The Pantalon and Irish hammered dulcimers

In 1713, the German composer and music theorist Johann Mattheson published a book titled Das neueröffnete Orchestre (The Newly Revealed Orchestra). It includes commentary on individual musical instruments, with remarks about a harp, a hybrid harp-zither, and two hammered dulcimers, in immediate succession:

The pleasantly buzzing David’s harp [“Davids-Harffe/Harpa”], with its gut strings, is fully suited to accompaniment and its merit won’t be questioned; if only there were more who wished to make it better known. The harsh harpanetta, [“Harffe/‌Harpanetta”] with its attendant long fingernails, has already been given its honest farewell. The frivolous hammered dulcimers [“Hackbretter”] should be nailed to the walls of houses of ill repute, except for the large gut-strung one called a Pantalon, which is highly esteemed.

The David’s harp was a double-strung chromatic instrument, with a “bray pin” at the base of each string causing it to buzz. The comment about fingernails with the harpanetta suggests that it was the wire-strung arpanetta demonstrated below. This can be seen as a harp with a soundbox between two parallel stringbeds. In more rigorous analytical terms, it is a wing-shaped zither strung on both sides, played in vertical position.

Hammered dulcimers were and remain in widespread use, in a range of configurations, also labeled with the word stem “cimbal.” They are wire-strung zithers that, by definition, are played by striking the strings. The same instruments can also be plucked, and in cases where that is the predominant technique, are commonly called psalteries (or some variant of that term). The pantalon was an exceptionally large hammered dulcimer with two stringbeds, strung with metal and gut.

It was devised in Germany late in the 17th century by Pantaleon Hebenstreit, whose work with the refinement of a hammer-struck zither also weighed into the early development of the fortepiano (which some writers synonymously called a pantalon). He demonstrated his invention for Johann Georg Keyssler in Dresden, in 1730, who published the details in the Neueste Reisen durch Deutschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweiz, Italien und Lothringen (Recent Travels through Germany…). It first appeared in 1740 and the following facsimile of the relevant passage is from an edition dated 1751.

An often cited translation of this work, from 1757, doesn’t do particularly well with this passage (or others relevant to the present discussion) and the original German text is therefore included here. It describes a pivotal attribute of the instrument’s layout ambiguously. I’ve translated it literally in the second sentence below:

The Royal Chamber Musician, Panthaleon Hebenstreit [is showing] the musical instrument invented by and named after him, the Panthaleon… This device lies hollow, formed so that it can effortlessly be turned over [or around] and played on both sides with two small wooden [sticks], as a double hammered dulcimer. Its length is thirteen and a half, and its width three and a half spans [≈ 3 m x 0.8 m]. The soundboard is hollow and the one side is strung exclusively with overspun [gut] violin strings. On the other, however, higher notes are strung with steel. Its annual maintenance cost is 100 thaler because it has 158 strings. Its sound is exceedingly loud and fills even the largest hall.

This describes a two-sided instrument with a separate stringbed on each. If the German umdrehen is read to mean “turned over,” the stringbeds would have been on opposite sides of the instrument. If it is taken to mean “turned around” the stringbeds could have been on the same side of an instrument that was repositioned to make the one or the other of them more accessible. The “device lying hollow” might then indicate a recess in which the player was seated, and the turning might have referred to a change of the player’s position in it, rather than a reorientation of the instrument itself.

Other contemporaneous descriptions say nothing specific about the placement of the two stringbeds. Since it is difficult to envision how fully rotating such a large instrument could have been practicable in ensemble performance, recent authors have concluded that the stringbeds were next to each other on the same side of an instrument with a soundboard divided into two segments. This is also consistent with the pantalon’s extreme width, and would permit the player to alternate between both registers without interruptive logistics.

Michael Praetorius illustrated instruments of the types discussed by Mattheson, on two opposite plates in his Syntagma Musicum from 1619. The accompanying explanation states that “at the present time there are three types of harp.” Number one on the first plate is a “common harp” with “24 strings, some with a few more,” tuned diatonically, and with clearly visible brays. Number two is a diatonic “Irish harp” with “rather heavy brass strings, by count 43, and an unusually lovely resonance.” Number three is a diatonic hammered dulcimer (Hackbrett, lit. chopping board) shown without comment.

Despite several contemporaneous accounts of Hebenstreit’s pantalon, no specimen has yet come to light. The earliest first-hand description is in a letter sent by one of his students, Johann Kuhnau, to Mattheson on 8 December 1717. Kuhnau did not go into the structural detail of his “Pantalonischen Cimbal” (pantalonic dulcimer) but noted its increased range and chromatic facility, the addition of gut strings to the metal ones, as well as the use of hammers with both bare and covered heads.

