Restoration of Historical Musical Instruments
Much has been debated in the last century, and continues to be debated, about the choice of criteria to follow in art restoration operations. Opinions often remain divergent in certain aspects, although some general points, such as the preliminary historical-philological investigation and material analysis, the preservation of original elements, the reversibility of interventions, and the recognizability of reintegrations, are commonly accepted.
Having overcome the belief that restoration is an operation aimed at restoring the work to its presumed original essence to preserve it as unchanged and immutable as possible, today restoration is thought of not as a fixed point to reach, a definitive stage in which to stop and preserve the work, but rather as a moment in his life. A moment which, seen in the future as a stage in its history, will have to avoid erasing traces of its past as much as possible.
Beyond these considerations, in the case of the restoration of a musical instrument, perplexities inevitably arise regarding the restoration of both its sound and mechanical functionality.
In the past, for musical instruments, conservative restoration operations were not commonly conceived, but rather repair operations, “refurbishments”, interventions aimed at modernizing, adapting the instrument to the taste of the moment, both in terms of aesthetic appearance and sound characteristics.
For example, the furniture of a piano, originally treated with an encaustic paint, was then varnished with shellac. Shellac-varnished surfaces underwent a refresh with cellulose varnishes, perhaps sprayed on, or were even scraped to replace the original varnish with a synthetic one. Not infrequently it was decided to hide beautiful slabs or veneers of exotic woods with a very bright black polyester paint, to rejuvenate the instrument and consequently increase its commercial value.
Even with regard to the mechanical apparatus, the most serious and professional maintenance criteria have always recommended the systematic elimination of elements that present wear and even the replacement of parts still in good condition with more “modern” materials.
Finding a historical piano that retains its original parts is becoming increasingly rare today.
The current trend, regarding unique historical specimens or those of utmost importance, is simply to preserve them, neglecting the possibility of restoring their functionality, in order to preserve not only the material and structural elements but also their interrelationships and to study the physical and chemical modification processes that have occurred with use and over time.
In the presence of historical musical instruments that do not reveal such characteristics of uniqueness, opinions regarding the criteria to follow for restoration diverge.
The divergences are fueled on one side by the desire to recreate at all costs those material and physical conditions necessary for achieving sound ideals, and on the other by the aim of preserving the material, albeit altered by time, in the state in which it is found, resorting to their elimination only in extreme cases, and adopting compromises only if absolutely essential for regaining the function for which the musical instrument was created.
Regarding the approach followed during the restoration of instruments for which the supervision was requested by the Masiero and Centanin Musical Foundation, the focus was more on this second purpose, also in the conviction that the so-called reversibility of operations, so mandatorily required, can sometimes erase, or at least partially, the essence of things, with the risk of alterations and loss of historical substance.
During restoration operations, the preservation of all the constituent elements of the instrument was requested, even if they belonged to interventions subsequent to its construction and produced by inexperienced hands.
In the case of replacement of irreparably deteriorated elements absolutely unable to perform their role, a natural cataloging and preservation of these unused elements was carried out. This with the purpose, in other words, of preserving as much as possible the “life time” of the object, the natural history that has settled in it, which imbues it with expressive value.
