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Franz Jakob Späth (or Spath; c. 1714 – 23 July 1786) was a German keyboard instrument builder. He was born and died in Regensburg, where he worked for most of his life. An organ builder by training, he is more remembered as the most prominent builder of tangent pianos along with his son-in-law Christoph Friedrich Schmahl.

Life

Franz Jakob Späth was the son of the organ builder Johann Jakob Späth [de] (1672–1760). He was likely trained in organ building by his father. He took charge of his father's workshop in 1747. In the same year, he married Johanna Rosina Schessinger. The couple had seven children, three of which survived childhood.

In 1751, he presented a tangent piano to the Elector of Bonn. Instead of striking the strings with a pivoted hammer, they are struck with non-pivoting, vertical hammers called tangents. Ernst Ludwig Gerber reported that the instrument had 30 tone variations, which increased to 50 in 1770.

The piano builder Johann Andreas Stein apprenticed with Späth from 1749 to 1750. Stein's claviorgan of 1781 shows Späth's influence. In 1774, he established a piano building firm with his son-in-law Christoph Friedrich Schmahl (1739–1814), who came from a family of organ builders.

Späth died on 23 July 1786. The firm was inherited by Schmahl's son, Christian Carl (1782–1815), but was dissolved after his death.

Instruments

Though widely credited as the inventor of the tangent piano, Späth was not the first to invent the tangent action. Jean Marius had proposed a similar mechanism in 1716 to the French Academy of Sciences. Christoph Gottlieb Schröter claimed to have invented an instrument with a similar action in 1717, though it was not announced until 1747 in Lorenz Christoph Mizler's Neu eröffnete musikalische Bibliothek. One surviving tangent piano from the 18th century was likely built in Späth's lifetime. Schmahl continued to manufacture and sign instruments under his and his father-in-law's name until 1793.

Späth himself never used the term tangent piano (Tangentenflügel), which first appeared in 1791. He referred to the mechanism as Tangirung and the instrument as Pandaleons Forte-pianos, Pianoforteinstrumente in Flügelform, clavecin d'amour, owing to its expressiveness and dynamic range, or simply Clavier.

Späth also built harpsichords and harpsichord-pianos. On 10 September 1765, an advertisement for Späth's instruments with the combined fortepiano and harpsichord actions appeared on the Leipziger Zeitung. In 1770, he advertised an instrument with three manuals that combined the Tangirung action with a harpsichord's plucking action.

He was commissioned to build the organ of Regensburg's Dreieinigkeitskirche in 1758. The organ was removed in 2009, retaining only its facade and a few pipes. It was rebuilt by Jürgen Ahrend to better suit Johann Sebastian Bach's music. The rebuilding was completed in the summer of 2020. Späth also built the organ in Oswaldkirche in 1753.

Späth's instruments were generally well-regarded. Forkel praised his fortepianos in his 1782 Musikalischer Almanach für Deutschland. In 1777, Mozart wrote to his father that Späth's fortepianos were his favorite, before he was introduced to Stein's. Carl Ludwig Junker [fr] reported that Beethoven refused to play on an instrument made by Späth. Junker postulated that Beethoven, who played Stein's pianos in Bonn, was not accustomed to playing Späth's pianos.

Notes

1. His name is now normally written with an Umlaut, but authorities in the past, such as Fétis, Forkel, and Gerber, spelled his name without the Umlaut. Mozart was the first to spell his name with an Umlaut.

References

1. ^ Latcham, Michael (2004). "Franz Jakob Spath and the "Tangentenflügel", an Eighteenth-Century Tradition". The Galpin Society Journal. 57: 150–170. ISSN 0072-0127.
2. ^ Badura-Skoda, Eva (2017). The eighteenth-century fortepiano grand and its patrons: from Scarlatti to Beethoven. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253022646.
3. ^ Pollens, Stewart (2022). A history of stringed keyboard instruments. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-42199-7.
4. ^ Di Stefano, Giovanni Paolo (2008). "The "Tangentenflügel" and Other Pianos with Non-Pivoting Hammers". The Galpin Society Journal. 61: 79–244. ISSN 0072-0127.
5. Gerber, Ernst Ludwig (1812). Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler. Leipzig : A. Kühnel. p. 122.
6. Latcham, Michael (2001). "Stein, Johann (Georg) Andreas". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
7. ^ Klotz, Hans; Meisel, Maribel; Belt, Philip R.; Klaus, Sabine K. (2001). "Schmahl". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
8. Di Stefano, G. P. (1 February 2011). "The clavecins a maillets of Marius and Veltman: new observations on some of the first pianos in France". Early Music. 39 (1): 35–56. doi:10.1093/em/caq113.
9. Klotz, Hans (2001). "Späth, Franz Jacob". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
10. Latcham, Michael (2001). "Harpsichord-piano". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
11. Ingerthron, Gabriele (6 June 2020). "Diese Orgel ist einzigartig". www.evangelisch.de (in German). Retrieved 8 January 2024.
12. Schiller, Lea M.; Harmsen, Rieke C. (22 June 2021). "Regensburg: "Dreieinigkeitskirche" - Evangelische Kirche im Dekanat Regensburg | Sonntagsblatt - 360 Grad evangelisch". Sonntagsblatt (in German). Retrieved 8 January 2024.
13. Forkel, Johann Nikolaus (1782). Musikalischer Almanach für Deutschland auf das Jahr 1782 (in German). p. 201.
14. Skowroneck, Tilman (2000). "The Keyboard Instruments of Young Beethoven". In Burnham, Scott; Steinberg, Michael P. (eds.). Beethoven and His World. Princeton University Press. pp. 151–192. ISBN 9780691070735.

• 1714 births
• 1786 deaths
• German musical instrument makers
• Piano makers
• People from Regensburg