square tangent piano

Classification: 3 Chordophones / 31 Simple chordophones or zithers / 314 Board zithers / 314.1 True board zithers / 314.12 With resonator / 314.122 With resonator box (box zither) / 314.122-4-8 True board zithers with resonator box (box zither) sounded by hammers or beaters, with keyboard

Piano maker: Ignacy Skurski

Date: 1774

Village / Town: Sandomierz

Country: Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth / present-day Poland

Owner: Diocesan Museum in Sandomierz. From a former Benedictine nunnery in Sandomierz

Inventory number: MDS-1334

Description: casing made of hardwood without veneer. Natural keys stained black with fronts decorated in semicircular ornaments; sharps covered with animal bone. Straight-, single-, double strung with a right hitch pin block. Brass bass strings with open spun. Tangent action (hammers-tangents in a slide, with endings alternately bare and covered with leather, thrown upwards by the key levers’ ends) with intermediate levers

Measurements: height 172 (734), width 1260, depth 475 mm

Materials: wood, metal, animal bone

Keyboard compass, stops: C-f⁴ – 4½ octaves, 2 hand stops – lute and harpsichord

Catalog card by: Benjamin Vogel

Bibliography: B. Vogel, Fortepian polski. Budownictwo fortepianów na ziemiach polskich od poł. XVIII w. do II wojny światowej, (Warszawa, 1995), p. 140; - Fortepiany tangentowe w Polsce, Muzyka Fortepianowa VII, Akademia Muzyczna, (Gdańsk, 1987), pp. 291-302; - Two Tangent Square Pianos in Poland, “Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society”, (1994), no. XX, pp. 84-89; - „Szpinet ze strunami i klawiszami”. Najstarszy zachowany fortepian polski. Zeszyty Sandomierskie, (2015), no. 39, red. K. Burek, pp. 31-36

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