Pantalon
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The pantalon (or pantaleon) was a large variation on the hammered dulcimer, invented by Pantaleon Hebenstreit in the early 18th century and briefly popular in France and Germany.
[edit] Description
The pantalon was a very large dulcimer with a double sounding board, approximately 6 ft (2 m) long, with about 200 strings of both gut and metal, some double- or triple-strung. It had no dampers, so the strings vibrated sympathetically, giving a rich resonating tone that was quite novel at the time and made a noticeable stir; the lack of dampers however also made articulation difficult.
Few instruments were constructed and none survive. Hebenstreit and his two best pupils Maximilian Hellmann and Johann Baptist Gumpenhuber were essentially the only virtuoso players of the instrument. However it was well known in French and German musical circles of the early 18th century, and Hebenstreit gained fame and fortune playing it.
Hebenstreit named the instrument after himself. Glowing reviews of its qualities appear in the writings of a number of prominent commentators of the day, such as Johann Kuhnau. The instrument died out with Hebenstreit's retirement, but the idea of allowing sympathetic resonance from undamped strings was adopted into mechanisms that would disengage the dampers in various ways on early keyboard instruments such as the clavichord, called "pantalon stops".
[edit] References
- Hanks, Sarah E. (1969). "Pantaleon's Pantalon: An 18th-Century Musical Fashion". The Musical Quarterly 55 (2): 215–227. doi:.
- Jackson, Roland (2005). "Pantaleon". Performance Practice: A Dictionary-guide for Musicians. Routledge. p. 298. ISBN 0415941393.
- Loesser, Arthur (1990). Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History. Courier Dover, pp. 25–28. ISBN 0486265439.
- Ripin, Edwin M. et al (1989). Early Keyboard Instruments. W. W. Norton & Co., pp. 166–167. ISBN 0393305155.
