Preliminaries

Acknowledgements

Catalogue

Indices

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RCM 490
Grand Piano: Jacob Bertsche, Vienna, 1821

For audio examples of this instrument click here.

1 Inscriptions
2 Brief description
3 Case
4a Keyboard
4b Action
5 Stringing and scalings
6 Decoration
7 History of earlier states and restorations
8 Commentary
9 Provenance
10 References

On ceramic plaque within rectangular ormolu frame in centre of keywell: ‘Jacob Bertsche \ Bürger \ in Wien.’; pencil on underside of soundboard: ‘Ververdigt bey H Jackob Bertsche Bürger in Wien. \ im Jahr der Weld i82i den 4ten Apprill. als der \ Krieg sich gentigt had Zwicken Oestreich und Neapel. \ Anton Weiss aus Mainz.’ (‘Prepared at [the workshop of] H Jacob Bertsche citizen of Vienna in the year of the world 1821 the 4^th April when the war between Austria and Naples ended. Anton Weiss of Mainz’)

2 Brief description

A 6-octave grand piano with Viennese action in a walnut case.

3 Case

Height: c. 300
Spine: coniferous veneered with walnut, c. 2304 long (front edges rounded), c. 18 thick
Cheek: coniferous veneered with walnut, c. 685 long (both ends rounded), c. 17.5 thick
Bentside: coniferous veneered with walnut, c. 15.5 thick at case top, 7.5 thick at baseboard
Tail: coniferous veneered with walnut, 349 long, c. 19.5 thick
Case width: 1218 outside, 1183 inside
Nameboard: maple veneered with walnut, integral with wrestplank
Baseboard: coniferous, 47 thick
Wrestplank: maple
Soundboard: probably spruce; bridge: maple, back-pinned throughout, 2 sections: F₁ to E, F to f⁴; F to f⁴ section laminated to curve; nut: maple; hitchpin rail: maple; soundboard moulding: (along spine and cheek) pine
Lid and lockboard: veneered in walnut, c. 18 thick with axle-hinged lid stick (lockboard not original)
Music desk: walnut, not original
Stand: 3 turned columnar legs, screwed into blocks on the underside of the baseboard, front 2 legs joined together with curved lower stretcher; height from floor to upper surface of naturals: 715
Ironware: flap hinges (2 main lid)
Brassware: butt hinges (4 on wrestplank flap, 4 on keyboard flap, 3 on lockboard flap); lock at centre of lower edge of lockboard; lid hooks: 1 at tail end of bentside, 1 at cheek end of bentside; 5 pedals

4a Keyboard

Compass: F₁ to f⁴, 73 notes
Keywell span: 1040; distance between keyblocks: 991
Keyboard width at natural fronts: 985; average 3-octave span: 482
Naturals: bone covers in 2 pieces; head length: 40; natural fronts: bone plates
Sharp blocks: stained fruit-wood capped with ebony; 99.3 visible in front of batten beneath nameboard

4b Action

Action model for c² (Christopher Nobbs, London, 1999, RCM 516)

Viennese grand piano action. The hammer head and shank are carried on the keylever and pivoted in the Kapsel, a brass fork mounted on a threaded brass stem. The hammer head points towards the player and the distal end protrudes beyond the Kapsel forming a beak capped with a small pad of leather. When the end of the keylever rises the beak is caught under the notch of a sprung escapement lever, or Auslöser, which is hinged onto the back of the keyframe. This arrest propels the hammer towards the string and the geometry of the components is so adjusted that the beak escapes from the Auslöser when the hammer is c. 3mm from the string. On release the leather of the beak slides down the vertical face of the Auslöser which yields until it can re-latch over the beak, when the action is ready to play again.

Checks formed of vertical leather-covered wooden pads and mounted on adjusting wires are fixed into a transverse rail spanning the keyframe just behind the hammers. The keylever’s arc of movement brings the hammer head a little closer to the player in rising, so that while the key is still depressed the falling hammer is captured by a check and prevented from rebounding.

