Baroque in Boston: The 13th Biennial Early Music Festival

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

“Feast of the Gods,” the 282-page program book of the Boston Early Music Festival listed a bountiful smorgasbord of musical offerings from which each visitor to this biennial early music extravaganza could construct an individual menu. Stellar offerings at prime afternoon, evening, and late evening times carried the cachet (and financing) of the Festival proper; ancillary events, sponsored (but not paid for) by the BEMF organization, included a plethora of “fringe” concerts (I counted a total of 79 this year) as well as the displays comprising the exhibition, where much of the business of early music is conducted.
Inexpensive housing was available once again at the spartan, but convenient, “Little Building,” an Emerson College dormitory, ideally located on Boylston Street at Tremont, across from the Boston Common. The Cutler Majestic Theatre, home to BEMF opera productions, is just around the corner; the Radisson Hotel, site of the exhibition, only several blocks away. A congenial group of players and visitors met and conversed each morning at the bountiful breakfasts, included with the modest room charge.
“Fringe” concerts are often good indicators of the quality of early music performance around the country: a few of the groups selected from venues far distant from Boston were the Chicago-based Trio Settecento, with harpsichordist David Schrader; Colorado soloists from the Chamber Orchestra based in Denver, with harpsichordist Frank Nowell; and two groups from Texas: the University of North Texas Baroque Orchestra and Singers (Lyle Nordstrom, director), who presented two programs, and Fort Worth-based Texas Camerata, with rising (Lone-) star soprano Ava Pine, drew another capacity audience to its program at Emmanuel Church’s intimate, but resonant, neo-Gothic Lindsey Chapel, the site of many festival events.
After the Camerata performance on Wednesday afternoon I was eager to sample some music produced by others, starting with my first-ever attendance at a BEMF late-night program, German keyboardist Alexander Weimann’s “Apollonian” themed concert at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. A technically difficult banality by the singularly named composer, “Tubel [London, 1789],” featured fast cross-hand passages at the harpsichord. Pachelbel’s Aria Sebaldina (Nürnberg, 1699), on a chamber organ, was played so percussively that the chiffy Gedeckt stop sounded more glockenspiel than flute. Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, in Weimann’s transcription for fortepiano, was an amazing tour de force of notes, but left one thankful for the composer’s orchestration. While lyric passages worked beautifully on Paul McNulty’s splendid Anton Walter-styled fortepiano, fast and full episodes were amazing, but unsatisfying.
A short Thursday morning walk to the north end of the Common, past Freedom Trail Revolutionary-period costumed guides and their clients, led to the Paulist Center where clavichordist Judith Conrad played an hour of Music for the Holy Grail by Juan Bautista Cabanilles on a triple-fretted clavichord by Andreas Hermert (Berlin, 2003) after an instrument by Georg Woytzig (1689). The concert, a benefit for the Iraq Family Relief Fund, gave one the opportunity to acquire a “Clavichordists for World Peace” tee shirt. Who could resist? Ms. Conrad’s informal presentation of the Spanish master’s learned counterpoint, intermingled with kinetic dances appropriate to the Valencian ecclesiastical rubric for Corpus Christi celebrations (“twelve dances on the altar” required) delighted her capacity audience of 30 in the intimate third-floor library.
An overflow audience greeted Long Island’s Stony Brook Baroque Players in the Radisson exhibition room of The Harpsichord Clearing House. Arthur Haas’s student ensemble was this year’s winner of Early Music America’s grant for bringing a student early music ensemble to BEMF. In a program based on the Follia, 19 players showed their prowess in a variety of pieces by Uccellini, Marco da Gagliano, Dario Castello, Falconieri, Merula, and Locatelli. Mezzo-soprano Christine Free captured the text-driven moods and poignant heartbreak of Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna. Nine players sizzled in Vivaldi’s Follia Variations (Sonata XII, RV 63), with fine continuo support from harpsichordist Tami Morse and baroque guitarist Jim Smith.
The superb BEMF Orchestra, out of the pit and on stage, played Thursday’s 8 o’clock sell-out concert in Jordan Hall. Presenting orchestral music from the operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau and a complete performance of The Judgment of Paris, a pastoral by John Eccles, the best baroque band in the land displayed its musical precision and exquisitely fine tuning. Under the leadership of festival co-directors Steven Stubbs and Paul O’Dette (playing baroque guitars and theorbos) and concert master Robert Mealey, the group didn’t miss a musical nuance. The ecstatic audience insisted on an encore, a reprise of the Tambourins from Rameau’s Dardanus.
The same orchestra starred in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s 1678 opera Psyché, receiving its North American premiere performances. Strong keyboard continuo realizations by Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord) and Peter Sykes (harpsichord and organ), with the plucked strings of O’Dette and Stubbs, stellar strings and woodwinds, and most inventive percussion playing, including the “human” wind machine (a whistle) manipulated by Marie-Ange Petit anchored a spectacular production. Memorable stage moments, many accomplished by “deus ex machina” arrivals and departures, proved remarkably modern in concept (the solo singers wore seat belts as they were flown from or to the fly space above the stage). The sudden appearance of an adult L’Amour (replacing the young Cupid), through a double mirror, elicited a collective gasp, as did the evocative red lighting of the scenic underworld.
So many motives in Thomas Corneille’s opera libretto seemed to foreshadow works to come: the forbidden questioning of a lover’s name and a swan boat exit (Lohengrin); constructing a suitable palace for the gods (Rheingold); a vengeful queen raging in coloratura (The Magic Flute); or a required trip to Hades to rescue the beloved (Orfeo): even though hearing this work for the first time, one felt quite at home in operatic territory. A unit set served the action well: high hedge-ringed garden, fronted by a wrought-iron fence and ornate gates. The eight folding panels were opened and shut as needed by four footmen. Baroque gesture, appropriate choreography, vibrant costumes: I heard more than one listener remark that the “Festival had got this one absolutely right.”
Karina Gauvin stormed her way through the vocal histrionics of the jealous Venus. Carolyn Sampson was a sweet and vocally secure Psyché. Boy soprano Frederick Metzger negotiated the part of young Cupid with aplomb. Three black-clad Furies (Zachary Wilder, Jason McStoots, and Olivier Laquerre), in black wide-bustled gowns à la Mary Todd Lincoln, were appropriately demonic.
Earlier on Friday the organ took center stage in an all-day mini-festival, The Organ as a Mirror of Cultural Change. The morning sessions, at historic Old West Church, celebrated the 1971 C. B. Fisk organ (with its handsome Appleton case), in music of France at the time of Lully, with compositions by d’Anglebert, de Grigny, Chaumont, Dandrieu, Corrette, and both Louis and François Couperin. Two Lully overtures (transcribed from the operas Bellerophon and Cadmus) celebrated BEMF’s poster composer. The stylish players were Jan Willem Jansen and William Porter.
The afternoon sessions, Signor Buxtehudo and Monsieur Böhm, were held at First Lutheran Church, where the 2000 Richards, Fowkes & Co. organ, in a slightly more resonant space, served well in compositions by Dieterich Buxtehude and Georg Böhm, intersected by Kerala J. Snyder’s illuminating talk “What’s New in Buxtehude Scholarship?” Dr. Snyder relayed the good news that the post-1685 account books of St. Mary’s Church (Lübeck), previously missing, are now returned to Buxtehude’s city (after war wanderings), thus allowing more detailed study of expenses for such things as organ tuning and possible changes of keyboard temperament. Several new fragments of Buxtehude works, and even rediscovered compositions, have come to light, and she has had second thoughts on the possible identification of Buxtehude in the 1674 Hamburg painting by Johannes Voorhout, frontispiece to her important study Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck (New York: Schirmer Books, 1987)—all reasons enough to offer a revised, expanded edition (2007), now available from University of Rochester Press <www.urpress.com&gt;.
The organ mini-festival programs were dedicated, fittingly enough, to the memory of Daniel Pinkham (1923–2006), Boston musician extraordinaire, who was memorialized in a program book tribute by BEMF board member, organist Lee Ridgway. Tribute was paid also to harpsichordist and author Howard Schott (1923–2005) in graceful words from Paul Cienniwa.
On the instrument front there was much excitement generated by a new double-manual harpsichord built by Zuckermann Harpsichords International, based on the 1642 Hans Moermans, formerly in the collection of the late Rodger Mirrey (London), now in the Russell Collection (Edinburgh). The design, to drawings by R. P. Hale with Peter Watchorn’s input and musical finishing, provides a replica of an instrument that may be the earliest expressive double harpsichord to survive. (For more complete information, see
<http://zhi.net/instr/moermans.shtml&gt;.)
The Harpsichord Clearing House (Glenn Guittari and Howard Wagner) showed a variety of instruments in their spacious quarters at the Radisson (the Dartmouth Room), where daily concerts also took place. Eagerly anticipated (at least by some of us) is the outcome of the bidding for HCH’s desirable antique offering, a 1907 Dolmetsch-Chickering clavichord, held for sale at this year’s festival. Bids were to begin at $25,000.
On a warming, sunny Saturday morning a leisurely stroll to the Goethe Center put me there too late to hear the program: Handel’s Opera—His immortal songs without words, and some other pieces by his musicians—comprising 18th-century arrangements of popular Handel overtures and arias for recorders and harpsichord. It was a cleverly-contrived playlist, and the performers, “Musical Playground,” Martina Bley (recorders) and Jörg Jacobi (harpsichord), otherwise were to be seen at the Exhibition as purveyors of their early music publications from “edition baroque” (Bremen).
Too soon it was time to head for Logan Airport, where takeoff was delayed until there was some hope of landing in stormy Dallas. Waiting, however, gave time to reflect on Boston’s unique contributions to the world of early music, and to realize again that it is the place to be during festival week in June of odd-numbered years.

Larry Palmer, Harpsichord Contributing Editor of The Diapason, is the current President of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society.

Musical research came to vibrant life in a Friday evening interactive program presented by the Southeastern and Midwestern Historical Keyboard Societies at Stetson University’s Elizabeth Hall. Michigan instrument maker David Sutherland (Ann Arbor) introduced his just-completed fortepiano based on a design by Giovanni Ferrini, an associate and successor to piano inventor Cristofori of Florence. Small details from the Dresden pianos of Gottfried Silbermann indicate an acquaintance with Ferrini’s Florentine piano. Sutherland proposes that instruments of this particular style may have provided the pianos that ultimately gained the approval of J. S. Bach: thus, the genesis of the idea for including early piano in the group of keyboard instruments suitable for Bach’s ensemble music.

Enid Sutherland played the opening of Bach’s Sonata in G for viola da gamba and obbligato keyboard instrument, partnered successively by three possible period instruments: a large Germanic harpsichord after Gräbner (built by John Phillips, played by Wayne Foster); a lautenwerk (by Willard Martin, played by Charlotte Mattax); and the Sutherland-Ferrini piano (played by Gregory Crowell). With each the music worked in subtly differing ways. The harpsichord was loudest; the lautenwerk offered a complementary gut-strung sonority; the piano provided increased possibilities for dynamic gradation. Each was suitable and viable. No absolute favorite emerged, but an intriguing possibility was illustrated and, perhaps, provided some explanation for the many parallel triads and thick repeated chords found in the written-out keyboard parts of certain slow movements in Bach’s accompanied instrumental sonatas.

Another opportunity to hear how effective the early piano could be in solo works of Bach came on Saturday afternoon when the ever-illuminating pianist Andrew Willis (Greensboro, NC) played a mesmerizing program comprising Prelude and Fugue in F (WTC II), Partita in A minor, and the first Contrapunctus from The Art of Fugue. Reminding listeners just how different a modern Steinway piano is from its ancestors, the following program, presented by Marcellene Hawk-Mayhall (Youngstown, OH), featured compositions based on the B-A-C-H motive [B=B-flat, H=B-natural in German musical notation]. Beginning where Willis had ended, Mayhall played the unfinished Contrapunctus 14 from The Art of Fugue on the fortepiano, continuing on the modern piano with unfamiliar works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Roussel, Casella, Poulenc, Malipiero, Honegger, and Liszt (the composer’s piano version of his Prelude and Fugue on BACH).

The same Liszt work, in its more familiar organ version, served as brilliant conclusion to the meeting’s opening concert, played by Stetson University organist Boyd Jones. Opening with works by Buxtehude and Hindemith (the BACH-related Sonate II), Jones offered Bach’s ornamented chorale prelude Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr and the “Dorian” Toccata and Fugue--all selected to limn both the theme of the conference and to showcase Stetson’s historic von Beckerath pipe organ, one of the first large new mechanical-action instruments in America, installed in 1961 on the initiative of [now] emeritus professor of organ Paul Jenkins, and recently spruced up with a handsome new case designed by architect Charles Nazarian, as well as a refurbished action and new console.

A wide range of paper topics kept the interest level high during well-paced daily sessions. Joyce Lindorff (Philadelphia, PA) reported on her recent discoveries of baroque keyboard instruments and music in China during the 17th and 18th centuries, concluding with the reading of a just-translated Vatican Archive letter from missionary/composer Theodorico Pedrini (died 1746)! Ed Kottick (Iowa City, IA) outlined the current state of knowledge about Bach’s harpsichords (“none”) but detailed 18th-century German instruments possibly familiar to the great composer. Two perfectly-timed discussions of possible Bach organ registrations engaged Gregory Crowell (Grand Rapids, MI): “Crazy for France: French Influences on Bach”; and Elaine Dykstra (Austin, TX): “The Range of Possible Organ Registrations in Bach”--each lecturer urging further investigation into the registrational practices of Bach’s contemporaries as a route to a richer palette of tonal possibilities. Sarah Martin (Atlanta, GA) gave an overview of Bach’s number symbolism in his Clavierübung, Part III.

