Wolfgang Joachim Zuckermann (11 October 1922 – 30 October 2018) was a German-born American harpsichord maker and writer. He was known for inventing a highly popular kit for constructing new instruments and wrote an influential book, The Modern Harpsichord. As a social activist, he authored books including The Mews of London and The End of the Road.
Early life Zuckermann was born in Berlin to Jewish parents in an academic family,Source: David Jacques Way's afterword to The Modern Harpsichord, cited below and was named Wolfgang after Goethe and Mozart.Zuckermann (1968) He had an elder brother, Alexander, who later became a city planner and bicycle advocate in Oakland, California,San Francisco Chronicle, obituary for Alexander Zuckermann, Aug. 12, 2007. On line at http://home.comcast.net/~zuckermann/News/SF_Chron_AZ_obituary.pdf. For "academic family", Kottick (2003:458) and a younger brother named Michael. At age eight he began studying the cello,Zuckermann (1968); the age of ten is given instead in Schott, Howard (n.d.) Zuckermann, Wolfgang Joachim. New Grove Dictionary of Music, online edition: www.oxfordmusiconline.com. an instrument he continued to play in adulthood. The male family members formed a string quartet, with Alexander playing first violin, the father second, Michael viola, and Wolfgang cello.Zuckermann also learned to play keyboard instruments and can be heard playing his own clavichord and harpsichords on the External Links below.
With the advent of the Nazis in Germany, Zuckermann's family had to flee the country; they settled in New York in 1938, where Zuckermann's father ran a leather factory.Alexander Zuckermann obituary In the same year, Zuckermann became an American citizen and henceforth went by the name "Wallace" (or, in suitable contexts, "Wally").See Zuckermann (1968), as well as , in which an acquaintance writes "When he came to the United States, he told me he changed his name from Wolfgang Joachim Zuckermann to Wallace to Americanize it. Friends further Americanized it by calling him Wally." Zuckermann later published primarily under the name Wolfgang; only his column for Harpsichord (see below) is signed Wallace. He saw front line action as a private with the U.S. ArmySource for rank: personal communication from Zuckermann to Eric Britton in 2006, used by the latter for a Wikipedia edit; and followed this by obtaining a B.A. in English and psychology (1949)Schott (1986) from Queens College, New York, winning the title of Queens College Scholar, the highest honor conferred upon graduates at that institution. He continued for a time studying psychology at the graduate level.New Grove
As harpsichord builder
Zuckermann was employed for a time as "a sort of child psychologist", an occupation he soon gave up. He later noted wryly:
I have always thought mechanical things were easier to manage than living things (like children) because your own skill or ability was the principal element you had to contend with. If "things went wrong" it wasn't in spite of the fact that you always gave your harpsichord your best (which you yourself never had), that you sent it to Sunday School and gave it riding and French lessons, and put it to bed before 11 nightly.
Following this preference, Zuckermann "went to a trade school to learn piano mechanics and tuning and soon set myself up buying, repairing and selling old pianos."The date Zuckermann abandoned child psychology appears to have been about 1951; see Edith Evans-Asbury, "Ex-psychologist and cabinetmaker spur harpsichord revival in the 'village', New York Times, 10 Sept. 1958, p. 67, who reports the change having happened seven years before. His amateur musical activities included Baroque chamber music, and the combination of his vocation and avocation soon led to an interest in harpsichords. He built his first instrument in 1955.
As a builder, Zuckermann was self-taught. He describes how he sought information: "Dropping in on Frank Hubbard in Boston (one of three American harpsichord makers) as a complete stranger, I was given a guided tour of his workshop on a Sunday morning after getting him out of bed. (I must say, he is as close to a saint as I've ever met.) The Metropolitan Museum opened its basement for me, and other collections were kind and cooperative." With this informal background Zuckermann succeeded in building his first harpsichord, which was rather similar in form to the kit instrument he started selling a number of years later.Zuckermann (1968). In 1958 the New York Times printed a picture of Zuckermann working in his shop at 55 Clarkson Street with cabinetmaker Jules Antonsen; the instrument they are working on has the characteristic "straight bentside" of the later kit instrument. See Edith Evans-Asbury, "Ex-psychologist and cabinetmaker spur harpsichord revival in the 'village', New York Times, 10 Sept. 1958, p. 67.
The time was propitious for a new maker. Musical tastes were evolving,Zuckermann told a reporter in 1958, "It is part of the basic affinity between the twentieth century – the Age of Science – and the eighteenth century, which was the Age of Reason. We feel closer to that century than to the one in between, which was too romantic for our taste." From "Ex-psychologist and cabinetmaker spur harpsichord revival in the 'village', New York Times, 10 Sept. 1958, p. 67. with a revived interest in Baroque music and historically informed performance. The newly-perfected long playing record made possible the widespread distribution of high-quality recordings of Baroque works. Moreover, there were very few makers producing harpsichords in America. Thus Zuckermann found that there was high demand for his instruments and he soon had established a new business as a harpsichord builder. By 1960, he had sold "seventy or eighty instruments".Kottick (2003:459)
By this point, Zuckermann had become frustrated by the amount of time he spent on service calls, and became concerned that maintenance would soon consume all of his available time. He conceived the idea that if his customers were to build their instruments themselves from a kit, they would then be self-sufficient with regard to maintenance. He first tested the idea on friends:
I gave a few of my friends all the raw parts necessary to make a harpsichord and some rudimentary directions. These were people who wanted an instrument but couldn't afford one, and they seized on this chance. Even the less mechanical ones were thrilled with the prospect and their sheer will to possess such an instrument made them better craftsmen than experienced cabinet makers.
