Shudi

Shudi is the name of a family of factors of Clavecin S English credits with which the company, by heritage, became the Broadwood firm: the production was turned, at the beginning of the worms the manufacture of Piano S.

The founder, Burkat Shudi (1702-1773) was Switzerland German native of the canton of Glaris. He was called then Burckhardt Tschudi. Apprentice carpenter, it emigrated with London in 1718, worked for a factor of harpsichords named Hermann Tabel before being established on his own account, founding in England his family and to anglicize his name. He had seven children whose son, Burkat the young person, was also factor of harpsichords and a girl, Barbara, who was to marry John Broadwood.

Shudi worked in the entourage of Haendel and its associate in the mpontage of operas John Jacob Heidegger. Its instruments were sought by the fortunate amateurs of the upper middle class and the nobility (it manufactured of them five for Frederic II of Prussia, and one was played by the young person Mozart and his sister at the time of their passage to London). Other famous customers: the Prince of Wales, the Marie-Therese empress of Austria, Franz Joseph Haydn etc

It developed several technical improvements: the installation of manoeuvrable shutters to the table runner of harmony equipped the instruments with expressive possibilities, the device says “machine stop” made it possible to prepare then to change registration in an instantaneous way.

External bonds

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/ben_shudi.pdf
http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/russell/instruments/hd6bs176641/photographs.html

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