Lee Lovallo (Sacramento, CA) surveyed a broad swath of Sicily’s history in documenting several surviving organs there. David Chung (Hong Kong) gave a thorough comparison of two versions of Bach’s Toccata in D Major, BWV 912, and played the later version stunningly. Midway on Saturday afternoon Larry Palmer (Dallas, TX) spoke on the deeply felt Bach-related art works created by Miami artist Elena Presser. Interspersed among these verbal and visual presentations were short programs of music. Elaine Funaro (Durham, NC) showcased “20th-Century Inventions for Harpsichord” (by composers Stephen Yates, Ruth Schonthal, Miklos Maros, Alexei Haieff, Virgil Thomson, and Béla Bartók). Judith Conrad (Abington, MA) led the group through multiple treatments of the Phrygian cadence in her clavichord recital “What should we, poor sinners, do?”--works by Scheidt, Pachelbel and Bach’s Partite BWV 770 on the eponymous chorale. Dana Ragsdale (Hattiesburg, MS) was joined by baroque violinist Stephen Redfield in a brilliant program of concerted works by Biber, Muffat, and Schmelzer, plus an alternative reading of Bach’s Sonata in G, BWV 1019, in which the solo harpsichord Corrente from Partita VI replaced the unique solo movement usually heard in this often-revised sonata.

Young Israeli-born Michael Tsalka (Philadelphia, PA) played three of Bach’s concerto transcriptions from original works of Telemann and Vivaldi in an engaging early-morning harpsichord program. Charlotte Mattax demonstrated Bach’s affection for the lautenwerk by programming his Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998, Suite in E minor, BWV 996, and concluded with her thrilling traversal of the masterful Sonata in D minor, BWV 964. SEHKS founding president George Lucktenberg (Waleska, GA) demonstrated just how effectively a triangular spinet and Bach’s Little Preludes might serve as basic teaching tools for young players. Max Yount (Beloit, WI) beguiled the group with his expressive playing of music by three Bs: Bach and Böhm on the Beckerath organ.

In addition to the instruments already mentioned, harpsichords by Richard Kingston, Douglas Maple, and Robert Greenberg (brought to the meeting by Carl Fudge) were available for playing and viewing by the 80 attendees.

Stetson alumnus S. Wayne Foster, playing with rhythmic drive and musical verve, gave the closing recital on Saturday evening. Continuing the theme of varying keyboards in his program, Foster began with two organ works by Buxtehude (assisted by Boyd Jones playing the pedal lines on the extended-range manual) using the magnificent nine-foot Phillips harpsichord, on loan for the conference from Foster’s church, First (Scots) Presbyterian, in Charleston, SC. For the remainder of the well-crafted program he played Bach: two organ works, Concerto in A minor (after Vivaldi) and Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544 on the harpsichord; and the (harpsichord) Toccata in D minor, BWV 913 on the organ, offering, in this lengthy work, sufficient color changes to make palatable the hyperbolic sequential writing favored by the young composer. Fine readings of the (organ) Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, and the (harpsichord) Ouverture in the French Style, BWV 831 on their composer-stipulated instruments completed the evening’s elegant music making.

Stetson University provided gracious staff assistance, beautiful, venerable venues for lectures and concerts, and rooms, both accessible and pleasant, for dining and receptions. Given that this conference was organized from scratch in less than a year’s time it was a remarkably cohesive and successful one. The meeting occurred earlier than usual because the following week was “Bike Week,” a huge rally of thousands of Harley-Davidson riders who take over the entire area surrounding Florida’s Daytona Beach. SEHKS and MHKS programs included several extra-musical sounds on Saturday as engines were revved up for the weekend! Harpsichordist/author Frances Bedford quipped that the conference should have been called “The Two-Wheel Inventions!” Not a bad idea, but the broader Bach theme allowed recent scholarship to be shared, friendships and professional relationships to be buttressed once again, the business of the societies to be accomplished, and, most importantly, great music to be experienced and enjoyed together.

For further information on the Ferrini piano, see David Sutherland’s “Silbermann, Bach, and the Florentine Piano” in the most recent volume (21) of Early Keyboard Journal, published by SEHKS and MHKS [available from Oliver Finney, Journal Business Manager, 1704 E. 975 Road, Lawrence, KS 66049-9157; [email protected]]. 

Joyce Lindorff’s article “Missionaries, Keyboards and Musical Exchange in the Ming and Qing Courts” was published in Early Music XXXII/3, August 2004, pp. 403-414.

Vermillion, South Dakota

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor for The Diapason.

In an historic first for the United States, three regional
early keyboard societies (Southeastern, Midwestern, and Western) met for a
joint conference ("Four Centuries of Great Keyboard Instruments: What
They Tell Us") at the National Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota,
May 16-19. Gratifying as it was to participate in this possible first
step toward a national organization, the main attraction of the Vermillion
gathering was the Museum and its superb collection of historic musical
instruments.

150 registrants overfilled the concert venue named for
Museum founder Arne Larson, and the group often spilled from the tearoom into
hallways for breakfast and coffee breaks. Still, the capable and welcoming
staff were able to overcame most difficulties and make all feel
welcome--sometimes rather warmly so! From an elegant buffet reception at
the home of University of South Dakota President Jim Abbott to the closing
party at program co-chair John Koster's rural retreat, physical hungers
and thirsts of the crowd were well served. All other meals, included in the
modest registration fee, were taken together in the University's Coyote
Student Center. Communal dining, a feature of previous gatherings in
Vermillion, was an appreciated convenience in this small Midwestern college
town.

A recital capped each jam-packed day. Two of these proved to
be especially fortuitous partnerships between artist and instrument. Closing
the conference, Andrew Willis played his aptly-chosen program on an
early-19th-century Viennese piano by Anton Martin Thÿm. For the first half
he chose works by Moscheles, Field, Hummel, and the rarely-performed Sonata
in E minor, opus 70 of Carl Maria von
Weber. Following intermission Willis gave transcendent performances of
Schubert's Moments Musicaux
(the fifth, in F minor, will never sound right again without the piano's
Turkish percussion effects) and Beethoven's E Major Sonata
style='font-style:normal'>, opus 109, perhaps the musical highpoint of the
conference. Among several visiting European artists, Miklós
Spányi stood out for his effortless musicality and consistently
interesting playing in a program of sonatas by Johann Eckard, C. P. E. Bach,
and Joseph Haydn, performed on the colorful Spath & Schmahl 1784
Tangentenflügel (using the correct spelling of Spath, without its
ubiquitous umlaut, as discussed by Michael Latcham in an illuminating lecture
on this instrument and its maker).

A concert by Tilman Skowroneck (earnest performances of
works by Louis and François Couperin and Rameau) introduced the resonant
1785 Jacques Germain harpsichord. Luisa Morales gave straightforward readings
of Iberian sonatas, allowing only two of them to be heard on the wiry and
virile José Calisto Portuguese harpsichord of 1780, and playing far too
many more on a beefy 1798 Joseph Kirckman double harpsichord, utilizing the
kaleidoscopic possibilities for registrations available on this instrument.
Morales was joined by Spanish folk dancer Cristóbal Salvador for her two
concluding Scarlatti sonatas, after which Salvador led a post-concert dance
class for those brave enough to participate.

