(b Theux, nr Liège, 1723; d Paris, 1793). French harpsichord maker. It is not known when he went to Paris, but he was clearly a very senior workman in the Blanchet workshop at the death of François Etienne Blanchet (ii) in 1766. Taskin was admitted to the guild as a master the same year and, shortly thereafter, married Blanchet’s widow. His business card, often attached to his instruments, reads: ‘pascal taskin, Facteur/de Clavessins & Garde des Instruments/de Musique du Roi, Eleve & Succes-/seur de m. blanchet, demeure/Même Maison, rue de la Verrerie,/vis-à-vis la petite porte de S. Merry,/a. paris’ (he wanted it clearly known that the firm remained the same in spite of the change of name required by guild regulations). Under his responsible and creative stewardship the workshop reached its greatest prosperity. As Blanchet’s successor he assumed the title ‘facteur des clavessins du Roi’, and on Christophe Chiquelier’s retirement in 1774 he also became keeper of the king’s instruments. This later responsibility proved difficult to manage from Paris; in 1777, therefore, he set up his nephew Pascal Joseph Taskin (ii) (b Theux, 1750; d Versailles, 1829) in Versailles to administer the duties. Pascal Joseph (ii) went to Paris in 1763 to work in the Blanchet workshop and in 1777 married the daughter of François Etienne Blanchet (ii). Two brothers of Pascal Joseph (ii), Henry and Lambert, also came to work for their uncle but little else is known of them. Armand François Nicolas Blanchet, son of François Etienne Blanchet (ii), was brought up by his stepfather, Pascal Taskin, and was his chief companion in the rue de la Verrerie workshop; he was Taskin’s heir and succeeded to the shop on the latter’s death in 1793, but shortly thereafter moved to the rue de Limoges.
Pascal Taskin continued to build harpsichords and refine the designs of the later Blanchets. He was a superb and innovatory workman and his instruments were, if possible, even more carefully made than his predecessors’. In the late 1760s a system of genouillères (knee-levers) to control the stops and a register of 8' jacks fitted with soft buff leather (Peau de buffle) plectra instead of quills were added to the standard French disposition of three registers controlled by hand. Although there were other claimants, Taskin, who was credited with introducing these innovations in 1768, was chiefly responsible for standardizing and popularizing them. He also continued the Blanchet practice of rebuilding and enlarging Ruckers harpsichords, but as the supply of genuine Ruckers harpsichords suitable for rebuilding dwindled while the demand grew, he was not above making a ‘Ruckers’ using very few, if any, antique parts. Nevertheless, they were excellent instruments (for a description of them see Harpsichord, §4(i)).
From the late 1770s the Taskin workshop was increasingly occupied with the building of grand pianos and the importation of English square pianos. Although the Blanchet and Taskin pianos of the 1760s and 70s, none of which is extant, were probably modelled after those of the Silbermann family, which had a complex action of the type invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori, the surviving Taskin pianos of the late 1780s have a very simple action without escapement. In a letter written in 1786, Taskin explained his purpose of simplifying the action in order to reduce friction. His pianos are beautifully made and their actions work surprisingly well. Unlike the harpsichords, the pianos were often superbly veneered in the Louis XVI style. While piano making assumed an increasing proportion of the activities of the shop in the later years, it should be noted that Taskin’s death inventory (1793) shows as many harpsichords as pianos under construction. In 1790 he devised the Armandine, a large gut-string psaltery, resembling a harpsichord without a keyboard, for Anne-Aimée Armand (1774–1846). An example made by Taskin is in the Musée de la Musique, Paris.
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G. Choquet: Le Musée du Conservatoire national de musique: catalogue raisonné des instruments de cette collection (1875, suppl. 1884/R) 75–6
E. Closson: ‘Pascal Taskin’, SIMG, xii (1910–11), 234–67
P.J. Hardouin: ‘Harpsichord Making in Paris: 18th Century’, GSJ, x (1957), 10–29
F. Hubbard: Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making (Cambridge, MA, 1965, 2/1967)
C. Samoyault-Verlet: Les facteurs de clavecins parisiens (Paris, 1966)
G.G. O’Brien: ‘The 1764/83 Taskin Harpsichord’, Organ Yearbook, v (1974), 91–102
W.R. Dowd: ‘The Surviving Instruments of the Blanchet Workshop’, The Historical Harpsichord: a Monograph Series in Honor of Frank Hubbard, i, ed. H. Schott (Stuyvesant, NY, 1984), 17–107
J. Koster: ‘Two Early French Grand Pianos’, Early Keyboard Journal, xii (1994), 7–37
WILLIAM R. DOWD/JOHN KOSTER