Mietke

The instrument Johan Hofmann plays was made especially for him by Bruce Kennedy in 1994. Is is modelled on a original by Michael Mietke that still remains in the city it was built in, Berlin.

In 1719, J.S.Bach personally collected a two-manual harpsichord by Mietke that was commisioned by the ruler of Köthen in whose employ Bach was at the time. Many important works by Bach were composed at that very moment, like the first part of the Wohltemperiertes Clavier and the reworking of the 5th Brandenburg Concert (because he was inpired by the new harpsichord?). In Berlin, the original was almost for sure played on at a regular basis by Bach's well-known son Carl Philipp Emanuel, who was in the service of the court for many years .

Allthough many characteristics of this particular kind of instrument reminds us of italian harpsichord building traditions, in his own time Mietke actually was accused of forging his own instruments to look and sound like french ones. Presumably the rather short scale, fitting for a brass-scale through-out the compass, and the double bentside, at that time and age in the northern part of Germany were being looked upon as typically french. Which is not that remarkable if one knows that it is exactly these italianate characteristics in french instruments of the seventeenth century that are to found on originals by Gilbert des Ruisseaux and Nicolas Dufour, amongst others.

My instrument, built by one of the foremost builders of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, sounds magnificent in german and french music alike. Combining a clarity of speech and an evenness in character throughout the compass, and a big sonority that is particularly attractive in polyphonic structures as well as in a declamatory-style of composition, it furthermore blends in excellently with other instruments.

In 2011, it was overhauled by Matthias Griewisch, who (a.o.) put on a new stringing at a'=392Hz, thereby creating a even darker and 'chique' sound.