The conference schedule listed an additional (and
overwhelming) 32 lectures or short performances! This attendee, for one, found
it impossible to attend all of them, especially those given late in the afternoons.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Some memorable programs included: 

* A deeply moving clavichord recital of Bach preludes
and fugues, played by wounded warrior Harvey Hinshaw, who had tripped while
loading his instrument late at night for the trip to Vermillion. Fortunately
neither Harvey nor his fine Lyndon Taylor clavichord sustained permanent
damage, although each showed bruises from the unfortunate altercation.

* Carol lei Breckenridge's Mozart played on two
clavichords from the Museum's collection: a 1770 Swedish instrument and
an 1804 Johann Paul Kraemer & Sons, built in Göttingen.

Three consecutive Sunday afternoon programs dealt with
repertoire from the now-historic 20th century, as well as some new works of the
fledgling 21st:

* Larry Palmer spoke about Herbert Howells' Lambert's
Clavichord, the first published clavichord music of the revival period.
Recorded examples played on clavichord, harpsichord, and piano served as
illustrations. Inferior sound equipment forced an impromptu performance of the
first clavichord example on the Wolf harpsichord.

* Attractively garbed in gold happy coat,
Berkeley-based Sheli Nan presented some of her own harpsichord compositions,
complete with video camera to record her every gesture.

* Calvert Johnson, with understated virtuosity, presented
a superb concert of harpsichord music by Japanese women composers Makiko
Asaoka, Karen Tanaka, and Asako Hirabayashi (now there is a focused
specialization!) on the Museum's 1994 Thomas & Barbara Wolf
harpsichord, an instrument tonally modeled on the Germain instrument, but
tastefully decorated in sober black and red with gold bands, rather than the
18th-century instrument's unfortunate color scheme of raspberry pink and
ultramarine, with a gratuitous 20th-century "French bordello" lid
painting

The original Germain, an exceptionally fine-sounding
instrument, was the most utilized harpsichord of the conference. It was heard
in programs played by Elaine Thornburgh, Paul Boehnke, Nancy Metzger, Nanette
Lunde, and Jillon Stoppels Dupree, who proved to be a passionate advocate for
the far too little-known music of Belgian composer Joseph-Hector Fiocco.

A smaller gem, the Museum's recently-acquired Johann
Heinrich Silbermann spinet (Strasbourg, 1785) was heard in performances by Paul
Boehnke and Asako Hirabayashi.

The "home team" of faculty members from the
University of South Dakota made major contributions:

* Piano professor (and program co-chair) Susanne Skyrm
played appropriate music on the soft, clavichord-like piano by Manuel
Antunes  (Lisbon, 1767) as well as
a much-appreciated traversal ("from the sublime to the ridiculous,"
she noted) of music by Beethoven (three Bagatelles
style='font-style:normal'>), Vorisek, and Herz. This program concluded with the
bellicose Siege of Tripoli: An Historical Naval Sonata
style='font-style:normal'> by Benjamin Carr, for which Professor Skyrm employed
all the "Drums, Bells, and Whistles" available on the Thÿm
piano. Her partner in hilarity was handkerchief-waving narrator, Dr. Matthew
Hardon.

* Organ professor Larry Schou demonstrated the fine
six-stop organ by Christian Dieffenbach (Pennsylvania, 1808) as well as the
1786 Josef Loosser house organ from the Toggenburg Valley of Switzerland.

Virtuoso lectures included:

* Peggy Baird's slide presentation showing
keyboards in a wide variety of paintings ("Music for the Eye and Art for
the Ear"), delivered with her usual irrepressible wit.

* Ed Kottick's informative and entertaining
"Tales of the Master Builders," amusing vignettes from his
just-published book A History of the Harpsichord (Indiana University Press).
Hermann [Pohl] the Hapless, indeed!

* Sandra Soderlund's well-organized, informative
talk on Muzio Clementi, enriched by musical examples played on a square piano
by John Broadwood, London, circa 1829.

San Francisco's Laurette Goldberg invented some
Goldberg Variants on harpsichord history in an amazing after-dinner ramble
following a memorable vegetable, chicken, or beef Wellington banquet on Monday
evening.

Throughout the meeting several instrument makers displayed
examples of their work. Among these a French double harpsichord by Knight
Vernon featured a splendidly light action; Paul Irvin's 1992 unfretted
clavichord produced a generous volume of sound; and Owen Daly's
Vaudry-copy harpsichord delighted these ears and fingers, as did finely crafted
instruments by Robert Hicks and Douglas Maple.

During her first visit to the United States in the early
1960s, harpsichordist Isolde Ahlgrimm was especially amused by the ubiquitous
pink flamingo representations she saw in many suburban front yards. It was with
a sense of recurring cultural history that my eyes were captivated by the colorful
pink bird statue displayed at the Museum's visitors' desk, visible
through the windows of the Larson Concert Hall. Closer inspection showed it to
be a hand drum, dubbed the "Flabonga," a gift to Museum Director
André Larson.

Because of unavoidable travel difficulties, papers by David
Chung (Hong Kong) and Eva Badura-Skoda (Vienna) were read by Museum staffers.

So what did these examples from four centuries of great
keyboard instruments have to teach us? For this listener they reinforced, once
again, that most music sounds better, and far more interesting, when played on
period instruments tuned in appropriate temperaments. They underscored how vast
the variety of historic keyboards is. They showed how comparatively
monochromatic a tonal range the contemporary piano presents, and how
impoverished it is by its paucity of coloristic devices such as modulators,
bassoon stops, bare wood (or variously-covered) hammers, and Janissary
percussion.

Keyboards from Vermillion's National Music Museum
(formerly known as The Shrine to Music) demonstrated that informed restoration
and constant care permits them to function as superb instruments for music.
Curator John Koster announced early in the proceedings that keeping 1588
strings in tune for the weekend would be a major task! He managed it with grace
and skill, as he did his many other responsibilities during the conference.

It was encouraging to note a number of other visitors to the
Museum during our time there. Many of them were young students, a group
distinctly, and disturbingly, not well represented on the rosters of our
keyboard societies. I would urge each reader to plan a visit to this
outstanding American museum, and, if possible, to make this collection of early
keyboard instruments known to a student. A virtual visit to these holdings is
available through the Museum's website: <www.usd.edu/smm&gt;.

Paul Collins lectures in music at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. He is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and holds a first class honors MA degree in Performance and Musicology (Organ) from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He is currently pursuing doctoral research at the music department of that university, where his supervisor is Professor Gerard Gillen. His dissertation will investigate the stylus phantasticus and its expression in north German organ music of the seventeenth century. Collins studied organ and harpsichord at the Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music and Drama, where he was awarded the Actors' Church Union Prize for advanced organ playing. He also holds a Fellowship Diploma in organ from Trinity College, London. He has performed in Ireland, the US, and Italy and is director of the Marmion Recital Series at Holy Cross Church in Dundrum, Dublin, where he is resident organist. In addition to his activities as musicologist and performer, he has composed works for keyboard, voice and chamber ensemble.

