Wahlfried Ficker

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Wahlfried Ficker (also Walfried, Wahl Friedrich or Fickert) (* 1676 ; † 1770 ) was a German organ and musical instrument maker . With his cymbal piano he developed an early form of the fortepiano .

Life

Ficker was an employee of the organ builder Johann Jacob Donati the Elder . Since Donati also built clavichords , Ficker probably came into contact with keyboard instrument making with him. In 1716 he repaired the organ in Wenceslas Church in Naumburg , and in 1718 that in Zeitz Cathedral . Ficker, who owned a workshop in Zeitz, rebuilt the organ in the church in Theißen in 1729 .

On October 23, 1731, Ficker's ad appeared in the Leipziger Post-Zeitung :

“For those who love noble music, the message is that by the organ and instrument maker, Nahmens Wahl Friedrich Fickern in Zeitz, a new musical instrument has been invented and manufactured, which is called the cymbal clavir; it is in the form of a 16-footed clavic cymbal, and 4 courses, covered with Drat strings; in gravity and force it surpasses the strongest clavichordium, and stays in tune for as long as a good clavichordium without the slightest accommodation, can therefore also be easily traced, since the hammers strike the strings at two and a half inches from above. Moreover, it also has some changes:

1) pleasant cushioning, as if someone were playing with well-heeled hammers;

2) one can also, by means of a pull, prevent the ruffling among one another in long playing, just as the cloth in the tangent of a clavic cymbal silences the string.

This instrument, which has a civil price, has the characteristics of the cymbal invented by the famous Pandalon, and has been approved and approved by many virtuosos. "

As described, Ficker had provided the large form of the chopping board developed by Pantaleon Hebenstreit with mechanical hammers, thus creating an early form of the hammer piano. He himself called this instrument the cymbal piano.

From 1748 there is still a request from Wahlfried Ficker for payment of the arrears of the agreed 245 thalers for the new organ built in the church of St. Stephan Zeitz .

literature

  • Johann Gottfried Walther : Musical Lexicon or musical library ... Deer, Leipzig 1732, p. 170.
  • Jakob Adlung : Instructions for musical knowledge ... Jungnicol Sen., Erfurt 1758, p. 559f.
  • Christian Ahrens: organ and instrument maker. On the field of activity of Gottfried Silbermann and other German organ builders in the 18th century. In: Yearbook of the State Institute for Music Research Prussian Cultural Heritage 2001. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2001.
  • Thomas Steiner: Bowed and keyboard instruments in the age of Mozart. Lang, Bern 2010, p. 160.
  • Uwe Jens Wandel, Wolfram Hackel: Choice Friedrich Ficker - a "well-experienced artist". New sources on the Zeitz organ builder. In: Ars Organi , 63, 2015, pp. 159–164.
  • Eva Badura-Skoda : The Eighteenth-Century Fortepiano Grand and its Patrons: From Scarlatti to Beethoven. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2017, p. 129.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the Zeitz cathedral organ
  2. ^ Ars organi , Volume 50, Merseburger, Kassel, 2002, p. 143.
  3. ↑ Oliver Kern: The transition from the harpsichord to the fortepiano. Dissertation. Mainz 2015.
  4. ^ Entry in the Saxony-Anhalt archive
personal data
SURNAME Ficker, Wahlfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ficker, Walfried; Ficker, Wahl Friedrich; Fickert, Wahlfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German organ and musical instrument builder
DATE OF BIRTH 1676
DATE OF DEATH 1770