SØRLI Lautenwerke and Harpsichords

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KEYBOARD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Steven Sørli began his harpsichord making career as an apprentice of the famous Boston harpsichord maker, Frank Hubbard in 1971. He quickly became skilled in all facets of the craft and was especially gifted in the art of decoration. Steven set up his own workshop to design, make and adorn harpsichords individually from scratch. His construction process relies on intuition and ingenuity to ensure a serviceable and singular work of art. The sound qualities achieved by Mr. Sørli are often described as having a distinctive antique tone. Innate artistic abilities contibute to a tasteful blend of color and form that add a complimentary balance to the tonal shades. In 1982 he was awarded a craftsman's fellowship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Over 55 instruments have left his workshop and are scattered throughout the United States and abroad.

At the turn of the century, Mr. Sørli directed his energy in researching and designing the long neglected lute-harpsichord or lautenwerk. There are many words and spellings of this lute-strung instrument including lautenwerke, lautenwerck, lautenclavicymbel and theorbenflugel (theorbo-harpsichord). An example of the plural form is lautenwerke or lautenwerken. This type of instrument was originally fitted with gut strings and sounds very much like a lute or nylon-strung guitar. The response to this revival of the lautenwerck has been quite positive.

The lautenwerk models that have emerged from the Sørli shop reveal a refreshing texture of sound, action and visual beauty. Steven uses flourocarbon strings which produce a slightly brighter tone than real gut. The bass octave is fitted with copper-wound nylon to provide a deep resonant effect. The decor incorporates the natural beauty of the woods used and all the finishes are organic and non-toxic.

The action of all instruments can be custom-designed to suit your requirements, ranging from very light to a more tracker-action feel. The standard decore includes birds-eye maple keytops with carved keyfronts, walnut sharps, stained and painted case, intricate parchment or gilt cast rose, elegantly turned legs and tasteful music desk. Also included are plastic jacks (wooden optional), unique transposing system (allowing some jacks with no dampers), regulating tools and precision hygrometer. Harpsichords can be made to withstand a humidity range of 40%-90% or 10%-65%. Many standard models are available to order and the customer is encouraged to custom-order an instrument to suit their specific needs. Delivery time is now about one year for a custom-made harpsichord.

Steven has just completed an exciting new hybrid harpsichord-lautenwerck design. It is a large single manual instrument with an extended keyboard range of 66 notes (AAA-d3). It has two choirs of metal strings at 8' pitch and one lute-strung choir at 4' pitch. Reposition your hands down an octave and you instantly have two choirs at 16' pitch and one at 8'. There is an extra rank of jacks for the lute-choir voiced loudly for use as an 8' pitched lautenwerk. When playing the lute strings, both 8' choirs provide a rich sympathetic resonance. Both ranks of jacks for the lute choir can be engaged simultaneously to imitate the sound a lutenist produces when using a strong pluck. The 18th century English harpsichord builder, Shudi built a series of harpsichords with a similar wide keyboard range. His went from CC to f3. It is likely that these were made to allow the use of the 16' effect for continuo and improvisation playing.