Interlude

I mentioned in one of the posts below that I don't have much time to give this project, and indeed, I've been a bit swamped at work since the last post and have not been able to turn my attention to the harmonium again.  There it sits in my music room, wanting attention.  This is frustrating, but such is my life at the moment.

Finally, this morning, I had a few minutes that I could devote to the instrument.  My exploration this morning is zeroing in on the metallic fabric remnants attached to the underside of the music rack.  I am pretty sure that, at one time, a panel of fabric was stretched across the bottom of the music rack, and would have hidden the backs of the keys, as the red fabric is doing in this picture of a harmonium I found online:

Not my harmonium!  A picture I found online that clearly shows red fabric stretched across the opening
in the music rack frame, to hide the backs of the keys.  I believe fabric was used here (rather than, for instance,
a solid piece of wood), because if this harmonium is like mine, the forté shutters are directly under
the keyboard, so the sound, in part, comes up through the back of the keys, and a piece of wood, rather
than fabric, would muffle the sound.

 But the question is: what was the fabric? Here is the underside of the frame that supports the music rack.  Although fragments of the gold metallic cloth are still attached to the bottom of the frame, one can also clearly see the remains of a red fabric glued to the perimeter of the opening:

The bottom side of the music rack frame.

Here are two close ups:

Was the red fabric the original (as in the top photo above)?  Did it rot, and then someone added the gold fabric, securing it with tacks?  If this is so, I would expect that the red fabric would have been trimmed, and would have some sort of a straight edge all the way around -- but it doesn't.  If the red fabric isn't the original, but rather is some sort of a treatment that supported the stretched gold fabric, why was that treatment necessary?

Even as I'm writing this, and especially, considering the top photo above (and other photos that show red or green fabric in that area), I'm beginning to think that the red fabric was indeed original.  By the time the gold fabric was installed, the red fabric could have rotted and disintegrated somewhat, which would explain the lack of a trimmed straight edge.  Also, it appears that the red fabric was carefully stretched and glued across the opening, which I would expect from a high-end 19th-century German harmonium builder; but the gold fabric was simply tacked in place, which looks like the work of an amateur.  

So back to my post about a restoration philosophy: I think, in this instance, I might not be doing too much damage if I remove the gold fabric remnants and stretch and glue into place a piece of red fabric similar to what I think is the original.  I welcome comments about that!

Thus ends this brief post ... hope I can get to this more frequently!  But, you know, I'm a church musician and December, with its demands, approaches ....

Cleaning the keyboard--some photos

Hanging from the music rack assembly--this piece of fabric:

 

It's hard to get a photo that captures the look of this piece of fabric.  It has metallic threads, which leads me to think it must be more recent than the harmonium--but my partner thinks that fabric such as this might have been available in the late 19th-century.  I only bring this up because, as I remove the keys to clean them, amidst the dirt under the keys are strands of metallic thread, which I assume is from this fabric:

A close up of these strands, modeled by Walter:

What was this fabric for?  Since the back of the keyboard is not finished, and since, in the condition I bought the harmonium in, the back of the keyboard is completely visible, and since the one remaining swath of fabric is hanging from the music deck assembly, which floats over the keyboard, I wonder if there was originally an expanse of this metallic fabric that hid the back of the keys from view?  Is this typical of these instruments?  More research needed here.

Meanwhile, here's the back of some of the keys:

There is a spacer surrounding the back pin.  Some of these spacers are glued tightly to the key, although the ones in this photo are all loose, and one is broken.  I'm not sure what their function is.  There is a rail that runs over the back of the keyboard--maybe these spacers keep the rail from settling onto the pins?  In any case, I will repair these if necessary and glue them all back.  Meanwhile, as I remove the keys, each of the loose spacers is going into its own ziplock bag with a label indicating which keys it belongs to:

I'm removing each key and giving it the most gentle cleaning: dusting off the debris, wiping it with a damp cloth, and then storing it in a box.  Note the slot cut into the 10th key from the top: this provides space for the bass forté lever to pass through.

The keys, thus far, have no markings on them at all.  As I remove and clean them, I'm labeling them, in pencil, on their undersides:

 

I finally have removed all the keys from C up through f1, and have exposed the bass forté swell shade.  The lever which opens it (and which passes through the indentation in key #10 as noted above), is clearly visible:

The forward side of the swell shade is leathered; the leather at the treble end is broken and needs to be replaced:

A side view of the keyboard.  Keys C through f1 have been removed; shown here are f#1 and higher.  Note that the keys are carved to provide space underneath them for the movement of the bass and treble forté swell shades.

