THE MISSING BENTON FLETCHER CLAVICHORD
Peter Bavington
This article first appeared in British Clavichord Society Newsletter 33 (October 2005).
![[italian clavichord formerly in the Benton Fletcher Collection]](missing-clavichord.jpg)
Sixteenth-century Italian clavichord, formerly in the Benton Fletcher collection. From Benton Fletcher, ‘A London
Museum of Early Keyboard Musical Instruments’ in The Sphere, 12 March 1938. The original caption states ‘AN
ITALIAN CLAVICHORD with a range of 3½ octaves’; however, there is no doubt that the intended compass is
4 octaves with a short-octave bass.
This photograph is one of the few surviving images of a clavichord, formerly in the Benton Fletcher collection, that is thought to have been destroyed in the Second World War. It comes from an article by Major Benton Fletcher himself in The Sphere, dated 12 March 1938, a copy of which is preserved in the valuable archive recently donated to Fenton House by Derek Jackson (see BCS Newsletter 31, p. 10).
The clavichord in the photograph is similar to surviving Italian instruments from the sixteenth century: in particular, to the anonymous one in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, formerly attributed to Onesto Tosi, and the 1543 Dominicus Pisaurensis in Leipzig. The compass is C/E–c3 with bass short octave. There seem to be 22 or 24 pairs of strings; the bottom eleven or twelve notes are unfretted, which implies that the remaining notes were ‘multiple-fretted’ in groups of three and four. There are three separate straight bridges arranged at right angles to the long sides; the ‘bass’ bridge (i.e. the nearest to the right-hand end) and the ‘middle’ bridge appear to carry three or four courses each, leaving the treble bridge, which is longer, to carry the rest. The strings run straight across without bridge-pins, and in order to keep them in firm contact with the bridges, the soundboard slopes downward so that the tuning pins at the right-hand end are at a lower level than the bridges. There seems to be a ‘nut’ bridge at the left-hand end, supported on a kind of shelf.
In all these respects the instrument resembles the ‘Tosi’, though there are differences in detail. Like the ‘Tosi’, too, it appears to be of ‘false inner outer’ construction, giving the illusion of a painted outer box containing a separate inner instrument of more delicate construction. The illusion is fairly carefully carried through: for example, the carved bracket at the left hand end of the keyboard seems to be separated from the sloping cheek of the outer case by a small gap.
Surviving clavichords from the sixteenth century are very rare, and it is sad to think that this one has perished. In fact, there is some doubt about its fate. As is well known, most of the contents of Old Devonshire House (then the home of the Benton Fletcher collection) were removed to safety in January 1941, following which the house and its remaining contents were totally destroyed in an air raid in May that year1. Documents in the National Trust’s archives list both the instruments removed to safety and those remaining: curiously, this clavichord does not appear in either list, though all the other keyboard instruments are accounted for (including, incidentally, the German clavichord still in the collection2). Moreover, an article in the July 1943 issue of the magazine Apollo includes a different photograph of the instrument without any mention of its recent destruction.3
Could it have been removed elsewhere before January 1941, and still be lurking, unrecognized, in some hidden place?
Many thanks to Mimi Waitzman, Lynne Mirrey and Rodger Mirrey for help with the research for this article.
1. See Mimi S. Waitman, The Benton Fletcher Collection at Fenton House: Early Keyboard Instruments, London, The National Trust, 2003, p. 11.2. Described in‘Clavichords in Britain’, BCS Newsletter 17, p. 10.
3. ‘Some Early Keyboard Instruments – I’ in Apollo, July–December 1943 (author not stated).