding plane. The apparent signature on the wrestplank of the present instrument has been almost
entirely effaced but is in exactly the same position as that on the Hamburg instrument.
Significantly, the earliest reference, discovered by Nocerino, to a harpsichord with two courses of metal strings and
a gut tiorbino stop is an entry in the Medici inventory referring to a theorbo-harpsichord made by Girolamo Zenti in
1653 during his stay at the court of Queen Christina in Stockholm. Zenti’s nephew Antonio Sabbatino was
apprenticed to him from 1646 to 1648 and a purchase contract for a tiorbino dated 26th June 1676 between
‘Antonio Sabbatino Cimbalaro’ (harpsichord-maker) and don Flaminio d’Angelo survives in the Archivio Storico
della Banca di Napoli. A further document in the same archive dated 1733 refers to the purchase of two tiorbini
from Antonio’s son, Gasparre, on behalf of the Duchessa di Calvizzano. It is reasonable to suppose that as
members of a family of harpsichord-builders they continued the practice of making combined harpsichords and
tiorbini established by Antonio’s uncle.
The present double-manual instrument is an elaboration of the basic single-manual instrument. The second manual
allows for simultaneous combinations of registration and, especially with the hand-stops, which are almost certainly
a later, mid-18th century addition, allows for rapid changes of registration during pieces. In particular, the second
manual allows the theorbo stop to be used as an accompaniment to the main registers and even in combination
with the buff stop. This is of considerable musical utility, as the true theorbo was used to accompany singers and as
a continuo instrument in orchestras of the period.
The rediscovery
thisrue
fascinating
instrument
and,
now that
it is so
restored,
of its1 particular
Paris of
– 42
de Varenne
– 75007
Paris
Tel +33
42skilfully
22 18 87
Fax +33
45 49 31 tonal
15 qualities,
addsLondon
a new dimension
to
our
understanding
of
keyboard
instruments
and
musical
colouring
in
the
late
baroque
– 23 Berkeley Square – London W1J6HE Tel +44 20 7629 0905 Fax +44 20 7495 4511
Email antiques@pelhamgalleries.com
period in Italy. The celebrated Galleria Harmonica of Michele Todini in Rome with its mechanised combination of
keyboard instruments including an organ and a tiorbino is but an extreme example of the search for complex
combinations of sonority in Italian late baroque keyboard instruments (Patrizio Barbieri, ‘Michele Todini’s Galleria
Armonica: its hitherto unknown story, since 1650,’ Early Music (30.4) 2002, p.265-583). It is clear that the present
instrument, although unusually elaborate, was by no means a unique production, but followed of a tradition,
established at least as early as the middle of the 17th century, of providing metal strung harpsichords with gut
registers to expand the tonal range. No doubt careful examination of other Italian harpsichords of the period will
reveal a similar arrangement, subsequently suppressed. It is probable that in the few surviving instruments with
three eight-foot stops, at least one register was intended for gut strings.
A clue to the poor survival rate of such instruments with their original disposition intact is offered by more than one
document discovered by Nocerino in the Neapolitan archives. In the 1676 purchase contract between Flaminio
d’Angelo and Antonio Sabbatino referred to above, d’Angelo makes it a condition of purchase that the maker be
permanently on call at a rate of ten carlinos per year to tune and maintain the instrument. In another purchase
contract of 1687 between Cavaliere don Stefano and a harpsichord-builder Salvatore Sanchez, the purchaser
imposes the condition that the harpsichord builder be obliged to repair or even replace at his own expense a new
tiorbino if it did not maintain its tuning within a period of twenty days. A theorbo has fourteen gut strings to tune. The
harpsichord-tiorbino has at least fifty (in the present instrument 58). Naples was a renowned centre for the
manufacture of gut strings in the seventeenth and 18th centuries, but whatever the quality of the material and
manufacture, it is in the nature of gut strings to be very sensitive to changes of humidity and to be more easily
breakable than metal strings.
An experiment with the present instrument during the restoration offers telling evidence of the problem. Strings
made of goat-gut in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco are perhaps the closest modern equivalent to the strings made
in Naples in the early 18th century. A set of such strings of various appropriate diameters was acquired with
considerable difficulty and only after a wait of several months. The harpsichord was first strung entirely with this
material, but the strings proved very difficult to tune and those in the treble snapped with alarming regularity. They
have now been replaced, except for the heavier strings in the base, with sheep-gut strings of French manufacture of
the type used by orchestral musicians playing on authentic early stringed instruments. This has proved very much
more reliable, but while the metal strings are easily tuned and have maintained their pitch with remarkable stability,
the gut strings are more difficult to tune and are liable to change their pitch with variations in temperature and
humidity. It is probably this factor above all that resulted in the tiorbino-harpsichord dying out as a genre, probably
before the middle of the 18th century, and for the fact that no original German equivalent from the same period
(known as a Lautenwerk) has survived. It is probable that many instruments of the present type were re-strung in
metal later in the century or had their gut registers suppressed. Re-stringing the gut register in metal would in most
cases have resulted in excessive strain on the soundboards thus hastening the redundancy and destruction of such
instruments.