Developing a Restoration Philosophy

I mentioned at the beginning of this project that it might move slowly, and indeed, it is moving more slowly than I’d like.  At the moment I am a bit overloaded at work—I am the director of music at an Episcopal Church with a couple of choirs, a busy fall schedule, and, of course, the demands of December looming—so I have limited time to spend with the restoration.  But I have spent, perhaps, 10 minutes a day on the instrument and can report this progress:

Work bench.  Coco, my assistant, looks
up from underneath.

My partner kindly bought me a work table which I have set up in the music room right next to the harmonium, so I now have a dedicated work “bench.”  This will make the music room jammed and cluttered, which I hate, but I will live with that for this worthy cause.  The lever harps are huddling behind the grand piano and the pedal harp has moved to the living room.  That also makes the already-crowded living room too crowded, which I will also live with—or perhaps the harp will go live at church for awhile.

My first goal has been to remove the keyboard in order to clean the keys and clean the keybed under them.  I am not convinced that this is the first thing that should happen—I think rebuilding the winding system is really the first thing that should happen—but the keyboard is more accessible and the task more doable for a novice like myself.  In order to remove the keys, I first had to remove the superstructure above it.  This superstructure contains a rail that runs along the center of the keys (just behind the ivories and the raised ebony part of the sharps), and contains the builder’s label, displayed under glass, and at its back has a vertical piece with holes that the stop pulls pass through.  Since the stop pulls are attached to the stop action behind the keyboard, the first order of business (I thought) was to remove the stop pulls so that the rail could be removed. At first glance, this seemed to require nothing more than removing a screw at the back of each stop pull that connected the back end of the stop pull to a lever by which it activated the stop. 

Screw at back of stop pull, damaged a
bit by my trying to remove it.

These are wood screws, approximately ½” long, with round heads with a straight slot.  But the screws are quite rusted, such that the slots are partially filled with rust; and these screws have probably been in place since the instrument was built (sometime between the 1860’s and 1904), and with over a hundred years of the wood in the stop pulls expanding and shrinking around the screw shanks due to humidity, some of these screws have become virtually immobile.  Part of the problem is that the access to each screw is impeded by the neighboring stop assembly, so it’s impossible to fit a screwdriver with a long blade, that would give good leverage, to the screw head.  So I had to use a small, short screwdriver.  And then the rust in the slot on the screw head prevents a good fit.  Once I could get a purchase on a given screw, it often still wouldn’t move.  Consulting the “experts” (i.e. the internet) about how to remove a frozen wood screw, I tried the following: (1) WD40 (2) mineral oil (3) heat.  No success!  One screw head broken (yikes!) and the tail end of a couple stop pulls oiled or slightly charred.  (Yikes again!)

Then I realized that the entire structure over the keyboard could be lifted out of the way and pivot on the screws at the tail end of the stop pulls (you can see this clearly in the "work bench" photo above); and once that was done, the structure itself could be disassembled.  That I did, which I’ll get to in my next post.  But finally, the keys were completely exposed and could be removed.

Before I continue to describe my activities I wish to digress and talk about developing a restoration philosophy.  Years ago, I happened to hear a talk by John Watson, who is the conservator and associate curator of musical instruments at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.  I then heard him give another talk some years later.  In both those talks, he made me aware of the tension that exists, when restoring an antique musical instrument, between bringing it back to playing condition, and preserving it as a historical document.  I also am aware, having watched hours of Antiques Roadshow, of the possibility of destroying an antique’s market value by removing the patina of age through cleaning or refinishing, etc.  This all suggests a series of courses of action, from most conservative to least: 

1. Most conservative: do nothing
2. Return to playable condition with minimum intervention: just enough cleaning and rust-removal to free moving parts; no removal of rust from non-moving parts (e.g. screws); no cleaning of case or tops of keys; rebuild bellows with existing fragments and use new wood only where existing parts are missing; keep existing stop pull labels (even though they are not original and make no sense).
3. Return to playable condition with limited cosmetic intervention: gently clean everything to remove surface grime but otherwise leave finishes intact.  Remove rust from metal parts. 
4. Partial rebuild: as above, but cut new wooden parts for feeder bellows; install new historically accurate stop pull labels.
5. Partial rebuild with refinishing: as above, plus remove stain from ivory keys (if possible) and refinish case to high gloss
6.  Restore to “new” condition: as above, plus additional intervention so that final result looks “brand new,” maybe even “newer” than it might have looked originally (for instance, how about red felt bushings around the stop pulls rather than brown?)  May require replacement of some parts with fabricated new parts.
7. Least conservative: Go to town.  Paint the thing.  Add an electric blower.  Add MIDI. (I'm joking of course!) Etc. 

