On Jan 6, 2010, at 8:38 AM, Laurence Libin wrote: > A number of colleges (such as Oberlin, Moravian, and Vassar) and > universities (Yale, U. Michigan) as well as conservatories have > instrument collections including 19th-century and earlier keyboard > instruments, most often kept for study rather than routine use. I'd > be interested to know which of your schools own one or more > historical instruments--not replicas--and who looks after them. The > list of collections assembled by the American Musical Instrument > Society might be incomplete in this regard. > Thank you, > Laurence Here at San Francisco State we have two. They actually belong to the De Bellis collection at our library museum . 1. Clemente fortepiano ca. 1808, serial #6213. English action, 5 1/2 8vas (F to C), 2 pedals (shift and damper) plus a hand stop (stop block for una or dua cordi positions), tricords throughout scale. It is in playing condition - restored in 1969 by Bjarne (Barney) Dahl, who (according to his notes - which we have here at the piano shop) did the restoration in the most unintrusive manner possible, with an eye to historical authenticity. I don't know that anyone "takes care" of it, but on the rare occasions it had been used in performance (by historical performance professionals only) Barney Dahl or Michael Kimbell had been called in to service it (that ws befopre my time here). It has never been performed on while I have been here - I heard it once, maybe 8 years ago, in performance by local harpsichordist/fortepianist David Cates. Don't remember how it sounded... Imported to US from England in 1957 by an auctioneer, previous history unknown. 2. Square fortepiano by unknown German or Austrian maker. No date (possibly 1750-1785), 5 8vas F to F, action similar to Zumpe's (in other words, really primitive), unrestored. Came from a private collection in Rome. Israel Stein -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100112/c3eed094/attachment.htm>
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