Implemented commercially in 1960, the kit idea proved an extraordinary success; the "do-it-yourself" harpsichord kit, sometimes called the 'Model T' harpsichord, was sold in large quantities (over 10,000 by 1969) to institutions, professionals, and individuals around the world. Harpsichord scholar Edward Kottick writes, "Wolfgang Zuckermann never intended to become a phenomenon; he only hoped to satisfy a demand for harpsichords he himself could not accommodate. Nevertheless, his harpsichord kit spawned a unique movement whose heyday lasted for twenty years and helped fuel the instrument's revival. Some of today's finest builders got their start with a Zuckermann slantside kit."Kottick (2003:460)
Initially the wooden pieces for the case, along with some other commonly available parts, were not included, so the price was set at a most economical $150. Little by little, the Zuckermann kit became more elaborate and complete. By the mid 1960s unassembled cases consisting of carefully cut unfinished wood of various kinds could be purchased optionally. Other instrument kits were also made available, including a spinet harpsichord (1966) and a clavichord.
Production The headquarters for kit production was Zuckermann's New York workshop on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village; for a time this continued to produce completed instruments, though eventually the burden of making enough kits to fill demand led Zuckermann to abandon this part of the business.The Modern Harpsichord, p. 210 The evolved production system included some work in the shop itself, but with substantial outsourcing to larger enterprises.Outsourcing appears to have been a response to a crisis in the evolution of the firm. In 1962, HiFi/Stereo Review reported that Zuckermann was producing 260 kits per year and having trouble meeting demand. It also described him as yearning for more free time for his personal interests (e.g. chamber music) and unwilling to expand his business any further. HiFi/Stereo Review, November 1962, pp. 48-49; .
Operations at the shop are described in a memoir by the poet Eleanor Lerman, who was hired in 1970 at age 18 to work on the production line. The description slightly postdates Zuckermann's departure from the company; "Michael" is Michael Zuckermann, Wolfgang's younger brother.
At the time, Zuckermann Harpsichords ... was housed in the first floor of a small, quirky 19th century building on Charles Street. Michael not only gave me a job, he gave me a tiny apartment upstairs. The whole operation employed about five girls,Describing the workshop in 1969, Zuckermann enumerated the full workforce as ten people: himself plus "a secretary-demonstrator, a production manager, a cabinet maker and his helper, a kit supplies manager (my brother), three assemblers and a packer"; The Modern Harpsichord p. 210 who drilled pin blocks, used a table saw and a lathe, but also worked on eccentric machines that Michael had made himself out of sewing machine parts: we used those to wind wire, cut felt and velvet, and make the jacks that pluck harpsichord strings. Sometimes we ran out of parts and I was supposed to write what we needed on a blackboard. Instead ... I used the blackboard to write poems."One Writer's Life (or, Call Me, Andy)" . Lerman's experience in the shop is remembered affectionately in several of her works; see Eleanor Lerman.
Zuckermann himself observed (in his book The Modern Harpsichord) that the workforce in harpsichord shops of the time tended to consist of nontraditional workers.The Modern Harpsichord, p. 131: "an assortment of college drop-outs, Sicilian cabinet makers, semi-hippies, harpsichord "nuts" and deaf-mutes".
Among the outsourced items, the most important was the parts for the case, which had to be precision-cut, mitered, and (for the outer case), veneered. Zuckermann enlisted capable help from nearby:
Through a friend I was introduced to a giant woodworking plant [in Philadelphia], covering several city blocks, with automatic-feed circular saws, gang drills (14 drill presses coming down automatically at the same time) and gang combinations of automatic saws and drills which can cut a piece to size, miter it and drill it on several sides, all in one operation. ... The key to the quality of production work is the presence of one or two really experienced and careful shop foremen, whose task it is to set up the machines. ... In Philadelphia the shop foremen are old, European craftsmen. When they are gone, the question of succession will loom large.The Modern Harpsichord, pp. 202-203
The factory also handled the tasks of wrapping, packaging, and shipping.The Modern Harpsichord, p. 203 It turned out sets of case parts in lots of 500.Kottick (2003:462)
Keyboards, which are hard for amateurs to make, were bought from other companies. Zuckermann made it possible for kit builders to provide dark naturals and white sharps by selling (as an option) blank keyboards, to which the builder would glue appropriate coverings.Source for this paragraph: The Modern Harpsichord pp. 205-206