The music encyclopedist Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), in Part 1, chapter 10, of Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739) mentions the names of  two Italian composers whom he believes to have been exquisite executants of the "fantastic" style, namely Claudio Merulo (1533-1604) and Michelangelo Rossi (1602-1656). Before offering his readers a thumbnail sketch of their work, Mattheson expresses the hope that neither of these "fleissige Fantasten," or "diligent fantasy makers" will ever have their names consigned to oblivion. In choosing this term to describe these Italians and also Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), Mattheson highlights the inherent tension in the dual r?¥le of performer-composer, that of the "fantastic" spontaneous performer or improviser and the "diligent" composer who must commit structured ideas to paper.

We know, for example, that Rossi, like the later Nicolaus Bruhns (1665-1697) in northern Europe, was renowned as a virtuoso violinist in Rome, so much so that it was recorded in the register of his death in 1656. "Michelangelo il Violino," as he was referred to on occasion, even graced the performance of his single extant opera Erminia sul Giordano (1633) with his own playing, in which he took the part of Apollo in the last act. The Rome-based Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), who first coined the term "fantasy style" or stylus phantasticus in his Musurgia Universalis (1650), was among those who witnessed Rossi's playing at first hand at a private concert given, in Kircher's own words, by "three incomparable musicians, whom I would not be wrong in describing as the Orpheuses of our age."1 The three musicians in question were Rossi, Salvator Mazzella and the lutenist Lelio Colista (1629-1680) and the concert featured music for two violins and the-orbo. Describing the experience in his Itinerarium exstaticum (1656), Kircher leaves us in no doubt that this recital, the exact date of which has been consigned to oblivion, left a deep impression on him. He writes:

. . . though I may avow that I have delved with some distinction in the field of Music I cannot recall having heard anything like it, as they mingled diatonic with chromatic harmonies, and these with enharmonic modulations: it is scarcely possible to express the degree to which the unaccustomed mixing of these styles aroused the emotions of the mind.2

This concert performed before a single auditor--Kircher himself--is significant in itself in terms of the musicians it brought together. Musicologists in recent times have regarded the perspectives of Kircher and Mattheson on the "fantastic" style as being, by and large, mutually exclusive, but it is interesting to note that Kircher chose a sinfonia for four lutes by Colista as one of his five examples of the stylus phantasticus, while Mattheson, eighty-nine years later, considered the works of Rossi--in this context the composer's fourteen toccatas--as examples of the fantastischer Styl. Of further interest is the fact that Mattheson, in his Capellmeister treatise (§92), also mentions the violin and the lute as two of the most appropriate instruments for the realization of this style.

The German theorist's biographical information is not always as accurate as one would wish, however and in the case of Rossi, he can state merely that the composer "lived around 1635, the time of [Giovanni Battista] Doni."3 If we wish to further understand Mattheson's enthusiasm for Rossi's toccatas we must consider these works in the light of the "rules" for would-be "fantasy makers" given by Mattheson in §93 and §94 of his tenth chapter "On the Style of Music." The fantastic style, according to Mattheson, is above all an improvisatory style, with the primary focus on the performer and his extemporary ability. This is underlined by the fact that Mattheson situates his discussion of the fantasy style within the broader context of the genus theatralis, or theatrical style. One is restricted in this a mente non a penna style ("improvised, not written down") only by harmonic considerations, Mattheson making the general comment that "order and constraint" are the antithesis of its aesthetic. The style is to be a vehicle for the spontaneous musical orator, who is exhorted by Mattheson to please, dazzle and astound his listeners. It is characterised by much freedom with respect to "beat and pitch," even though these, as Mattheson notes, may have previously been carefully committed to paper. The fantasist was to avoid developing a "regular" motive or melody and rather incorporate all sorts of strange musical detours and embellishments, the object of which were, to quote another of Mattheson's works, "the movement of the affections and the touching of the heart."4

How then, does a work like Rossi's Toccata prima (measures 1-8 of which are shown in Example 1) realise Mattheson's "rules"? The variety of styles encountered in this and other Rossi toccatas realise Mattheson's aesthetic of immediacy, in which a work's surface features are all-important. Rossi's multi-sectional pieces in the toccata genre constitute, in the words of Erich Valentin, a Mosaikform5, in which many musical patterns and procedures are juxtaposed to form a quasi-improvisatory whole. In the Toccata prima we can see the composer's penchant for distinct, non-interdependent sections, giving the impression of a constantly changing musical landscape in which no one idea is, to paraphrase Mattheson, properly "worked out." It is possible to divide the toccata into four main sections, namely measures 1-8, /9-22, 23-45, /46-53. After the typical chordal incipit, section one comprises an imitative-style passage based on an angular motive. Following this is a section that begins imitatively but quickly becomes much freer, with the introduction of a rising-scale figure in the left hand in measure 10 and the abrupt and almost arbitrary harmonic shift in measures 10-11 (Example 2). Such daring harmonic juxtapositions and rising-scale ideas in fast note values are most often associated with the free or "loosely pulsatile"6 sections of toccatas and in measures 15-16 the full rhetorical import of the section is most clearly captured in the dramatic drop in register from a≤ to d# (Example 3). After the cadence in measure 22 the third, fugato section begins. This is the most "clearly pulsatile"7 of the toccata's sections, there being no dissolution of the texture until measure 42. The fourth and final section, another imitative section, begins on the upbeat to measure 46 and here again there is a necessary constraint on pulse fluctuation.

Mattheson would clearly have been attracted to Rossi's work for many reasons. The division of the toccatas into discrete sections, with little recapitulation of previous material, affords the performer the opportunity to vary the pulse between and frequently even within sections, thus heightening the sense of drama. In the Toccata prima, with the exception of measures 23-42 and 46-52 where we find purely imitative writing, the term con discrezione could be used to describe the manner of playing throughout.8 The idea of not being tied to a pulse in the interest of expression had, of course, been discussed in Italian prefatory writings from the beginning of the seventeenth century, most notably in the preface to Le nuove musiche (1602) by Giulio Caccini (c1545-1618) and in Frescobaldi's preface to his first volume of toccatas (1615). Caccini's concept of sprezzatura, or "artful carelessness," despite its original association with vocal performance, can also be applied to keyboard music, while Frescobaldi's instruction to the player not to be subject to the beat ("non stare soggetto ?† battuta") has its roots in the affetti of the madrigal. To return to Mattheson, we can easily imagine the German theorist praising the Toccata prima of Rossi for its lack of "a regular principal motif and melody" as well as for its textural variety, with two-, three- and four-part writing throughout. Furthermore, he would have favored Rossi's arresting harmonic shifts in measures 7-8 and 10-11, with their potential to "astonish" the listener. Mention of the keyboard works of Rossi in the eleven-paragraph section devoted to a discussion of the fantastischer Styl in Der vollkommene Capellmeister is, therefore, wholly appropriate, given the dramatic nature of the Italian composer's toccatas. These "wordless madrigals" aptly illustrate Mattheson's concept of the stylus phantasticus, with its clear focus on histrionics.

