Hear a Luthéal

[Enthalpy]

The luthéal  is a less common instrument... A historical one is in Brussel's Musée des Instruments de Musique, one built more recently is in Paris' Musée Instrumental, one was built for Daniel Hope, and apparently that's all.

George Cloeten patented it in 1919 as extra hardware on a piano to change the timbre at will, plus controls available to te pianist.
wikipedia

And there are records of this instrument, even recently :
mim.be
GuiPX6BVSkg on Youtube at 9:39 (the piece starts at 05:33)

Two (2) known pieces were written for the luthéal, both by Maurice Ravel, but are commonly played on a normal piano: L'enfant et les sortilèges, and Tzigane.

I had always felt that the piano's entrance at the fourth minute of Tzigane was to imitate a cymbalum and, in a symphonic orchestra, would better be played on a cymbalum. It's clear now that Ravel wanted a luthéal to imitate a cymbalum. In my opinion, where no cymbalum is available, or isn't loud enough, one or two percussionists would better play the score on the strings of a grand piano using wooden mallets. The mallet heads must be tall enough to reach the strings below the frame, and some visual marks would help.

Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy

[SunnySideEgg]

I have no idea about 99% of what you wrote down, but it was all very informative and interesting. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. 

[Enthalpy]

I appreciate your feedback!

Well, the useful part isn't my waffle, it's the hearing samples, anyway.

[Enthalpy]

The line at fourth minute of Tzigane would obviously be played on a cymbalum in a gypsy orchestra and is clearly meant to imitate one. Ravel's orchestral score gives it to a harp, I suppose because the cymbalum plays too faintly and is too rare, hence my proposal to play Tzigane with hammers on a grand piano, illustration:

As usual, the percussionists shall experiment with mallet materials and mass. The cymbalum mallets are rather hard, and the piano strings need heavier ones. Two musicians access all strings from both sides of the grand piano with removed lid... at least on my sketch.

Things look less easy on a real instrument. Here a Vienna model, picture gratefully pinched at Bösendorfer's website:

The bass strings pass over others which are barely accessible. Where the piano's hammers strike, near the dampers, the strings are clear, but so near to the end the sound there may be dryer than the original. Some older pianos gave a better access, here a Pleyel with crossed strings, and parallel strings would be best, a Pleyel too:

 

A recent grand piano with parallel strings exists at Chris Maene, possible option
chrismaene.be

========== Alternative

The complete action (from keys to hammers) of a grand piano is easily removed and replaced. An additional piano action could be prepared to imitate the cymbalum sound with much harder hammer heads. That makes an agile and loud instrument that plays the score easily. The additional action can belong to several orchestras or to a piano manufacturer.

This applies to the violin and piano version too if two pianos are available.

Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy

[Enthalpy]

As deduced from pictures of pianos and cimbaloms, this isn't very accurate... Piano strings propagate the sound 1.3* faster than air but cimbalom strings 0.7*, for those that not limited by the instrument's size and are not overspun.

This must contribute to the typical cimbalom sound that lisps a bit. Wider instruments and strings more stressed would have a clearer voice, but would they be accepted as authentic cimbaloms? They would also be harder to move and demand a stronger frame.

While a piano played with mallets resembles a cimbalom, its voice is a bit neater. So a grand piano may better imitate a cimbalom for Tzigane by detuning it a lot, up to an octave lower. This applies both if played with mallets or with harder hammer heads on the piano action.

Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy

[Enthalpy]

From fresh pixel counting on grand pianos pictures, their treble and medium strings propagate the sound 1.2* as fast as air. The factor drops smoothly at the bass, which are spun with copper as soon as the factor is 1.

Hungarian style grand cimbaloms have some strings long as 1.2* air half-waves, for few notes even 1.35*, but this drops to 0.83* at some plain steel strings, and to meagre 0.37* at the lowest spun strings. The puzzling arrangement of the strings gives very different string lengths to neighbour notes, jumping from 0.83 to 1.35 and back within semitones.

So if the factor 0.83 contributes to the sound of some cimbalom notes, an imitating grand piano could be lowered by 6 semitones from 1.2. Or by 7, a fifth, for easier transposition.

The cimbalom has also 3 or 4 strings per note except the lowest ones. At a piano, their tunes must match exactly to sound good. At a cimbalom, which has usually a wooden frame and produces from most strands several notes separated by bridges, the perfect match must be rare and brief. Unmatched tunes in strands may contribute to the cimbalom sound with its typical lisp. The prepared grand piano can imitate this easily.

And of course, use special hard hammer heads or mallets.

Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy