New Haven Independent

Shooting more crows wasn’t necessary on Saturday afternoon as harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa lovingly played a concert of period music on this beautiful and delicate instrument.

It was the culminating event of Yale University Art Gallery’s exhibition Time Will Tell: Ethics and Choices in Conservation. Even in our high-tech era, it’s hard to imagine labor more labor intensive than fine arts conservation.

Click the play arrow to hear how the late 18th century might have sounded if you’d been invited to Marie Antoinette’s playroom.

The keyboard is the only element definitely known to be original in this instrument built by Pascal Taskin in Paris, according to curator Larry Kanter. Over time many replacement parts were added, including the show-offy base and legs of the 1920s.

Kanter said that of six paintings adorning the body of the harpsichord, only one is definitely from the period. Others were added, along with gilding, and other decoration, often by unscrupulous dealers eager to create the illusion of aristocratic and potentially high-priced provenance.

A harpsichord functions simultaneously as an instrument, a piece of furniture, and also a vehicle for display of other art work, explained Kanter. That makes restoration exceptionally complicated.

According to the gallery’s chief conservator Ian McClure (pictured with Susan Thompson of Yale’s Collection of Musical Instruments), there’s even another complication that is also ethically difficult: “The challenge of restoring objects that work is that you need to see them in action. Yet that wears them out, so what do you do? Keep them in aspic, or play [them] and keep repairing [them]?”

So what was the experience of playing like for Cienniwa? “The instrument,” he said after the concert, “is far better than I am, so I listen to it. When I play on a modern instrument, I am telling it what to do. I play it [the 1770 Taskin], and it tells me what to do.”

He said genuine original instruments helped him interpret compositions by Antoine Forqueray (which is heard in the selection), Jean-Philippe Rameau and others of the period in new ways.

Only 16 harpsichords created by Pascal Taskin survived the French Revolution. Yale’s under-appreciated Collection of Musical Instruments has four of them. The 1770 harpsichord goes home to 15 Hillhouse Avenue next week, where you can visit it. With luck, you can hear it in a future program in the collection’s concert series.