A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Stops (harpsichord)

by Alfred James Hipkins

STOPS (HARPSICHORD). Like the organ, the harpsichord had stops, by which, with double keyboard, contrasts as well as changes could be made. The principle, borrowed from the organ, was the simple movement of each rack of jacks forming a register, so that the quills of the jacks might or might not touch the strings. The earliest notice of stops to a keyed stringed intrument appears in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., April 1530, published by Sir N. Harris Nicholas in 1827 (Rimbault, History of the Pianoforte, 1860, p. 33). The item mentions 'ii payer of Virginalls in one coffer with iiii stoppes.' The term 'Virginals' in England under the Tudors and up to the Commonwealth, had, like 'Clavier' in German, the general signification of any keyed stringed instrument. [See Virginal.] We therefore interpret this quotation as a double harpsichord, in one case, with four stops. If this be so, we must perforce limit Hans Ruckers's invention to the 'ottava,' the octave string [see Ruckers], withdrawing from him the double keyboard and stops. In all unaltered Ruckers harpsichords, we find the registers made as in the old Positive organs,^[1] by the prolongation of the racks as rails or slides, so as to pass through and project beyond the right-hand or treble side of the case. Each rail-end has a short loop of cord to pull it by. Miss Twining's Andries Ruckers of 1640, and Mr. Leyland's Hans Ruckers the younger of 1642, have only this simple arrangement. But subsequently, to be nearer the hands, the registers were shifted by iron crank levers, and manipulated by brass knobs divided into two groups on either side of the nameboard, and immediately above the keys. The older instruments were often altered and modernised by the addition of this contrivance. The two unison stops were placed to the player's right hand, and as the reversed position of the quills when acting upon the strings required, could be brought into play by squeezing the two brass knobs together, or made silent by pushing them apart. The ottava was placed to the player's left hand, with the Lute and Harp stops, which were of later introduction, and require separate description.

The Lute, a timbre or colour stop, doubtless arose from observation of the power which lute-players, like viol- and guitar-players, had of changing the quality of the tone by touching the strings closer to the bridge. Perhaps the earliest reference to an attempt to imitate these instruments on the harpsichord has been found by Count L. F. Valdrighi, of Modena, in a letter in the Este records dated March 3, 1595, by Giacomo Alsise, horn-maker of Padua, who says: 'I have let Messer Alessandro see and hear … one of my quill instruments (da penna), of new invention; that with two unisons (due mani di corde) forms three changes of sound.' The passage is obscure, but if, as is probable, two jacks touched one string in Alsise's instrument, one must touch nearer the bridge than the other, and produce a different quality of sound. This might seem farfetched were not Mr. Leyland's Antwerp harpsichord of 1642 actually so made. Here are four certainly original changes, with three strings, two unisons and an octave, and the different quality is sought for upon the octave string! A few years later, and in England, Thomas Mace ('Musick's Monument,' 1676) speaks of the 'Theorboe' stop, which may have been only another name for the Lute stop. Certainly in England in the next century the use of the Lute stop, with its fascinating oboe quality, was universal,^[2] and it was frequently added to old harpsichords.

The second fancy stop, the 'Harp,' was contrived to push small pieces of firm leather against the second unison.^[3] We have unquestionable authority for this in a double harpsichord of Shudi's, of 1771, that has never been disturbed. From the material being leather, this is often called the 'buff' stop, and a single harpsichord, now at Torquay, inscribed 'Longman & Broderip,' but bearing inside the real maker's name, 'Culliford,' and date 1775, which has all the stops named, has this one marked 'Silent.' The earliest mention of the Harp stop (as 'Welch harp') is in a patent taken out by Roger Plenius in 1745. The combination of the Lute stop by the first unison on the upper keyboard, and the second unison, which could be muted by the Harp stop on the lower, was effected by a pedal for the left foot. But to allow this pedal to be used, a stop placed inside the case, at the bass end of the keyboards, away from the other stops, had to be pushed back. Culliford's harpsichord gives the name for this pedal stop, the 'Machine,' derived from the ironwork of the pedal movement placed outside the case, and usually concealed by a box covering. The alternation of Lute and Harp with the normal registers of the upper and lower keyboards, is the most pleasing colour effect of the harpsichord. In Kirkman's harpsichord we find the Lute muted, without knowing for certain if this was the original plan. This muting has the high authority of Mr. Carl Engel, who transferred Messrs. Kirkman's description of the stops from the Catalogue of the Special Exhibition at South Kensington, 1872, to his admirable General Catalogue of Musical instruments in the Museum, 1874, p. 352.

The right-foot pedal is for the Swell. [See Swell (Harpsichord).] Mace attributes the invention of the harpsichord pedal to John Hayward, a 'harpsichon' maker. Kirkman and Shudi did not place their fancy stops alike. Kirkman's arrangement (and Cuiliford's), proceeding from the bass, was Harp, Lute, Octave; Shudi's was Lute, Octave, Harp. In all, the Lute, Octave, and first Unison move to the right; the Harp and second Unison to the left. Shudi marked this on Frederick the Great's harpsichords, still preserved at Potsdam, with arrows and the English words 'ring' and 'dumb'; the Machine stop, 'open,' 'shut.' The Germans do not appear at that time to have cared for the varieties in the harpsichord given by stops. C. P. E. Bach makes no remarks in his 'Versuch' about them. He merely says (1753, p. 131) that on a Flügel with more than one keyboard the player has the forte and piano; that is to say, the lower and upper keyboards make those changes.^[4]

[ A. J. H. ]

1. See the organ depicted in 'Music,' attributed to Melozzo Da Forli (1438–1494), in the National Gallery, London.
2. Queen Charlotte's Shudi harpsichord at Windsor Castle has an original Lute stop, and the date is 1740. This instrument, long at Kew Palace, was probably made for Frederick, Prince of Wales, George the Third's father.
3. Shudi put a spring on the 2nd unison slide, so that it could not be pushed off without moving a rail outside the case, next the 'Machine.'
4. In the posthumous 2nd edition, 1797, he recommends Hohlfeld's pedal, which appears to have been a sostenente, for a dynamic change.