Books › The Belle Skinner collection of old musical instruments, Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1933 › scan 86
Scan 86
The Belle Skinner collection of old musical instruments, Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1933
22 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. Printed page 68. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1No. 23
3HARPSICHORD
5LONGMAN AND BRODERIP
7ENGLISH
8ABOUT 1785
10Longman and Broderip were well-known publishers in London during the latter half of the eighteenth century. They were also makers in great quantity of spinets, harpsichords and other smaller instruments of various kinds. (Grove). The harpsichord in this collection is an unusually fine specimen of their art, resembling in several of its details the famous Shudi and Broadwood harpsichord, made in 1773 for the Empress Maria Theresa and now in the Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal in Brussels. See James (Plate LII) and also Hipkins (Plate XXXV).
12This harpsichord is nearly eight feet long. It is in a mahogany case bordered with rose-wood and fine lines of maple. The panels facing the keyboard are inlaid with graceful floral sprays in monochrome. The name-board, more elaborately inlaid, has in the center above the upper manual a porcelain oval with the inscription:
14LONGMAN & BRODERIP
15MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MAKERS
16No. 26 CHEAPSIDE & No. 13 HAYMARKET
17LONDON
19The double keyboard has white naturals and ebony sharps. There are six stops: at the right are Blank 1st Unison 2nd Unison; at the left the Octave Lute Harp. There are three sets of strings and four rows of jacks. There are two pedals. The left pedal brings into action different sets of jacks, producing a variety of tonal effects; the right pedal operates the Venetian blind or Shudi swell. On the wrest-plank is the number 721. The harpsichord rests upon a plain mahogany stand. In the book by Philip James, Plate LX pictures a square piano, profusely decorated, made by Longman and Broderip.
21Burkhardt Tschudi or Shudi, the friend of Handel, was born in Switzerland in 1702. Later he settled in London and became a celebrated maker of harpsichords. In
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