Museum of Historic Keyboards
Once Played by Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Mozart & Mahler
Hatchlands near Guildford in England, is home to a collection of historic keyboard instruments on display and still in regular use today at the concerts held there.
Hatchlands in the county of Surrey, England, stands a wooded park originally laid out by Humphrey Repton, its magnificent Adam rooms furnished with the Cobbe Collection of old master paintings and historic keyboard instruments. Keyboards that were once owned or played by some of the world’s greatest composers, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Cramer, Elgar, Liszt, Mozart, Mahler and Purcell, are on display here and in regular use.
In 1987, the 16th century Hatchlands was leased to the collector Alec Cobbe with the idea of the family resuscitating the house as a family home. Decorated and refunished by Cobbe and his assistants, the house became a setting for the collection of Old Masters and objet d’art collected by generations of his Anglo-Irish family, and his own, very special, collection of historic pianos, harpsicords and clavicords.
In an imaginative use of an existing structure, Cobbe enhanced and emphasised the best features of the handsomely proportioned rooms, so that Hatchlands became a fitting place to display the collection, part of which came from the family home at Newbridge, outside Dublin.
There are over 40 pianos dotted around the house, some swamped by a clutter of books and papers, others standing in solitary grandeur proclaiming their importance. Fifteen of these keyboard instruments, the largest group to be housed in one building anywhere in the world, were once owned or played by famous composers and included among them is a unique composing ‘library table piano’ on which Bizet composed the opera, Carmen. Not all the instruments dotted about the house have such legendary associations, but they are all masterpieces of their kind and were brought together to represent instrument makers who were highly regarded and patronised by composers, rather than to illustrate a technical history of keyboard manufacture.
An example would be the harpsicord made in 1636 by Andreas Ruckers of Antwerp and reowned for its rich and beautiful sound and from the Court of King Charles II we find virginals by John Player (London 1664), and a square pianoforte by Johannes Zumpe and Gabriel Buntebart (1777-1778) which was transported to France by Bach. Other instruments in the collection include a chamber organ and a spinet, harpsicords by the famed 17th century Italian Zenti, a piano in the form of a metamorphic half-moon table by Dubliner William Southwell, many square pianofortes made by the top craftsmen of the day, including one reputedly made for Queen Marie Antoinette in 1787 by Sebastian Erard of Paris, and another by the London firm of John Broadwood & Sons which was used and signed by Elgar. The Broadwood name is well represented by various Grand Pianos including one autographed b y J.B. Cramer and the Broadwood chosen by Chopin for his English recitals. The Grand Piano by Nanette Streicher (Vienna 1823) on loan from The Queen to the National Trust, and the upright Carlo Ducci which was borrowed by Franz Liszt when he was in Florence are especially beautiful.
All these instruments are maintained in excellent playing condition, enabling the sound characteristics of different ages and composers to be heard today in the concerts by leading performers that take place in the magnificent Music Room of the house throughout the year. Thanks to the endowment of the Cobbe Collection Trust by Donald and Jeanne Kahn, the costly work of restoration and maintenance is never allowed to fall behind.
Hatchlands may be famed mostly for its collection of musical instruments, its picture collection and bronze and marble sculptures, but the Cobbe family’s books, papers, and mundane possessions that are stacked on chairs and tables in every room defines its character as a much loved home. It is one of the jewels in the crown of the National Trust.
