Pedal Harp

Pedal Harp

This is a single-action Louis XVI style pedal harp with 39 strings and crochette (hook) action.

The soundboard is decorated with chinoiserie including three pairs of figures: from the top, an archer and falconer, a pipa (Chinese lute) player and dizi (Chinese flute) player, and a fisherwoman with a blue fish and netter. The archer has a dog at her feet, while the falconer is sitting next to a thin golden tree with red flowers and fruit. In the background, behind the dizi player and netter are small golden houses. On the edges of both sides are delicately hand-painted pink flowers and vines. In addition, a partially illegible inscription of the address for the harp appears in a blue banner at the apex of the soundboard. The back of the soundboard is made of seven tapering staves with no opening, painted black.

There are six sound holes, three on each side of the string plate: at the top are singles, while at the middle and bottom each consist of six holes in a circle formation. The top ones are decorated with two leaves on each side of the hole with a column of golden flowers extending from the top of the hole. The middle and bottom ones are decorated with floral wreaths. The sound holes in the middle have red flowers on the right side blue flowers on the left side–this structure is reversed on the floral wreaths for the sound holes located at the bottom of the soundboard.

The access panel has a blue floral wreath that follows the curvature of the neck, a figure smoking a pipe, and another figure with a harvest basket. The other side of the neck features two more figures that are partially visible with more floral decorations.

There are seven folding pedals (corresponding to the notes of the diatonic scale), operating 39 crochettes or right-angled hooks. Pressing on a pedal results in producing a pitch that is a semitone higher for a particular note throughout the compass as the hooks pulled the string.

There are drilled tuning-pins with tapered square heads and shoulders; crochets mounted on threaded rods for height adjustment.

c. 1780

Adelson, Robert, et al. “Rediscovering Cousineau's Fourteen-Pedal Harp.” Galpin Society Journal, vol. 63, 2010, pp. 159–273., https://search.proquest.com/docview/504083521/fulltextPDF/E7F5A7BA046A48D6PQ/1?accountid=14824.

Cleary, Maria Christina. "The Invention of the 18th Century: the Harpe Organisee and Pedals." American
Harp Journal, 2018, p. 22+. Gale Academic Onefile,
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A524433517/AONE?u=nysl_se_vassar&sid=AONE&xid=5fcfa234. Accessed 1 Dec. 2019.

Burr, Walter. “Cleaning and Restoration of a French Seven-Pedal Harp.” April 8, 1991.

Rensch, Roslyn. “Harps and Harpists”. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2007.

Wolf, Beat. “THE LOUIS XVI – HARP”. 2009, https://www.beatwolf.ch/Portals/14/pdf/The_Louis_XVI-harp_2009.pdf?ver=2013-08-17-102903-380.

Wolf, Beat. “Timeline - The development of the single-action harp”. 2014, http://beatwolf.ch/Portals/14/pdf/Timeline_pedalharps_2012.pdf?ver=2014-09-12-140457-193

Unknown

Paris

Possibly Georges Cousineau

Length 162 cm; Width 86 cm; Depth 35 cm

Five octaves and a fourth; F1-b3; 39 strings

Chordophone-Harp

The mechanic’s name “Lambert” is engraved on the metal plate behind the action mechanism in the neck.

The instrument is in a fair/poor state of preservation. In its current state, the instrument is not playable. Strings need to be replaced or are missing along with some hitchpins. The pedal and crochet mechanisms appear to be functioning to some degree, but need repairs to work smoothly. Numerous small holes at the foot of the harp indicate worm-damage.

Taken directly from Adelson et al. 2010:

“Georges Cousineau was the son of a poor weaver in the village of Mouchamps in Western France. His mother, however, came from a family of instrument makers who would raise young Georges after his move to Paris, including his uncle Jean Ouvrard (d.1768) and his step-brother Salomon (Jean-Baptiste Dehaye, 1713-1767). By the age of seventeen, Cousineau was an apprentice at the harp workshop of François Lejeune (c.1722-1785), and would soon be supported by other important instrument makers in Paris, including Salomon and François Feury. Cousineau became a master artisan in 1758, and established his own workshop on the rue Bourg de Brie in the parish of Saint Séverin. In 1759, he married Madeleine-Victoire Regnault, daughter of a painter. Cousineau was an active freemason, member of the lodge Les amis de la liberté.

By 1767 Cousineau was making single-action harps with the system of crochets. In 1773, he moved his workshop to the rue des Poulies in St. Germain d'Auxerrois where, according to a label inside a surviving instrument, he made 'harps, lyras, violins, 'cellos, double basses, violas, guitars, violas d'amore, mandolins, and citterns.' Several of these nonharp instruments by Cousineau survive, including a cittern, a guitar (both in the collection of the Musée de la Musique, Paris), and a violin. Cousineau also imported English pianos, and engraved and sold musical scores, with the help of his wife. During the course of his career, Cousineau earned numerous prestigious titles: 'luthier de la Reine' (1774); official instrument maker for the Countess d'Artois (1777); 'marchand-luthier de la Reine' (1781); and 'luthier ordinaire' (1783).

Around 1780, Cousineau developed his trademark system of béquilles ('crutches') for shortening the strings of the harp. The béquilles were pairs of small metal levers, one on each side of the string, which pinched the string from opposite sides when the pedal was depressed. This system was designed to avoid the principal problem with the popular crochets; namely, that the shortened strings were pulled out of their vertical alignment. He was the sole harp maker to use béquilles, while his contemporaries used either the crochets or the fourchettes invented by Erard in 1794.

Cousineau experimented incessantly with harp construction. In addition to his invention of the béquillles, he developed a system of adjustable nuts to improve the instrument's intonation and a harp with an echo effect. His harpe à chevilles tournantes (rotating tuning pins) can be counted among the most technologically advanced instruments of his time. This system consisted of tuning pegs that were directly linked to the pedals, so that each depression of the pedal would wind the string around the peg so as to raise the pitch by a semitone. He even experimented with innovative designs for the harp's soundboard and soundbox, replacing the traditional trapezoidal form with a lute shape analogous to various South American harps.

Georges' son Jacques-Georges (1760-1836) became known as an accomplished harpist, member of the orchestras of the Opéra (from 1776 to 1811) and the Concert Spirituel (from around 1780). He began assisting his father in making harps around 1783. Jacques-Georges Cousineau was also an important pedagogue, serving as harp teacher to the Empress Joséphine from 1804 to 1809. His Méthode de harpe suivie d'un recueil de petits airs de différents auteurs & d'une instruction touchant la mécanique des harpes anciennes et nouvelles par Cousineau fils, OEuvre IV was published in 1784, and his Méthode de harpe contenant les leçons graduées pour les deux mains avec quinze préludes, dont six composés par M. Ragué et un recueil d'airs nouveaux arrangés pour la harpe was published in 1803. When the Revolution broke out, the successful father and son firm moved to the rue de Thionville, where they continued their business making and selling instruments, and expanded their music publishing activities.

Georges Cousineau died on 3 September 1800, leaving his workshop to his son, who had great difficulties with crippling debts due to his father's real estate speculations. Jacques-Georges Cousineau gradually withdrew from public musical life, leaving the orchestra of the Opéra in 1811. He retired in 1822 and died in 1836.”

Karl Rabe

KH

Various parts of the harp are made of walnut, while the foot is made from pine. The pedals and feet are most likely iron. See Walter Burr report.

Vassar Treasure Room

Walter Burr performed the cleaning and restoration of the harp in 1991. Surfaces were re-gessoed and leafed with water gilding, and modern bronze pain was removed from the soundboard edges.