Rossi's importance in the context of a discussion of the stylus phantasticus in the north German organ school is borne out on two main fronts. Firstly, research carried out by Alexander Silbiger and published in 1983 has suggested that we should view Rossi as a contemporary rival of Frescobaldi, rather than as a mere "emulator of the older master."9 The continued esteem in which Rossi's volume of Toccate e Correnti was held is evidenced by the fact that after its initial appearance, probably in the early 1630s, at least three further editions appeared over the next thirty years. Thus, by the beginning of the 1640s in Italy, Rossi's name as a composer of keyboard music was second only to that of Frescobaldi. It seems more than likely that if the older composer's publications were in circulation in the north German region during the seventeenth century that Rossi's keyboard music would have been known there also. Secondly, we know that one of the main bearers of Italian keyboard music to northern Europe, Froberger, was in Rome during the years 1637-1640/1 and in addition to his student-master relationship with Frescobaldi would undoubtedly have had some links with Rossi. Even more than Johann Kaspar Kerll (1627-1693) and Johann Philipp Krieger (1649-1725), two other prominent south German musicians who studied in Italy during the seventeenth century, Froberger was to influence free keyboard writing in north Germany.

As noted earlier, Mattheson praises Froberger as a "diligent fantasy maker" in his Capellmeister treatise, remarking that the Stuttgart-born composer "did much especially in this style of writing."10 He quotes what he believes to be the incipits of two works by Froberger for those of his readers who need written examples of pieces in the fantasy style. Neither of these two incipits appears, however, among Froberger's works. Mattheson's first example, the "beginning of a toccata by Froberger," has been shown by Kerala Snyder to be the opening three bars of Buxtehude's Phrygian praeludium BuxWV 152, as transmitted by the manuscript "E.B.-1688" held at Yale University.11 The second incipit, entitled "beginning of a fantasy by the same person," features a single rhapsodic melodic line as in Mattheson's first example. This, likewise, could not come from the toccatas or fantasias of Froberger, as the former always commence with a sustained chord and the latter with a line in long note values. It is possible, given the similarity of the two incipits, that the second example also originated in the north German region. Of further interest is the fact that the opening motif of the Buxtehude example also appears at the start of Froberger's Capriccio, FbWV 502, from the composer's Libro di Capricci e Ricercate of c1658.12 While it is impossible to ascertain whether or not the Phrygian praeludium of  Buxtehude was influenced by Froberger's capriccio, we have evidence to suggest that north German composers wrote parodies on Italianate works composed by south Germans. For example, Friedrich W. Riedel has pointed to the similarity between a fuga contained in Yale University New Haven manuscript LM 5056 (ascribed in that source to "P. Heidorn ?¢ Crempe") and Kerll's Canzona III.13

Apart from the existence of north German parodies on south German, Italian-influenced works, we know that one important conduit for the transmission of Italian influence to the north German region during the second half of the seventeenth century was the Thuringian-born organist and composer Matthias Weckmann (c1616-1674). Weckmann, appointed organist of the Jacobikirche in Hamburg in 1655 was an admirer of Froberger's music and gained a legendary reputation as both a composer and virtuoso performer. Educated in Dresden and Hamburg, Weckmann studied with, among others, Heinrich Sch?ºtz (1585-1672) and Jacob Praetorius II (1586-1651). While he was most probably introduced to Italian music by Sch?ºtz in Dresden, his later friendship with Froberger was undoubtedly an important factor in his becoming acquainted with Italian keyboard music. The bold and imaginative writing that characterizes Froberger's toccatas is found in Weckmann's works in the same genre, which were probably intended for harpsichord performance. These are among the most remarkable free works to come from seventeenth-century north Germany.

A brief comparison between compositional procedures in the toccatas of Froberger and Weckmann may serve to highlight their similarities. Both composers wrote pieces in each of the two toccata "formats" common in Italy during the seventeenth century, i.e., toccatas in free style throughout and those that contain distinct imitative sections in canzona style. If we examine Froberger's Toccata IV, FbWV104, from the Libro Secondo of 1649 we find an example of the latter toccata type, with free sections framing the fugal material. This work is in four sections (in Rampe's 1993 edition, measures 1-8; 9-15; 16-22; 23-29), section three being a re-working of the preceding fugal material in triple time. The opening "free" section  falls into two halves: measures 1-4 and 5-8 (Example 4). In the first subsection we hear a stepwise rising-fourth idea followed by a falling fourth and thirty-second-note figure. These together comprise the raw material from which this initial eight-measure section is fashioned. The texture of the first four bars has been aptly described by John Butt as that of "imitative homophony,"14 while in the second subsection the imitation (based on the rising fourth idea) and harmonic rhythm become more regular. The section as a whole illustrates Froberger's delight in obfuscating the listener with regard to the "free" and the fugal, in this case within the context of an "improvisatory" section. The two fugal sections that follow form the core of the toccata and each concludes with free material that alludes to the opening section (Examples 5a and 5b). From measure 23 to the end of the work further allusions, this time to material from both free and fugal sections, are heard. The resulting fusion of previously disparate elements achieves a resolution of the work's contrasting free and fugal material, culminating in a cascade of sixteenth-note motion in both hands.

Weckmann's compositional strategy in his Toccata vel praeludium Primi Toni is similar to that in Froberger's toccata. This Weckmann toccata is one of six works in the genre to appear in the 1991 Siegbert Rampe edition of the composer's free keyboard works. Here again we can break the work into four sections: an opening free section (ms.1-10); a fugal section (ms.10-20); a tripla section featuring a variant of the fugal theme (ms.21-27) and a concluding free section (ms.28-40). As in the Froberger toccata, imitation features much throughout the opening section, Weckmann also making use of an up-beat suspirans figure (Example 6). In measure 2, we again hear a stepwise rising fourth idea followed by a downward leap of a fourth, while in the tripla section  (ms. 24-25) and concluding free section, rising and falling fourths constitute much of the motivic fabric. Measures 30-33, in particular, feature figuration very similar to that heard in the second half of Froberger's opening free section (Example 7; cf. Example 4). Common to both pieces also is an unexpected twist to the minor, Froberger, for example, offering the listener what Mattheson might have considered a delightful instance of musical deception at the end of his toccata, where a flattened e# colors the final cadence in C major.