The explanation for the preponderance of such instruments in southern Italy may be sought beyond the importance
of Naples and Rome as centres for the manufacture of gut strings. Harpsichords of this type were commissioned by
great aristocratic families, many of which presented operas in the great salone of their palaces. Zenti, for example,
worked for several members of the Barberini family in Rome who were by far the most important patrons of opera in
the city. They were used rather less frequently as solo instruments than as continuo harpsichords in the elaborate
operatic productions and chamber-concerts, which often took place on several nights of the week in such palaces.
At the period in which this harpsichord was made, there was, particularly in Naples, what can only be described as
a mania for pastoral operas; indeed, the mania spread all over Europe and was much mocked by Steele in the
Tatler in 1710 and Addison in the Spectator in 1711 (Tim Neufeldt, ‘Italian Pastoral Opera and Pastoral Politics in
England, 1705-1712,’
Discourses in Music, Volume 5, Number 2 (Fall 2004); www.discourses.ca).
It is no coincidence that the principle symbolic element in the decoration of this instrument is the head of Pan, both
Paris – 42 rue de Varenne – 75007 Paris Tel +33 42 22 18 87 Fax +33 1 45 49 31 15
in carved boxwood (with glass eyes) on the instrument itself and in gilt-wood on the outside of the case. Pan was
London
– 23 Berkeley
Square
London
W1J6HE
+44 20
0905 is Fax
+44 20 theme
7495 4511
the god of shepherds
and rustic
music.–The
pastoral
and its Tel
contrast
with7629
the urban
a recurrent
in all Italian
Email antiques@pelhamgalleries.com
art and particularly in opera. The tiorbino stop, plucked close to the nut, has the particularly nasal quality associated
with rustic instruments such as the hurdy-gurdy or musette. The ‘rustic’ quality of the tiorbino stop, so much in
contrast with the golden ‘Apollonian’ sound of the metal strings, undoubtedly accounts for the presence of this
mischievous satyr on the case.
The harpsichord is of ‘true inner-outer’ construction. The decorative elements inside the outer case above the keyblocks are removable, thus allowing the instrument itself to be removed from the case. Although the harpsichord
itself is moulded, the unsophisticated surface on the parts concealed from view by the case would not suggest that it
was ever intended to be removed during performance.
Like most instruments of its period, it has undergone a number of restorations in its history. All the essentials of the
instrument are original: the walls, the base, the nuts, bridges, keyboards, registers and the vast majority of the jacks.
The soundboard is also original, with only a narrow strip of previously damaged material replaced near the spine in
the recent restoration by Fadini. The only significant amendment to the specification appears to date from the mid
18th century when hand-stops were introduced above the upper key block for convenient changes of registration.
This is an elegant arrangement with well-made levers and handsome shaped back-plates.
There is no reason to suspect that the keyboard is not original to the instrument as made in the early 18th century,
although on the almost identical keyboard (single-manual) of an anonymous instrument in the Historisches Museum
in Hamburg (also most probably by Sabbatini) the lower key is dated 1754. However, it is clear from the style of the
outer case and the close similarity to the 1712 harpsichord by Gasparre that the present instrument was made at
least thirty to forty years earlier.
A more recent anonymous restoration, probably carried out in the last fifty years, involved the opening of the bottom
to introduce various crude reinforcements; these have been removed during the recent restoration by Fadini.
The outside of the outer case and stand has its original colour and gilding with minimal restoration. The internal
frame of the stand had been crudely reinforced, apparently by the same restorer who had opened the baseboard of
the instrument. The recent restoration by Italian specialists involved careful cleaning of all the surfaces to preserve
original glazes and gilding, the removal of the previous inappropriate reinforcements and the reconstruction of the
internal frame and accompanying moulding. Prior to the recent restoration, the main part of the lid was decorated
with a fête champêtre in the crudest Watteauesque taste dating from about 1900 and lamentably painted in oil
directly onto the underlying wood. If there had been a pictorial decoration previously, careful examination indicated
that it had been entirely effaced. There was no trace whatsoever of an oil or gouache painting below. The front part
of the lid had a much degraded mid-18th century commedia dell’arte scene of very poor quality. In the interest of
harmonising the overall decoration of the instrument with the minimum of intervention, these distracting non-original
elements were first isolated with a thin lining of fine canvas and then a neutral and idiomatic scheme was introduced
in painted gesso with gilded incised ornament of a type frequently found in south Italian instruments of the period,
the ornamental border copied precisely from the incised gesso decoration of Neapolitan doors of the first quarter of
the 18th century. This is completely reversible, and we consider that the present harmonious appearance of the
harpsichord entirely justifies this approach. A full report and analysis of the harpsichord and case restorations will
be produced in due course.
After the present conservation programme, the harpsichord can be considered one of the best-preserved and most
interesting Italian harpsichords of the late baroque period, and its fine playing condition casts new light on early 18th
century Italian performance practice.
Alan Rubin
Paris – 42 rue de Varenne – 75007 Paris Tel +33 42 22 18 87 Fax +33 1 45 49 31 15
London – 23 Berkeley Square – London W1J6HE Tel +44 20 7629 0905 Fax +44 20 7495 4511
Email antiques@pelhamgalleries.com
.
Paris – 42 rue de Varenne – 75007 Paris Tel +33 42 22 18 87 Fax +33 1 45 49 31 15
London – 23 Berkeley Square – London W1J6HE Tel +44 20 7629 0905 Fax +44 20 7495 4511
Email antiques@pelhamgalleries.com

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