Now, frankly, I have not bought this harmonium to turn a profit on it; and even if I restored it to shiny-and-new condition, the harmonium market is so tiny that I don’t think I’d make much of a return on my investment.  The reason I bought this harmonium is that I hope I can return it to playing condition and then, enjoy playing it!  But having done that much, I expect the instrument to outlive me, and I like the idea of maintaining its historicity for anyone interested in it and for its future owner(s).  So currently I’m proceeding at level 3 or maybe level 4 above, only because I’d really like the labels on the stop pulls to make sense.  Perhaps there can be a level between levels 3 and 4, where I replace the stop pull labels, but keep the existing stop labels and photo-document how they appeared when I purchased the instrument.  I also am secretly yearning to replace the carpet on the bellows treadles (which I think is modern carpet) with some sort of upholstered silk that appears to be of the period.

Speaking of photo-documentation, I keep forgetting to include photos--so here are some more project photos:

Side of case. It's dirty and scratched,
but I think this must be the original
finish.

Detail: decorative scroll work at
bottom right of front of case.

Walter getting ready to remove the
harmonium from the van

Back of stop action before initial vacuuming.
  Bits of pink swimming pool
"noodle" (put there by squirrels, I think)
still visible.  Rusted rod below stop action is
the roller for the Grand Jeu.

Keyboard and stop action before initial
cleaning.  

Bass end of key bed exposed.  Left end of
bass "forté" shutter extending out from
under keyboard at left of photo.

Grime visible at lower left corner of key.
The grime easily comes off with a damp
cloth, but not the staining of the ivory,
which is not on the surface.

Condition of feeder bellows as purchased.  I have some, maybe all, the
component parts of the bellows, so this might be a "simple"
issue of releathering.

  

On Spec

A couple of days ago I wrote that, based on the serial number, the date of this instrument was probably very early in the Trayser firm's output, e.g. in the 1850's.  This evening I looked much more closely at the paper label which identifies the builder.  The label contains facsimiles of medals from various trade shows.  The right-most medal reads "Exposition Universelle de MCCCLXVII à Paris," so the harmonium could not have been built before 1867.

Onto another topic. There was a bit of discussion about this instrument on the Harmonium Lovers group page on Facebook as I was still considering buying it.  Some of the "harmonium lovers" had requested photos from the previous owner (as had I) and had concluded that the stop pull faces were not original.  I have come to the same conclusion.

The stop pulls, from left to right are:

1. Bass coupler
2. Dulciana
3. Aeoline
4. Melodia
5. Diapason
6. Principal
7. Forte
8. Viola
9. Dolce
10. Celeste
11. Vox Humana
12. Treble coupler

There are 3 ranks of reeds, each breaking between middle e and f:

1. A 16' set, which appears to be continuous from bass through treble
2. A 4' set mounted horizontally on the bass side; then, a 4' set mounted flush on the right side
3. An 8' set, continuous from bass through treble

The stop knobs appear to be associated with the reeds in this fashion:

2. Dulciana:  opens the sourdine winding on the bass half of the 8' rank
3. Aeoline: the bass half of the 4' rank
4. Melodia: the bass half of the 16' rank
5. Diapason: full winding on the bass half of the 8' rank
6. Principal: operates a roller which activates all the stops except the "dulciana" and the "vox humana," in other words, this is a standard "grand jeu"
7. Forte: does not activate anything in the stop channels but clearly activates something below them, in the winding system. Could it be an expression mechanism?
8. Viola: full winding on the treble half of the 8' rank
9. Dolce: the treble half of the 16' rank
10. Celeste: the treble half of the 4' rank
11. Vox Humana: opens the sourdine winding on the treble half of the 8' rank; this channel also has a beater tremulant which I assume this stop also engages.

