Burkat Shudi

Burkat Shudi (variants: Burkhart, Burkhardt, Schudi, Tschudi, Tshudi) (13 March 1702 – 19 August 1773) was an English harpsichord maker of Swiss origin.

He was born in Schwanden in the Canton of Glarus, and arrived in England in 1718, where he started work as a joiner.

He retired in 1771, being succeeded by his son, who was also called Burkat (c.1738–1803), following whose death the firm was taken over entirely by Broadwood, who had by then become a piano maker.

He made a great many innovations in the harpsichord: from c.1765 he introduced the machine stop, a mechanism engaged by a handstop and operated by a foot pedal which gradually reduces the registration on each manual; from c.1765 he extended the range down to CC; from c.1769 he introduced the Venetian swell: a contraption nearly identical in mechanism and purpose to the expression pedal found on the organ, operated with a foot pedal and placed above the strings.

Charles Burney preferred the tone of Shudi's harpsichords to Kirkman's and his instruments were highly valued; his customers included Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa, Joseph Haydn, Muzio Clementi, the Prince of Wales, Thomas Gainsborough, and George Frideric Handel.