Jan Bečička & Stanislav Hűttl
Harpsichord workshop
The second harpsichord workshop to be established in the Czech Republic bears the name Jan Bečička & Stanislav Hüttl & Petr Šefl. Since its establishment at Hradec Králové in 1997 it has been building top-class copies of harpsichords. The workshop soon undertook the restoration of original historical instruments from the collections of the National Museum in Prague. Due to growing interest in its work and increasing orders, the workshop was obliged to find larger premises and in in 2008 it moved to the picturesque village of Bystřec in the Eagle Mountains. It builds instruments for leading musical institutions, music schools and foremost instrumentalists, as well as for students and beginners on the harpsichord. It regularly attends music festivals, loans instruments and provides a concert service. Foremost Czech and foreign artists have given concerts and made recordings with our instruments. The workshop is fully equipped and performs not only routine repairs but also undertakes extensive restoration projects and the reconstruction of all types of keyboard string instruments, including rare historical originals (see chapter on restoration).
In August 2020 Jan Bečička and Stanislav Hüttl terminated the cooperation with Mr. Petr Šefl and they continue as a harpsichord workshop Jan Bečička & Stanislav Hüttl.
Jan Bečička /1974/
In the period 1989 -1993 he studied piano building at the piano firm of Petrof as part of a music instruments vocational course, gaining an indenture as piano builder and a certificate of secondary education. In 1993 he entered the School of Applied Arts in Prague to study wood moulding and carving. He completed that course in 1997, when part of his final exam was building a replica of a pentagonal spinet, inspired by a Domenicus Pisaurencis instrument (Venice 1540), which he built in association with his colleague Stanislav Hüttl. During his studies, in the period 1993-1996, he worked in the workshop of František Vyhnálek, where he helped build harpsichords and restore historical instruments.
His first restoration project of significance was in 1997, when he restored a Conrad Graf hammerklavier of cca 1820, for the Kozel chateau in Western Bohemia administered by the National Heritage Institute in Plzeň.
In 1997 he started a restoration course at the Higher Applied Arts Vocational School in Prague. Unfortunately the course did not live up to his expectations, so in 1998 he accepted an offer from the Czech Museum of Music of the National Museum and interrupted his studies in order to devote himself full time to restoring historical instruments being prepared for the „300 Years with the Piano“ exhibition held under UNESCO auspices in 1999. In 1999 went to „seek his fortune“ in Trendelburg, Germany, where he took a specialist course with the outstanding German harpsichord maker Jürgen Ammer. Another important challenge for him was work on salvaging instruments from the collection of the Czech Museum of Music of the National Museum, which were damaged during the disastrous floods of August 2002, and he took a major part in their restoration.
Since 2007 Bečička has been a member of the Board of Experts for musical instruments at the Czech Museum of Music and holder of a licence from the Czech Ministry of Culture for cultural heritage restoration, specialising in the restoration of keyboard string instruments.
Stanislav Hűttl /1975/
In the period 1989 -1993 he studied piano building at the piano firm of Petrof as part of a music instruments vocational course, gaining an indenture as piano builder and a certificate of secondary education. In 1993 he entered the School of Applied Arts in Prague to study wood moulding and carving. He completed that course in 1997, when part of his final exam was building a replica of a pentagonal spinet, inspired by a Domenicus Pisaurencis instrument (Venice 1540), which he built in association with his colleague Jan Bečička. During his studies, in the period 1993-1996, he worked in the workshop of František Vyhnálek, where he helped build harpsichords and restore historical instruments.
In 1997, he worked with his colleague Jan Bečička on the restoration of a Conrad Graf hammerklavier of cca 1820, for the Kozel chateau in Western Bohemia administered by the National Heritage Institute in Plzeň. In that year the two joined forces in a workshop to build copies of harpsichords and restore keyboard instruments.
In 1997 he started a restoration course at the Higher Applied Arts Vocational School in Prague. He interrupted that course in 1998 to accept an offer from the Czech Museum of Music of the National Museum and started to work full time on restoring historical instruments for the exhibition „300 Years with the Piano“. In 1999 he and his colleague went to „seek their fortune“ in Trendelburg, Germany, where he attended a specialist course with the outstanding German harpsichord maker Jürgen Ammer. He and Jan Bečička also started to work on salvaging instruments from the collection of the Czech Museum of Music of the National Museum, which were damaged during the disastrous floods of August 2002.
He is holder of a licence from the Czech Ministry of Culture for cultural heritage restoration, specialising in the restoration of keyboard string instruments.