German Double-Manual Harpsichord After Vater

The most intriguingly complex examples of 18th-century German harpsichord building come from the north, particularly Hamburg, where builders like the Hass family experimented with 16' stops and instruments with three keyboards; but those large, complicated machines are really exceptional within the mainstream of European harpsichord building. The one surviving harpsichord by Christian Vater of Hannover, a small single manual instrument, dated 1738 and now housed in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, is a much more modest, conventional and therefore more generally useful instrument. Our double manual version is expanded in range and disposition to include a full 2 x 8', 1 x 4' registers on two keyboards with 56 notes (GG-d'''), thereby equipping it to play almost the entire harpsichord literature.

Like French harpsichords, German instruments were also influenced by Flemish models. But unlike the French, who gave up their thin-case 17th-century designs for the heavier-case Flemish models, the Germans retained the lighter construction, and their graceful, double-curved bent sides as well. Hence, the Vater has a certain slender elegance denied to the heavier Flemish and French instruments. With its fairly wide compass and all-brass stringing, its somewhat dry but powerful sound is particularly appropriate for clearly delineating the complex counterpoint of J. S. Bach. The harpsichord is transposable to three different pitch levels: A=390, 415 & 440.