Jos van Immerseel plays an instrument built by Jacobus Van Den Elsche (Van EIsen) dated 1763 which is the property of the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music in Antwerp, on exhibition in the Vleeshuis Museum.
Recording date Antwerp, Vleeshuis Museum, September 5th and 6th, 1977
Sound Engineer: Jan van Welckenhuyse
Producer Willy van den Steen
Released 1978 by CBS Disques S.A. 73748
The pictures (apart from the album cover, insert and backside) are no part of the documentation of the vinyl
Copyright photos: Collectie Stad Antwerpen, Museum Vleeshuis
Photos by Bart Huysmans & Michel Wuyts
Kant A
Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727-1799)
00:00 1. Air Gay
02:25 2. La Courteille
05:23 3. La Lamarck
08:25 4. La Castelmore
Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789) •
12:46 5. L’Arlequine
15:06 6. L’Affligée
19:19 7. l’Allemande
Kant B
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
22:23 1. Rondo III, B-Dur
Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart (1756-1791)
27:45 2. a) Menuett F-Dur KV 2
28:45 b) Allegro B-Dur KV 3
29:48 c) (Menuett) F-Dur KV 4
Josef Haydn (1732-1809)
3. Sonate Nr. 30 D-Dur (1767) (Hob. XVI/19)
31:14 a) Moderato
37:05 b) Andante
42:59 c) Finale, Allegro assai
Jacobus Van Den Elsche (Van EIsen)
Very few facts about the life of this builder are known :
1714-15: admitted as harpsichord builder to the Guild of St. Lucas.
1731 : work on a harpsichord in the CathedraI at Antwerp .
March 5th 1768: burial of a certain Jacobus Van Eisen at the abbey ot St. Salvator (whether this J. Van Eisen is the same as the harpsichord builder has not till now been established).
Only two instruments by Van Den Elsche have survived until the 20th century. The first (1710), rebuilt in 1790 by Johan Heinemann, was to be found in 1872 in the collection of C.C. Snoeck in Ronse, and was bought by the Instruments Museum in Berlin, where it was destroyed during the Second Wortd War.
The second (1763) was bought in 1924 at the H. Colard auction by the Antwerp Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music. In 1975-76 it was restored by Hubert Bédard (Maintenon, France). This instrument is therefore at present the only known harpsichord by Van Den Elsche.
Length : 267 cm. Breadth : 99 cm. Height : 28,5 cm.
Dr. J. Lambrechts-Douillez, assistant-curator
Translated by Ludmila Tschakalova
Technical data
Editions:
Balbastre: Piéces de Clavecin , Paris 1759. Copy in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (27 A 95), that apparently represents a first version. Compared with other copies, respectively the corrected editions in·the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris (A 33498, A 33678 and Rès. F 972), and with the modern edition by Alan Curtis (Le Pupitre 52, Paris 1974, Heugel).
Couperin: Pièces de Clavecin, Paris, s.d. Copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Ac. p. 3604), compared with the edition by David Fuller (Recent Researches in the Music of the Pre-Classical, Classical and Early Romantic Eras 11, Madison , 1975, A-R Editions).
Bach: Clavier-Sonaten und Freye Fantasien nebst einigen Rondos fürs Fortepiano für Kenner und Liebhaber, Vierte Sammlung, Leipzig, 1783. Copy in the Library of the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music in Antwerp (TP 8036) .
Mozart : W. A. Mozarts erste Klavierkompositionen, edited by Erich Valentin (Wilhelmshaven,.1969, Heinrichshofen’s Verlag).
Haydn : Sämtliche Klaviersonaten , Band 1 b, edited by Christa Landon (Wiener Urtext Edition, Wien, 1973).
Tuning: unequal temperament according to 18th century practice, adjusted by the performer to the literature recorded.
Pitch: about two semitones lower than a = 440′.
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