Although these instruments weren't completely standardized, my understanding is that the first four stops, moving from the center outwards, and numbered ① ② ③ ④, were standard.  These four stops were (per my understanding):

On the bass side:

④ Basson 8’
③ Clairon 4’
② Bourdon 16’
① Cor Anglais 8’

On the treble side:

① Flûte 8’

② Clarinette 16’

③ Fifre 4’

④ Hautbois 8’

And between these two outwardly radiating sets of stops, a stop labeled Ⓖ (grand jeu) and one labeled Ⓔ (Expression).

Referring to the pitches that each of the existing stop knobs activates, it's very possible that this Trayser has exactly this specification.  The twelve stop knobs, in order from left to right, could then read something like:

Bass coupler

④ 8' 

③ 4'

② 16'

① 8'

Ⓖ Grand jeu

Ⓔ Expression

① 8'

② 16'

③ 4'

④ 8'

Treble coupler

If this is so, this means I will be able to use the registrations as printed in so much harmonium music. Very exciting news!  But the question arises: do I leave the existing labels on the stop pulls? I am assuming I will not be able to find documentation on the original specification of this particular instrument.  Should I, nonetheless, have new stop labels made that reflect the above (actual) spec? What would be the impact on this instrument as an antique and a historical artifact?  Comments, please!

Baby Steps

So, for the first few days I just kept going into the music room and looking at it.  The more I look at it the prettier it gets and the more amazed I am that it has come into my life--and at such a reasonable (i.e. cheap) price!  As I mentioned yesterday, I think it probably dates from the 1850's, and looks every bit of it.  A real treasure from a Germany when Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Wagner and so many other greats still walked the earth near the place where this instrument was built.

I happen to own a Honda Odyssey van.  I wouldn't have a minivan, except that I'm also a harpist and need a vehicle that size to cart my harp around in.  Luckily, the harmonium will just fit.  So, a week ago Tuesday, my partner and I jumped in the van, and drove from northern New Jersey out to Suffolk County on Long Island to inspect and hopefully buy the instrument.  A 75-mile drive, partly through New York City.  Took the George Washington Bridge: an hour to get across.  I-95 in upper Manhattan and the south Bronx: a little like driving through Hell.  Rain.  Heavy traffic until half-way out the island.  Finally arrived at the owner's location.  Inspected the instrument and decided to buy it.  Put it on a piano dolly and took it out to the van.  Route: along the edge of an in-ground swimming pool, being careful not to drop it in!  Down a couple stairs; turn; down another stair; across the lawn in the backyard.  Through a gap in the fence, which the owner had just created for this purpose.  Over the concrete curb at the bottom of the fence. Through some undergrowth at the side of the house.  Around to the front; across the front lawn; finally--onto a paved walkway!---and then, arriving at the driveway and into the van.  The harmonium is not light, but also not as heavy as I expected it to be; so the two of us were able to wrangle it into the van.

The owner is a retired guy, very friendly, who isn't a musician himself but collects instruments.  He also tried to sell me a little melodion--I didn't even look at it; it had been painted white--and also a reed organ that was buried behind years of clutter in his garage.  I was actually somewhat interested in that but it was not accessible at that moment and I had no more room in the van, so I passed up that  offer!

Off we went.  Lunch at a local Friendly's restaurant.  Not there 20 minutes when the previous owner walked in--he had found part of the feeder bellows and brought it to us.  (He emailed me later--still a couple more parts missing which he will put in the mail.)  Uneventful drive home (if driving from L.I. to N.J. through Manhattan can ever be uneventful).

The first thing I did when we got home was to move the harmonium out of the van and onto the front porch.  Got out the vacuum cleaner and spent a couple hours cleaning it out as best I could.  It had been a wildlife sanctuary--probably a nest for squirrels--and was full of nut shells and torn up (chewed up?) styrofoam swimming pool "noodles."  Once I was confident that it was clean enough (and vermin-free enough) to be in the house, we brought it in to its new place in the music room, where it just fits.

I have no illusions about the size of the task in front of me and the steepness of the learning curve.  I also don't have a lot of free time in my life.  So I expect this restoration to take months, probably even years.  This blog will help keep me on the project, however, and I hope to make steady progress, even if it's slow.