The dampers are carried and guided in a register which spans the action above the string band. When raised by the sustaining pedal, it lifts all the dampers together. Each damper is a thin slip of wood which carries the leather damper pad (in the treble) or wedge (in the bass) mounted on its side. An extension of the damper reaches down between the strings to where it contacts a lifter rod on the keylever. The whole action is raised on a removable ‘sled’ (Klaviaturschlitten).

There are five pedals, from left to right: 1: keyboard shift (Verschiebung: due corde); 2: bassoon (Fagottzug) for the notes F₁ to e¹; 3: dampers (Dämpfung); 4: moderator (Pianozug: piano); 5: moderator (Pianozug: pianissimo). The bassoon stop (a replacement) lowers a paper cylinder onto the strings, giving a rasping sound. The moderator pedal inserts tongues of cloth between the hammers and the strings, one layer for pedal 4 and two for pedal 5.

5 Stringing and Scalings

Triple-strung throughout: no original strings; the split bridge indicates a change of material between E and F: F₁ to E (brass strings), F to f⁴ (iron strings).

String scalings

Gauge numbers: none

6 Decoration

The instrument is veneered in walnut with the grain running vertically on the sides and transversely on the lid. The front corners and the bentside/cheek corner are rounded. An ebonised lyre ornament is mounted on the yoke which carries the pedals and links the two front legs. The three legs are simplified Tuscan doric columns.

7 History of earlier states and restorations

Restored in the 1980s by Tim Hamilton. The lockboard, front keybed batten, music desk and moderator cloth are replacements and the original checkrail has been replaced with individual checks at some time. There are signs of an early repair in the baseboard at the tail.

8 Commentary

An excellent and representative example of the Viennese grand piano of the first quarter of the 19^th century. The concept of this form of instrument and its action had been arrived at in the late 1780s and the early 1790s, particularly in the work of Walter, and the changes we see in the Bertsche and its contemporaries are mainly increases in scale, weight and compass. The instrument is built on the baseboard following a structural tradition reaching back to the ‘Italian’ and other early, non-Flemish, schools of harpsichord building. A thick inner rim formed of bentside, spine, belly rail and tail, as well as diagonal and lengthways braces, is glued and pegged to the very substantial baseboard. In addition one iron brace is fixed between the centre of the wrestplank and the belly rail. A gap has to be introduced into the action to accommodate this brace and its presence is disguised with a dummy string course and damper. The thickness of the bentside proper can be gauged by the width of the hitchpin rail; the much thinner visible casework has very little structural importance. In this instrument, and in most other Viennese pianos by this date, the soundboard is inserted late in the construction process and does not go under the hitchpin rail. The joint where the soundboard butts against the rail is hidden under a narrow cloth-covered fillet.

All of the plain but handsome Biedermeier case is veneered on a coniferous core, in contrast to the use of costly solid mahogany as seen on the Broadwood, RCM 338. The veneer is walnut originally stained with a fugitive red dye, which can still be seen where areas have been protected from light. This was a common finish perhaps intended to evoke mahogany.

Jacob Bertsche (Pertsche or Bärtsche) made organs as well as pianos and is recorded at various addresses in Vienna from 1801 to 1834; although little is known of him, this instrument shows him to have been a good if conservative maker. Three other pianos by him are known to survive.

9 Provenance

Acquired with the assistance of the Pilgrim Trust, the National Art Collections Fund, the Rachael Anderson Settlement, the Coral Samuel Charitable Trust, the John S Cohen Foundation, the Stanley Smith General Charitable Fund, the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, the Sevenhampton Trust and Sir Patrick McCall, 1991. Formerly in the possession of Alec Cobbe, who acquired it from a piano workshop in the Mariahilfestrasse, Vienna, then Ian Pleeth, and then Alec Cobbe again.

10 References

Elizabeth Wells, ‘A Viennese Grand Piano’, Royal College of Music Magazine, XXXIX, No.2 (1992), pp.31–33 & ill.

Elizabeth Wells, ‘Jacob Bertsche (fl. 1801–34), Viennese Grand Piano’,  National Art Collections Fund, Annual Review, p.100 & ill.

Fanny Waterman, Every Pianist’s Dictionary (London: Faber Music, 1993), p.33 & ill.

Edward Kottick & George Lucktenberg, Early Keyboard Instruments in European Museums (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), p.236