Weckmann's toccata in A minor represents one of the seventeenth-century's most "fantastic" works. It is an example of the toccata type that consisted entirely of free material. During the course of its 78 measures we encounter a kaleidoscopic variety of moods and figuration, yielding a work full of drama and contrasting Affekten. We can see from the outset that this work perfectly fulfils Mattheson's "rules" governing the fantastic style, with its "ingenious turns and embellishments . . . without close observation of the beat . . . without a regular principal motif and melody . . . sometimes fast sometimes slow . . . yet not without a view to pleasing, to dazzling and to astounding" (§92). Weckmann, in short, seeks to delight his listener throughout with the element of surprise and focuses on the toccata as a vehicle for demonstrating performance skill. Chordal passages such as those in measures 8-11, 14-20 and 34-38 alternate with passages featuring scurrying sixteenth notes that are sometimes broken off in mid-flight. These latter abruptio gestures, found in measures 4, 13 and 24, are also part of the musical and rhetorical vocabulary of the composer's toccata in D minor,15 which, again, is in free style throughout. The employment of this rhetorical device in these works was, no doubt, inspired by Froberger's use of similar dramatic gestures in his toccatas (e.g., the end of Toccata III in G, FbWV 103).

One would expect Weckmann's contemporary, Franz Tunder (1614-1667), to have been a key influence on the compositional style of Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707), given that Tunder was the younger composer's predecessor at L?ºbeck's Marienkirche. While Tunder's large-scale chorale fantasias are probably the better known of his fifteen surviving works for organ, his four complete praeludia constitute a significant development of the hitherto short, undemonstrative praeambula of Scheidemann. Each of these four, more extrovert Tunder praeludia begins with a monodic flourish, a new textural device in north German organ music. The concluding free sections of the same works also feature animated writing. Such beginnings and endings sparkle with the brilliance and spontaneity that Mattheson associated with the fantasy style and like similar passages in works by Buxtehude and other later north German composers, would appear to have their origin in improvisational practice. In addition to Tunder's four complete praeludia, there exists a five-and-a-half-measure fragment of a fifth praeludium by the composer, which is of particular interest (Example 8). Here we see perhaps the most striking passage in all of Tunder's praeludia, one that appears to herald a new stylistic departure. This fragment resembles very closely the energetic passages that typically open Buxtehude's works in the same genre. Equally dramatic double flourishes, for example, are heard at the outset of the praeludia in D minor, BuxWV 140 and G minor, BuxWV 148, the latter opening being perhaps the closest Buxtehudian parallel to Tunder's fragment (Example 9).

With the establishment of his "Stock Exchange" concerts around 1646, Tunder began to provide the L?ºbeck merchants with musical entertainment when they gathered at the Marienkirche before the opening of the outdoor Stock Exchange. Central to these concerts, no doubt, was Tunder's playing of his own works, probably in their nascent, improvised form. Just as a praeambulum or praeludium had been used as introductory service music, so the performance of such works at the beginning of one of these concerts would have been entirely appropriate. Tunder can be credited, therefore, with the raising of the praeludium genre to the level of art music, liberating it from its hitherto purely liturgical function.

Given the opportunity to develop Tunder's Marienkirche concert series with his Abendmusiken, it comes as no surprise that Buxtehude, more than any other composer of the period, developed the praeludium into a dramatic monolith. In so doing, he put the genre on an equal footing with chorale-based works, which had been greater in importance during the first half of the seventeenth century. Without doubt, Buxtehude was the most "diligent fantasy maker" of the north German Baroque. Both free and chorale-based organ works share in this accolade, as do the composer's sonatas, which, following the principle of contrasting sections, have formal structures similar to those of his twenty-two pedaliter praeludia. The praeludia may be commented upon from a variety of perspectives, as Kerala Snyder has shown,16 and despite its limited application, Mattheson's concept of the stylus phantasticus constitutes one "lens" through which we can view these works. The exuberance, drama and virtuosity associated with the free sections, as well as the constantly shifting textures, square perfectly with Mattheson's description of the style. Indeed those praeludia that favor free writing above fugal sections, like the F-sharp minor, BuxWV 146 and D major, BuxWV 139 exhibit Mattheson's concept most successfully. As much has been written about the "fantastic" nature of Buxtehude's F-sharp minor praeludium, a comment on the D major work as an expression of Mattheson's stylus phantasticus concept is merited. Containing only one fugue lasting 35 measures, BuxWV 139 has substantial opening and closing free sections of 20 and 41 measures respectively. Like the praeludium in F sharp minor, with its famous "recitative," the D major praeludium contains a decorated chordal interlude (measures 87-94) that introduces much harmonic color (Example 10). Other features shared by these two praeludia include the motoristic rhythms and an extended sequential passage, while the Peroratio of the D major work offers an example of the abruptio gesture (measure 103) typical of many of the praeludia which have a closing free section (Example 11).

Buxtehude's praeludia reveal both a skilled composer and an accomplished performer at work and could be said to represent a synthesis of the ideas of both Kircher and Mattheson regarding the "fantastic style." Most discussions of the concept of stylus phantasticus in relation to the composer's free organ works have nevertheless focused on Mattheson's description of the style in order to account for the inherent drama of these works. By exploring a middle way, however, a concept of "fantastic" that embraces Buxtehude the composer, skilled in learned counterpoint, and Buxtehude the accomplished performer, we can, perhaps, reconcile two concepts with very different emphases in one musical persona. Such a meeting of opposites can only do justice to the composer's multi-faceted praeludia.

It is also possible to discuss the "fantastic" elements in the free works of Buxtehude and other north German composers within the broader context of rhetorical analysis. According to the latter perspective, the late seventeenth-century north German praeludium may be regarded as a tightly organised work and an accomplished example of musical rhetoric in its fulfilment of even the minimal demands of a classical dispositio. An analytical approach to praeludia of the late seventeenth century based on one or more concepts of the stylus phantasticus need not omit a consideration of the structural sophistication and eloquent rhetoric that such works exhibit. The two approaches, that of a stylus phantasticus perspective and one based on rhetorical analysis, are complementary, if individually subjective and limited in their application. An analysis of, for example, Buxtehude's praeludia from the perspective of the stylus phantasticus is impoverished if it fails to draw on musical-rhetorical concepts and figures, using the template of rhetorical analysis to highlight the significance of each of the various sections within the context of a complete praeludium. A rhetorical analysis, on the other hand, which omits a consideration of the chameleon-like concept of stylus phantasticus is in danger of offering an assumed compositional "recipe," or to quote Mattheson, albeit out of context, "something . . . inflexible."17 Both forms of analysis focus on a work in relation to how it "speaks" to the listener, and on the composer's attempts to transform what is, in the case of a praeludium, wordless music into dramatic speech. While the alternating textures of a Buxtehude praeludium may indeed suggest a careful sequence reflecting the traditional parts of a classical oration (i.e., Exordium, Narratio, Confirmatio and Peroratio), we must be wary of assuming that the achievement of such a rhetorical sequence was foremost in the composer's mind. We are not on safe ground if, with reference only to Mattheson's concept, we try to play down the importance of the stylus phantasticus in such free works.

