Job Lot: The fortepiano maker

By NICK SMITH

Paul Downie, aged 46, makes and restores historic keyboards, the fortepiano and harpsichord. Downie, a self-employed craftsman who lives in Ponsonby, does not class himself as a businessman. "It sustains my lifestyle as I want it to be and I'm quite happy about that."


How did you train to be a fortepiano-maker?

Originally I built a harpsichord for my own use. I've never been a performer in public on the harpsichord and it was only ever my intention to have an instrument for my own use, just at home. I just researched it the best I could, with books, and started making one. Having built one, I built a second and it gradually turned into a job over the many years. It didn't instantly become a fulltime occupation.


Having built one harpsichord, how did you turn it into a business?

Generally, makers of these instruments work from historic models. In the early 1980s I made my first trip to Europe to work with other makers. You go to museums to look at historic instruments generally, to get a clear idea of what the instruments are all about.

I went and worked with a musicologist in instrument restoration in Bremen, northern Germany. One of the first things we did was restore a Viennese fortepiano. From that developed a real interest in the fortepiano because it's such a different instrument compared to the modern piano. The work I do is either building new harpsichords or fortepianos or restoring them.


What is the difference bet-ween a modern piano and a fortepiano?

Any instrument built before 1880, roughly. The fortepiano has far more to do with the harpsichord sound than the modern piano. I have got to the point where I literally can't listen to that early music played on the modern piano.

It's not being elitist, it's just because the sound suits the music so much better. The modern piano has an extraordinarily rich sound, almost overpowering. You get used to the much plainer sound of the early instruments.


Do you mainly restore instr-uments or make them?

I would probably average about one new instrument a year. The rest of it is restoration work. The most common kind of work I do is refurbishment of existing harpsichords around the country, at universities but also for the private customers.

Then there is early piano restoration, but we don't have a lot of early keyboards in New Zealand because it was colonised quite late.


What work is coming up?

I have two square pianos. They look like a table. One was made in 1841 and the other in the 1770s. I will be starting those fairly shortly.


What is the attraction of making a musical instrument?

I suppose there are lots of attractions. The big goal of getting to the end of the job, being able to listen to the musical instrument and being able to play it. I work with lots of different types of wood, so the materials themselves are interesting. And just making a mechanism — on the mechanical side of the instrument one is never lost for variety. You can build instruments in a German, Italian or Flemish style.


What is the best instrument you have made?

I have recently finished building a circa-1790 Viennese forte-piano for Auckland University's music department.

That was used in its first concert in the Town Hall recently. James Tibbles, who was playing it, was happy with it. It sounds like a Viennese fortepiano, it looks like a Viennese fortepiano. I'm happy with it.