WILLIAMSBURG — A new spinet-style harpsichord has been added to the Colonial Williamsburg musical instrument collection, but there is a twist: It’s for sale.
Master harpsichord maker Edward Wright and journeyman Melanie Belongia, both tradespeople who work in Colonial Williamsburg’s cabinetmakers shop, have fashioned a handmade reproduction of a 1764 harpsichord made in London by craftsman William Harris.
“The original instrument was in our collection and we decided we would focus on studying the instrument and reproducing it,” Wright said. “We could research the harpsichord by reproducing it. Our research also included the history of the maker and his family, which included a number of harpsichord makers.”
Master harpsichord maker Edward Wright talks with guests in Colonial Williamsburg’s cabinetmakers shop. Brian Newson/The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
It took about 700 labor hours to build during a two-year span. Now completed, but not needed in the Historic Area, it’s for sale for $21,000.
Working in Colonial Williamsburg’s reconstructed Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop, Wright and Belongia fashioned the frame of the instrument out of white oak and yellow pine with a walnut and maple veneer. They also combined on the mechanics of the instrument.
In a video about the piece, Belongia suggests that the duo may be the only ones “practicing this trade in the 18th century method.”
“The oak was from stock in the shop for about a year,” Wright said, “while the black walnut came from trees on the Colonial Williamsburg property that had been brought down by Hurricane Irene” in August 2011.
For the keyboard, the duo used maple boarding with keys decorated with white pine levers plated with bone on the naturals and black stained pearwood for the accidentals. “Hand tools finished it off extremely well with a nice surface. The pearwood took the black stain very, very well,” he added.
The inscription of a reproduction of an 18th century spinet indicates that it was made by Colonial Williamsburg master harpsichord maker Edward Wright and journeyman Melanie Belongia. Bill Pavlak/The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Belongia did all the inlaid decorations on the piece and the inked inscription.
The Colonial Williamsburg team didn’t do any scientific analysis on the wood of the original spinet made about 260 years ago. For example, the actual walnut species used in the veneer is not known. And while ivory was used in the original key caps, ivory cannot be used now on any keyboard because of worldwide restrictions.
On the original instrument, above the keyboard in Latin is written “William Harris Fecit London 1764.” On the new instrument in the same place is the wording: “Wright & Belongia Fecit Williamsburg, Virginia 2024.”
Because of the history involved and what they have learned about the original spinet, Wright wrote a paper on the project that has been sent to a journal based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has not yet been accepted for publication but is going through a peer review.
The frame of the reconstructed spinet is made out of white oak and yellow pine with a walnut and maple veneer. Bill Pavlak/The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Possibly the most interesting element of the instrument is its “very mellow, powerful tone,” Wright said. “It was a bit surprising, and very, very pleasing.”
Last year, when the Historical Keyboard Society of North America held its annual conference, the reproduction spinet was among the musical instruments demonstrated. “All the players were completely surprised by its tone. They very much wanted to find out how technically we had worked to provide the sound quality,” Wright said proudly.
It was the bright mellow tone of Harris’ original instrument that, in part, was the reason for constructing the reproduction “in hopes of producing the similar tone,” Wright said.
In their research regarding William Harris, who lived in the 1700s, Wright and Belongia discovered that Harris and his brother, Baker, also a harpsichord maker, had learned the trade from their father, Joseph. Of the surviving William Harris harpsichords, what makes them important is that mellow tone.
Thus far, in his 40-year career with Colonial Williamsburg, Wright has built 15 or 16 new harpsichords.
“These instruments are very distinctive and have a very honored history,” he said. “It’s worth studying them closely, who made them and who used them. All of that is important in getting a clearer picture of these musical instruments.”
The 1764 spinet was a “very, very typical (basic) instrument of the time,” Wright said. There were very subtle elements in each instrument. The harpsichord operates with quills that pluck a string, while with a piano, the felted hammer strikes the spring.
Invented in the late Middle Ages, the harpsichord, by the 1600s, was a heavy instrument with the lighter weighed spinet being developed about 1630. There was a piano at the time, “but it was nothing like the piano we know now,” Wright said.
The reason harpsichord making is one of the trades at Colonial Williamsburg “is because we have local history regarding this practice,” Wright explained. After Benjamin Bucktrout took over Anthony Hays’ cabinet shop in the mid-1760s and in addition to cabinetmaking, he “offered Spinets and Harpsichords made and repaired” in an advertisement in the Jan. 15, 1767, edition of The Virginia Gazette.
The finished spinet, a reproduction of a 1764 harpsichord made in London by craftsman William Harris. The frame of the reconstructed spinet is made out of white oak and yellow pine with a walnut and maple veneer. Bill Pavlak/The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Since the spinet was offered up for sale earlier this month, there’s been some interest, but no one has pursued it, Wright said. “We’re asking $21,000 (plus tax) based upon our labor and the cost of materials,” he said. “You need the right people at the right time.”
Anyone interested in purchasing the instrument can contact Colonial Williamsburg.
Learn more about harpsichord making in Colonial Williamsburg at youtube.com/watch?v=ZjQ93MHl-eA. Listen to Ed Wright playing the reproduction spinet at facebook.com/share/v/1CZf2rZH3c.
Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com
