Conservation/Restoration of musical instruments in France
When we talk about the musical instruments in a collection, in most cases they are exceptional, either for their aesthetics or for their history. A Stein fortepiano played by Mozart obviously does not have the same historical value as a 1970 Yamaha piano used in a conservatory, and the way in which it is perceived will also be very different.
But beyond this purely pianistic difference, there are more technical constraints for musical instruments than for any other object, and this must be taken into account. In addition to all the difficulties encountered by the curator of a general museum, there are the structural specificities inherent in musical instruments for the curator of this type of museum. String tension, all the vibrating parts of the instrument, and deformations of the material are among the issues that cannot be resolved in the same way as for an object with no internal tensions. On the other hand, the primary purpose of a musical instrument is to make its voice heard. When faced with an instrument new to the collection, the question arises: should it be preserved or restored? As we shall see, there is no right answer to this question, or rather, there are as many answers as there are instruments.
The Western notion of conservation/restoration.
Let's start by reviewing the etymology of these two concepts. Conserver is composed of the intensive prefix con and the verb servare (to save), which could be translated as “to save well” or “to save completely”, while restaurer is a direct borrowing from the Latin restaurare, meaning to remake, to rebuild...
The first question to ask is: what are we trying to achieve when we intervene on an object or a monument?
In the 19th century, there were lively debates between those who restored the structure and rebuilt it identically, and those who kept the ruin in a state of ruin. The aim of the first school (whose figurehead would be Viollet-le-Duc) was to erase defects, hide problems and reproduce what had been destroyed, using whatever techniques were at hand at the time. In other words, the aim is to erase the marks of time in order to restore an object to a state close to what we assume to be its original condition. The difficulty with this kind of thinking lies in the questioning of identity. The assumption here is that there is a kind of absolute identity to the thing, present beyond change. We would then have an object whose only viable character would be the one it acquired at the precise moment of its creation, and whose goal of intervention would therefore
be to get as close as possible to that particular moment. This approach fails to take into account the object's historicity and the modifications it may have undergone over time.
In the second case, which began to be discussed in the course of the century (notably through the philosophy of the Romantics) but really took shape at the beginning of the 20th century, the idea was rather to preserve the ruin in its ruined state. For the proponents of this ideology, their writings are often in opposition to the often clumsy monument repair campaigns of the 19th century.
"Nobody defends our cathedrals. The weight of old age weighs them down, and under the pretext of curing them, of “restoring” them, which he should only support, the architect changes their face".
Auguste Rodin in. Cathedrals of France - 1914
In 1963, Cesare Brandi published his Theory of Restoration, which laid the foundations for contemporary restoration. The material of the work becomes an integral part of it, as do any modifications made to it over time.
The key words here are: legibility and stability, reversibility and compatibility. In general terms, a restored work must be stable over time and retain its legibility; the work must not be disfigured, and its original purpose must be perfectly legible. From a more technical point of view, the products of the intervention must be stable over time, and the intervention must be legible. A trained eye must be able to recognize the modifications made by the restoration, and these must not permanently erase the information present on the object. What's more, if material is added to the object, it must be compatible with the original material and reversible, i.e. it must be possible to remove it without damaging the original integrity of the work's material.
While we have already laid the foundations for distinguishing restoration from conservation, this distinction is still very much subject to the purpose of the intervention. In one case, the aim is to penetrate the original identity of the work and, through the intervention, to recover the object as it was before it changed; in the other, change is accepted as an integral part of the work's identity, and the intervention's sole purpose is to slow down this change in order to safeguard as much of the work's historical information as possible.
The practice of conservation.
The restoration/conservation of musical instruments takes on a specificity that many other projects lack. To what extent must an instrument make its voice heard?
Here, the boundaries of the distinction expressed above are particularly blurred. If we take the example of a 19th-century piano, how far should the intervention go? Should the nature of this instrument be to play Chopin absolutely regardless of the type of intervention? Or should we accept the temporal evolution of the instrument's materials to the detriment of its voice and musicality?
The two cases are, in fact, entirely reconcilable here.
- The importance of information
Whatever path you choose, the first step remains the same: hands-off observation, precise documentation and archiving. Conservation is a global process, in which working on the material is only one part of the equation.
When an object arrives in the collection, we proceed in stages:
- Observation with the naked eye, noting as much information as possible.
- Take as many photographs as possible.
- Dismantling parts that can be removed without intervention (removing the cylinder, opening the lid, removing the mechanism, etc.). Observation, note-taking and photography.
- Analyze the various parts of the instrument and the materials using all available non-interventionist instruments (chemical analysis, black light analysis, x-rays...)
- Draw up a condition report.
These preparatory stages are crucial to the object's successful conservation. All the information concerning the work must be taken into account in the process, and all the technical means at our disposal are good to go. The technological and technical advances of recent decades have made it possible, thanks to science, to gain a new vision of the work and its materials. There are many tools available for scientific analysis, enabling us to expand the databases we have built up over time on works of art. Today, the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF) works with a particle gas pedal (AGLAE), enabling it to carry out extremely advanced analyses on the nature of the work's materials, their level of degradation or their age. In addition to these analyses, the databases of France's museums include countless photographs in visible light, ultraviolet or infrared, hyperspectral or X-ray imaging, and of course some 3D reconstructions of the works. Most of these databases can be consulted by anyone, via the French Ministry of Culture or the various institutes that create them. We could mention Narcisse for the C2RMF or Joconde for the collections of various museums in France.
Beyond the scientific tools and their use, the museum is also a place of research and documentation for researchers and the public. Taking the Musée de la Musique in Paris as an example, the complete catalog is available for consultation, as are archives and databases, as well as work files, 1/1-scale instrument plans and all recordings made on the instruments in the collection.