An Italian instrument from 1725, of the general design of the Hackbrett in Praetorius’s illustration, is demonstrated here:

In the second plate, Praetorius shows both sides of a chromatic “large double harp” with 32 strings on one and 30 on the other. He details the way the strings cross the bridges on the interposed soundbox, alternately labeling this design an harpa doppia. It differs fundamentally from the widely-known Italian chromatic arpa doppia, with its open three-level stringbed.

The Italian instrument was gut strung, although it is unclear whether its zitherified German namesake was strung with gut or wire. The arpanetta used the latter and its consideration here will end with the following video performance. It is intended as a segue to this post’s Irish facet and to show how fluid the demarcation can be between harps and zithers.

The preceding post discusses an innovative German gut-strung pedal harp that made its way to England, and migrated further to Dublin. The present text examines a comparable relationship between the hammered dulcimer as it first appeared on the written record in Ireland, and subsequent German input to its development there. The pantalon rejoins this account at the appropriate chronological point.

The issue of The Dublin Journal dated 15 January 1744 includes the following notice:

Archibald Williamson, who is noted these twenty Years for playing the Dulcimore to the Quality and Gentry of this Kingdom both in Town and Country, is removed to the Sign of the Fiddle and Dulcimore the upper End of Dame-Street near Trinity-lane where Gentlemen and Ladies may be supplied with the Dulcimore and as many Fiddle Hands as will be wanting for private Balls, giving timely Notice. — NB: There is not any one of the name Williamson that plays the Dulcimore for private Balls, but himself.

Williamson advertised Copper Alley as the previous location of the Sign of the Fiddle and Dulcimer, in 1738. It is not clear when he began his activity there. However, since he dates his professional involvement with the dulcimer back to the mid 1720s, the edifice would have materialized along the way. There is no apparent reason for positing that his instrument differed in any significant regard from the 1725 Italian one demonstrated above, other than perhaps its decorative extent.

A notice in the 26 January 1747 issue of The Dublin Journal names a Paul Davis, “who plays on the dulcimer and fiddle.” These references instantiate the dulcimer in Dublin well before the middle of the 18th century. Williamson’s countryside activity additionally indicates the instrument’s familiarity there, where it persisted with ever-narrowing regional focus through the mid-20th century. (It would all but certainly have been in use in Ireland long before any of the attested dates.)

The following announcement appeared in the 5–8 December 1767 issue of The Dublin Journal:

Mr. Isaac begs Leave to acquaint the Nobility and Gentry, that he is lately come from London; he intends performing on his new Improved Dulcimer this Winter in Dublin. He hopes his Performance on this new Instrument will meet with Applause, as his manner of performance is superior to any that has been heard in this Kingdom; and, if required will wait on Gentlemen and Ladies at their own Houses, or at his Lodgings, at Mr. Smyth’s Fruit Shop in Smock-Alley, where he will attend from Ten till Twelve in the Forenoon, and from Three till Five in the Afternoon.

The presence of Isaac Issacs in Dublin is detailed in an article by Seán Donnelly titled “A German Dulcimer Player in Eighteenth-Century Dublin,” in the Spring 2000 issue of the Dublin Historical Record (Vol. 53, No. 1). The sources he consulted report that Isaacs had been engaged by the Smock Alley Theatre for the 1767–68 season but give no reason for the recruitment being made outside the local professional community. One of its members reacted swiftly to the announcement of Isaacs’s collateral activity, placing the following response in The Dublin Journal on 12 December 1767:

Whereas by an Advertisement in the Dublin Journal of the 8th inst. one Mr. Isaac, who stiles himself lately from London, engages to play and teach on his new improved DULCIMER superior to any in the Kingdom, which in its general Construction, may be conceived as a general Insult to the Professors of that Instrument: Now I John Dowling, Dulcimer-player and Teacher, do hereby challenge the said Mr. Isaac, for any sum under 20£ to play and perform on the said instrument any Thing that can be executed thereon at Sight, within the Compass of a Dulcimer, and in the different Keys of Musick, before any competent Judges. If Mr. Isaac chooses to engage or exceed this Bet, I may be heard of at my House Phoenix Gate. I would not put myself in Print, but to support the Credit of my native City against the presumptive Attempts of superficial Invaders. Dec. the 11th. 1767. JOHN DOWLING

I haven’t been able to locate any indication of Isaacs having accepted that challenge, much less its outcome. Nor is there any sign of his activity having been disrupted. As the end of his contracted tenure drew close he advertised again in The Dublin Journal, on 12 May 1768:

Mr. Isaac, Performer on his new improved Dulcimer, begs leave to acquaint the Nobility and Gentry of this City, that he will perform several Solos, and some pleasing Compositions of his own, which have never before been attempted on that instrument. … N.B. His Stay in Town will be but a few weeks.

