The clavecins a maillets of Marius and Veltman: new observations on some of the first pianos in France

Abstract

In 1716, Jean Marius submitted several projects for his clavecins à maillet to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. Short descriptions and plates of four of Marius’s actions were published in 1735 after his death. Even though Marius is well known as the first French piano-maker, a large part of his handwritten reports and descriptions on his clavecins à maillet remain unpublished. These descriptions give a number of details about the first piano actions devised in France some 15 years after Cristofori’s invention of his "arpicimbalo che fa il piano e il forte" in about 1700. These documents, which are published for the first time in this article, were not quoted in the 1735 printed version that is usually mentioned in all the main surveys of the history of the early pianoforte. Furthermore, the article describes Andries Veltman’s 1759 combined harpsichord-piano which was one of the very first hammer-action keyboard instruments made in France after Marius’s experiments. Keywords: Jean Marius; Andries Veltman; Academy of Sciences, Paris; French piano-makers; early pianoforte; combined harpsichord-piano