Coming back to the arrival of a new instrument in the collection, in the majority of cases the above-mentioned steps are the only ones that the instrument will undergo before being stored. Over the past twenty years, the policy of France's instrument museums has tended towards a minimum of intervention in the works. Thus, only instruments already in near-perfect condition
will be restored to their former glory. At the Musée de la Musique de Paris, less than 10% of the original instruments in the collections are in playable condition, and their use remains highly exceptional.
- The facsimile
However, as noted by Curt Sach in his famous 1934 article The Significance, Task and Museographic Technique of Musical Instrument Collections:
“The museum of musical instruments is open to both senses, hearing and sight.... This museum presents objects of art and technical or historical documents; and both require to be seen and heard.”
To respond to this problem and meet the demand for cultural events related to museums and music production of these institutions, the path that is preferably taken today is the facsimile.
In addition to an aesthetic and historical value, musical instruments have a musical value, a use value. The issue of getting things moving is critical in this context. By definition, an instrument, machine or any other object that has a common purpose is made up of at least one movable part used to operate the object and due to its movement, This part is necessarily subject to friction and therefore degrades faster than a fixed part. When you want to put an instrument back into operation, this issue of wear and tear is therefore paramount, especially on an instrument with a high historical value. The chosen answer to these questions today is the production of a facsimile.
The idea here is to use all available information about the instrument, precise plan, materials used, working method used at the time of making the instrument (as far as possible), type of use of the instrument (period and style of music) ... etc. in order to recreate the instrument exactly. It is essential during this work to have very precise knowledge about the object. If we take the example of the creation of a piano facsimile and more precisely its soundboard, we must ask ourselves what type of materials were used: which wood essence (spruce)? From which forest (Italian or Bavarian Alps or the Vosges)? When was the tree cut (spring, fall, moon phases)? How long was it stored before being worked? Was the table hot-mounted? What type of glue is used? At what stage should it be placed in the instrument belt? etc. These questions are of course valid for each part of the instrument: strings, box spring, belt, mechanics, hammers... etc.
It is therefore important to have knowledge not only about the object to be recreated but also about the historical, technical and technological context in which it was shaped. It is here that we realize the paramount importance of dialogue between different trades and between different sciences. The bridges connecting the different areas of scientific and technical research must be numerous and strong.
Private catering.
For this last point, we would like to draw attention to another form of work on musical instruments, the case of private catering. Here, the constraints encountered are different.
Firstly, the use of facsimiles is no longer possible; secondly, the restoration of the game condition is a necessity in the vast majority of cases and, finally, the object in question is no longer the property of the state but that of an individual. The latter has led to a greater diversity of types of interventions. Because the final decision is made by a single person and not by a community of consensus (the research community in conservation), then the restorer is in a captive sense of the choice of that person (his client). However, the freedom remains great given that in addition to being a performer, the restaurateur must also be an advisor towards his client, it is therefore up to him to propose a type of intervention. His duty is then to direct the lay client towards a restoration useful to the knowledge without this intervention harms neither the instrument nor the will of the owner. It must remain informed on the conservation/restoration theories of the moment and must concentrate its research on know-how and history. His work will be more focused on intangible heritage.
The questions to ask then are no longer, what kind of material was used? For what purpose? These questions fail the curator, but rather how was this material used? If we take a specific example of the restoration of a Pleyel grand piano from the second half of the 19th century, it is quite possible for the restorer to use on the soundboard a contemporary varnish (polyurethane or polyester type) for which we know the process perfectly, but it is however much more constructive to take a look at the recipes of varnish with colophane or copal originally used on this type of piano in order to understand its use. What is the gesture to do to varnish this table and what will be the right way to follow so that the result is both aesthetic, useful and effective? The same applies to other types of intervention. The work of the restorer is then similar to the tests carried out by experimental archaeology. It can be noted, however, that all this work loses its value if it is not documented and here we go back to the ideas developed above concerning the importance of information. In both private restoration and public conservation, information, documentation and archiving remain crucial to the advancement of knowledge in this field.
This part of the role of the restaurateur is still poorly developed in the country: there are few theoretical references, education is still almost exclusively turned to practice, without taking into account the theory and importance of documentation, and there are very few professional groupings on this subject.
Conclusion
Conservation/restoration is a matter in motion that changes over time and space, several trades meet around it, several sensitivities. As we have tried to show in this article, every researcher and craftsman can serve the cause of knowledge. We cannot incriminate the restorer for not
being a conservator, just as we cannot incriminate the conservator for not making it his priority to safeguard the intangible heritage, past know-how. But we can say that both work with the same spirit.
The state of conservation/restoration corresponds to a secular thinking with solid but changing foundations. Its evolution takes place according to the needs, the fashions of the moment and like many things, it also takes place according to the culture that creates it and therefore according to the place where it is practiced. The relationship to the identity of the thing, to what is that the object is what it is, varies. It is different for Parmenides and Heraclitus, it is not the same between a believer and an atheist and will not have the same scope if one speaks French or if one speaks Chinese.
François Jullien tells us in Les transformations silencieuses that:
“We [Westerners] have a hard time talking about continuous transitions. Is the snow that melts when falling on the ground still snow or already water? This series of impotence or difficulty in our thinking is undoubtedly a consequence of the first choices it has made, namely that it is above all a thought of being, an ontology, a thought of identity and substance. It can be contrasted with the Chinese thought which is based on transition, the polarity between opposites that coexist constantly, that is to say on the perpetual process of things.”
The question therefore arises whether there is an absolutely true way to treat this identity over time.