He was soon back in Dublin permanently, advertising yet again in The Dublin Journal on 24 October 1769:

MR. ISAAC (encouraged by the many Favours he has heretofore experienced from the Nobility and Gentry of this City, whom he had the Honour of performing before, and of teaching several) begs Leave once more to offer his services in the same Capacity; as he has a new and entertaining Manner of playing on his own constructed Dulcimer, which he flatters himself will afford the highest Satisfaction and Delight to the Hearers… He plays Cotillions in the most approved Taste, and if desired, will provide good Music for Country Dances.

It does seem that Isaacs had something to contribute that other dulcimer players in Dublin could not. His claims in the cited newspaper clips suggest three overlapping possibilities: a “new improved Dulcimer”; a level of virtuosity that enabled him to do things “never before been attempted on that instrument”; “a new and entertaining Manner of playing on his own constructed Dulcimer.”

Since Isaacs brought it with him from England, there may be some relevance to 1767 also being the year when the pantalon arrived in that country. This was on a concert tour by Georg Noëlli, a leading exponent of the pantalon and another of Hebenstreit’s students. The following image shows a performance in the Christ’s College Hall of Cambridge University, on 8 June 1767 (detailed here).

Noëlli is seated at his pantalon, captioned as “Newell Junr.” He described the instrument’s tonal characteristics in an advertisement in the Bath Journal on 4 May 1772 (repeated a week later) for a series of daily performances accompanied by his father:

By PARTICULAR DESIRE Of Several Ladies and Gentlemen, MR. NOEL will perform in the Great Room at YORK-HOUSE, every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Mornings, Variety of New Pieces of MUSIC on that most celebrated Instrument, invented by the Great PANTALEON HAVENSTRIGHT, (which in tone resembles the Lute, Harp, and Forte Piano) with several New Compositions adapted to this Instrument, in three and four Parts, accompanied by Mr. NOEL, Senior, on the same instrument.
…
N. B. Whereas Mr. NOEL has laboured under great Difficulties here, on Account of his Instrument not being heard so well as he could within the Great Rooms, which are only calculated for great Concerts, and grand Assemblies; he has engaged a Room in York-House, which is better adapted for his instrument, than any Room he ever perform’d in; therefore he can assure the Nobility and Gentry and rely on their Judgment, whether the Instrument is not full as loud as any Chamber Organ; and humbly hopes for their farther favours and encouragement.

This description indicates that Noëlli returned to England for an extended sojourn after his 1767 concert tour (which also came to Stockholm, Sweden, where I am writing this text). Isaacs was in and out of the country during its course and, as a competing instrumentalist, may well have taken notice of the pantalon. Nevertheless, there is no way of knowing the extent to which it might have inspired his “new improved dulcimer,” if at all.

An analysis of the structural detail of Noëlli’s pantalon is impeded by the impossibly short distance from the lowest to the highest strings in the caricatured 1767 drawing, likely compressed to place him symmetrically among his colleagues. An encyclopedia article from 1794 says that he had reported his instrument to be 10 feet long and have 276 gut strings. This further indicates the artistic license taken with its portrayal in what, alas, is the sole known depiction of an unmechanized pantalon.

Isaacs’s improvement to the hammered dulcimer may simply have been its chromatic extension. Whatever relationship it may have had to the pantalon, he can have taken more than a single instrument to Dublin. If so, it would be tempting to wonder if he was engaged by the Smock Alley Theatre, despite professional dulcimer players being closer at hand, because he was able to bring a pantalon to that venue.

His career in Dublin extended through a performance the night before his demise there, in May 1791. An obituary cited in Donnelly’s article lists tunes that Isaacs frequently played. Nearly all appear in contemporaneous collections of traditional Irish dance music and many remain in the repertoire. One of them, Maggie Lauder, was performed for many years on the stage of Covent Garden in London as a showcase duet for the Irish bagpipes and a pedal harp (central to the preceding post).

I’m going to stop short of suggesting that the hammered dulcimer – which can also be plucked – might have found its place in Irish traditional music by paralleling the function of the older wire-strung harp, at what would have been a fraction of the cost or even homemade. Its suitability to that context can be assessed in a (mislabeled) recording beginning with the slow air, The Banks of Sullane.

Another track on the same album reflects the Covent Garden duo, on the Irish bagpipes and a hammered dulcimer.