The Schureck Collection

Similar to Clinkscale I.p:285.1
Restored by David Hunt, Willingham, Cambs. UK

Description

Nameboard: “Matteus et Gulielmus Stodart Londini Fecerunt 1793/Wardour Sreet Soho”
Number: none found
Keyboard: single unreversed manual
Keyboard materials: ebony sharps, ivory naturals
Compass: 5 octaves FF-f3 : 61 notes
Pitch: A415Hz
Tuning: Equal tempered
Action: English grand action
Hammer coverings: Leather
Bridge: Single, ?beech

Strings: Trichord throughout

•  FF-G# (16 notes brass)
• A-f3 (45 notes iron)

Dampers: Cloth overdampers
Frame: Timber with three metal cores to rear edge of wrestplank
Pedals (on front legs of stand): L: una corda, R: damper lift mahogany with boxwood stringing
Case: Sheraton style cross-banded
Case lid: mahogany
Keyboard lid: hinged, attached to case lid
Fallboard: detachable (missing)
Music desk: ratchetted mahogany
Legs: Four squared legs with casters on detachable stand
Dimensions(mm): 2220l x 946w x 280h (ex lid)
Repertoire: J.C.Bach, Haydn (English works), Dussek
Provenance: purchased from Donald Adcock, Norwich

Commentary

While apprenticed to Shudi’s workshop (see 5 above), Robert Stodart (1748-1796) assisted Americus Backers (? – 1778) and John Braodwood (1732-1812) in developing Cristofori’s (1655-1731) second (1726) action into the so-called English grand action, the basis of all grand piano actions up the present, except the, also so-called Viennese action, invented by Johann Andreas Stein (1728-1792) a Silbermann pupil in Augsburg around the same time.
The English grand action was first used by Backers’own five octave FF-f3 grands of which only one survives (1772 in the Russell Collection, Edinburgh), a similar one in Fenton House, London, now being considered a ????.
The Backers model was copied almost exactly by Broadwood (a783, earliest surviving 1787) and Stodart (earliest surviving 1784) after opening their own workshops respectively, 1771 and 1775, and 64 Jacob (1710-1792) and his nephew Abraham 91737-1791) Kirckman (earliest surviving 1789).
The ???iest significant departure from the Backers model was to increase the compass by a half-octave to c4 (Broadwood 1793, Stodart 1795, Kirckman 1788).
In 1793, Stodart handed over control to his nephews William (born 1762) and Matthew (born 1758), his own son, also Robert (1770-1792) having recently died, from which point until 1807 (see below) the nameboards carry their names (and from 1795, address as Golden Sqaure), and exclude Roberts. Only the earliest surviving two of these (the present one of 1793 and another of 1794) have the “old” FF-f3 comnpass, strongly suggesting that either Robert may have continued to work until his early death at age 48, or that these instruments were already completed at the old address by the handover ??? ??? with the nephew’s names to represent them as more “modern”than they really were.