(Fr.).
A term for the alteration and extension of the disposition and range of keyboard instruments. It is most often applied to the rebuilding of instruments by the Ruckers family in the 18th century. A harpsichord with a compass of C/E–c''' might have been modified to make the compass chromatic C–d'''; this could have been carried out within the existing case width by making a new keyboard and slides and repinning the bridges. Bemetzrieder (1771) termed this ‘à ravalement’; a more extensive modification to a five-octave compass involved widening the case and was called ‘à grand ravalement’. The type of modification depended on the prevailing musical requirements in the country in which it was carried out.
See also Couchet; Ruckers; Short octave.
A. Bemetzrieder: Leçons de clavecins, et principes d’harmonie (Paris, 1771/R; Eng. trans., 1778–9)
G.G. O’Brien: Ruckers: a Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition (Cambridge, 1990), 207–17
DENZIL WRAIGHT