First baby steps: we had already unscrewed the hinges on the top lid, so it can easily be lifted  off, just as the music rack can be.  I'm desperate to clean up the keyboard, but removing the keys will require removing a wooden frame above them; and removing that frame will require removing the stop  pulls.  I started on that project yesterday.  The back of each stop pull is connected to a metal lever with a 1/2" (approx.) wood screw with an (approx.) 1/8" round head.  The slot on the head is very narrow.  Had to file down a screwdriver to fit.  The screws are screwed through the lever into the wood of the back end of the stop pull, and after 165 years don't want to budge.  I got three of them unscrewed; put each stop pull, screw, and felt washer in their own ziplock bag and labeled them so that I know exactly where they go when I put them back.  The fourth screw I came to wouldn't budge; finally broke the screw head.  Yikes!  My first minor casualty!  But even I  know that this is a minor problem, easily fixable, and that even if I replace this one screw, I don't think I've compromised the antique value of the instrument too much.

But, of course, I stopped right there!  Need to consult with whoever might have some advice about working with these screws!

As I did this work, right there in my music room, it became clear I need a real work space.  My partner has agreed to make space for me in the basement (which is his realm and his workspace) so that I can disassemble and work on parts of the harmonium.  As may not be surprising to my readers, the construction of the harmonium is somewhat modular: the entire upper action (keys, reeds, stop action) can be lifted out and unfolded via a series of hinges.  So I think my next step, once the work space is available, is to take out the upper action and move it to the work space.  That done, in my mind, the restoration can proceed in these large steps:

1. Upper action
1. Keys and key action
2. Stop action
2. Wind supply
3. Case

As far as I can tell at the moment, the keys and stop action are all basically intact and just need cleaning and rust removal.  I expect the reeds will need no attention at all. The feeder bellows will have to be rebuilt but the rest of the wind supply mechanism appears to be intact.  The case is in reasonably good shape, and I think may never have been refinished; so it just needs to be cleaned and maybe waxed.

What an adventure!  Thanks for coming along!

John Takes the Plunge

Purchased for $100: one Harmonium by Philip J. Trayser, Stuttgart, Germany.  Serial no. 219 (as stamped on the board running along the back of the action just under the stop pulls), which possibly places it between 1847 (the firm's founding) and 1850, because, per the ROS database, a physharmonika with serial number 735 dates from "1850±" -- but did Trayser use the same serial number series for physharmonikas as he did for harmoniums?  Much research needed here.

Provenance: Who knows?  Most recently it was housed for 15 years in a shed next to an in-ground swimming pool in the back yard of the previous owner's house.  The board right behind the keys is originally inscribed (bass side) "Extra for" (treble side) "Franz Altstatt."  Although the inscription is in English, I wonder if Trayser was using the German sense of the word "extra" which would mean "especially", so I'm thinking the inscription means "especially [made] for Franz Altstatt."  I have searched familysearch.com for people with that name in the mid-19th century and have found no one.

Condition: feeder bellows leather mostly gone; not sure I have all wooden parts of the feeder bellows. The reservoir is intact but of course without feeder bellows, there's currently no winding at all.  The rest of the instrument appears to be intact, but filthy, with many of the iron parts badly rusted.  The keyboard is especially filthy.  The white keys are ivory.  The labels on the stop pulls must have been replaced, as some make no sense. The flat-top case is dirty but does not need refinishing (and should I even think about refinishing an antique??)  The interior spaces of the instrument were full of shredded pieces of one of those foam swimming pool "noodles," which suggests that critters were living inside; also found lots of nut shells, so ... squirrels?  The critters did not get into the action, so the key action is intact and the reeds look shiny and new:

The challenge: to return it to playing condition and to clean and restore it as much as possible without compromising it as an antique.

The real challenge: I have NO experience or expertise!

Why?  I am a professional organist with a doctorate in organ from the Eastman School of Music.  In the past 10 years or so, the Eastman organ department has gone on a shopping spree, acquiring many new and notable instruments.  These are mostly pipe organs, but at a conference that I attended there about 7 years ago, an appeal was made for a donor to fund the purchase of a Mustel harmonium.  The organ department was seeking to purchase this instrument, because these instruments were taken very seriously by organists and organ composers of the 19th century, and the exposure to such instruments and their literature would be an important component of the education that the Eastman organ department wished to impart to its students.  At the time, I knew I could donate the instrument if I could do it via a pledge over time.  I offered; the school accepted.  Ultimately because of cost overruns, a second donor was recruited.  But finally, in 2008, the school acquired a Mustel harmonium d'art.  I was thrilled to be at the inaugural presentation and concert, played by Joris Verdin.  I was astonished at the beauty of the instrument.  When my Trayser appeared on Craigslist for $100, how could I resist?