This article has concerned itself with following what could be termed the "fantastic thread" in the toccata genre from Italy, the origin of "diligent fantasy making" for Mattheson, through south Germany to northern Europe. We could say that the following of this thread to north Germany parallels an investigation of the progress of Italian influence in that region during the latter half of the seventeenth century.

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON. Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of THE DIAPASON.i

LP in LA: The 47th National Convention of the American Guild of Organists July 4-9, 2004

More than 2000 organ enthusiasts spent an exhilarating week in the City of the Angels, enjoying a well-paced, well-organized schedule of high-quality musical events. Los Angeles weather, cool and sunny, was a joy after a month of unusually abundant rain in Texas.

In a sense, each person experienced a unique convention, since many of the morning programs were given two or three times in order to accommodate the number of attendees, and afternoon activities had been pre-selected from the more than 60 workshops and competition rounds offered. Evening events usually accommodated the entire convention, the exception being Tuesday's three concurrent services of worship. Perception and reception of particular events, thus, were influenced by the particular sequence in which they were experienced. For instance, Monday morning's "green group" progression of three recitals provided a satisfying order, while Wednesday's schedule did not. 

Rather than a chronological, day by day report, here are some high points from "my" convention choices.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall and the first public performances on its Glatter-Götz/Rosales organ

Architect Frank Gehry's landmark building, new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, is a striking and beautiful creation, immediately taking its place among America's most exciting concert halls. This 274 million dollar project pays apt tribute to American film maker Walt Disney with its decidedly whimsical and non-traditional architecture, and Gehry's organ case satisfies Lillian Disney's request that the organ not suggest a church. The controlled chaos of the pipe façade is the visual focus of the concert room; it is, however, well integrated into the hall, largely due to the use of the same wood, Douglas fir, for pipes, wall, and ceiling.

The 109-rank, four-manual organ is equipped with two consoles. In traditional case placement, the mechanical-action one was utilized for Joseph Adam's solo performances of Reger's Fantasia on BACH, Vierne's Naïades (played fleetly with impressionistic bravura), and Danse and Finale from Naji Hakim's Hommage à Igor Stravinsky. A movable, electric-action console, placed in front of the orchestra to the left of conductor Alexander Mickelthwate, allowed proper soloists' positions for organists Cherry Rhodes, in the program-opening premiere of James Hopkins' Concierto de Los Angeles, and Robert Parris, for the rarely-heard Concerto I in C Major of Leo Sowerby.

Architect Gehry was in attendance; so was the acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and the organ builders. A pre-concert stroll through Melinda Taylor's stunning gardens allowed an opportunity to view Gehry's rose-shaped fountain created from 8,000 hand-broken pieces of blue and white Delft china--his "Rose for Lilly," in honor of Mrs. Disney.

Solo Organ Performances

Mary Preston at the Glatter-Götz organ opus 2 (1998) in Claremont United Church of Christ

Dallas Symphony resident organist Mary Preston played a perfectly constructed program on a splendid mechanical-action organ in a church with sympathetic acoustical environment. At her third performance of the morning Ms. Preston elicited spontaneous (and forbidden) applause with a compelling opening work, Jean Guillou's dazzling, difficult, and complex Toccata; left us spellbound with the magical gossamer conclusion of Duruflé's Scherzo; showed both charm and considerable comedic ability in George Akerley's A Sweet for Mother Goose (six movements for organ and narrator based on familiar nursery rhymes); and displayed an absolutely magisterial rhythmic control in Jongen's Sonata eroïca. Program notes by Laurie Shulman pointed out a musical connection between Jongen and Messiaen, an analogy strengthened by the happily chirping birds heard through open windows on the right side of the church.  Human auditors were equally ecstatic at this stellar performance.

Martin Jean at the Dobson organ in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

Yale University's Martin Jean gave a riveting performance of the complete Dupré Passion Symphony as conclusion to the second half of the first concert attended by the entire convention crowd. Spanish architect Rafael Moneo's massive cathedral, dedicated in 2002, seats 3,000 people in a spacious contemporary edifice of restrained elegance. The four-manual, 105-rank Dobson organ fills this space with noble and powerful sounds, as expected from its impressive 32-foot façade principals and dominating horizontal reeds. The organ performance was all the more appreciated coming as it did after a choral performance of works by Byron Adams, Morten Lauridsen, and C. Hubert H. Parry horribly amplified through the Cathedral's public address system. (Seated in the last row, we heard the choral sounds through crackling speakers positioned in the downward pointing, trumpet-shaped central posts of the chandeliers; any hope of a balance with the accompanying organ was thereby destroyed.)

Samuel Soria at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

Cathedral organist Samuel Soria played a prelude-recital before the Friday morning business meeting of the American Guild of Organists. Wanting to hear the Dobson organ from the best possible vantage point, we eschewed bus transport, walked the few blocks from the convention hotel to the cathedral, got there before the crowd, and chose an optimal seat in the left transept, diagonally across from the organ case. There the organ had splendid presence, character, and all the fullness one could want, qualities well illustrated in the playing of this talented young man. An appreciated tie-in to AGO history, his opening piece, Fanfare by past-president Alec Wyton, displayed the organ's horizontal reeds to fine advantage.  Atmospheric impressionism was equally well served in Herbert Howells' Psalm Prelude, set 2, number 1 ("De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine") with its steady crescendo from the softest stop to a mighty full organ climax, and the corollary retreat to near silence. But it was in Sowerby's fiendishly difficult middle movement from his Symphony in G ("Fast and Sinister"--listed in the program as "Faster") that Soria best displayed his formidable technique and sense of the work's architecture, giving a sensitive, secure reading of this quintuple-meter tour de force.

Christopher Lane at the NYACOP Finals in St. James Episcopal Church

One of three finalists to compete in the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, Lane, a student at the Eastman School of Music, gave the only playing of the required Roger-Ducasse Pastorale to realize both its delicacy and forward sweep. With no lack of virtuosity in the culminating mid-section "storm" music, Lane also limned the delicate contrapuntal writing in this unique organ work from the French composer.  Judges Craig Cramer, Bruce Neswick, and Kathryn Pardee, deliberating at length, chose Yoon-Mi Lim (Bloomington) as first place winner. Dong-ill Shin (Boston) was the third contestant.  Additional required repertoire played by all three contestants included Deux Danses (Le miroir de Meduse and Le Cercle des Bacchantes) by California composer James Hopkins, and Bach's Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C, BWV 654, the only organ work by the master included in the published convention program book. (This final competition round was heard by approximately one-tenth of the convention registrants.) One additional Bach piece, a chorale prelude from the Orgelbüchlein, Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes Sohn, BWV 601, was played simply and stylistically by Namhee Han, a guest organist who gave the pre-concert recital before ensemble amarcord's program at Wilshire United Methodist Church. Ms. Han holds the Ph.D. in applied linguistics and is currently studying for her MM in organ at UCLA.

Paul Jacobs at Westwood United Methodist Church

Young Mr. Jacobs, playing from memory, had no technical or musical limitations during his noontime playing of the monumental Reger Chorale-Fantasy on Hallelujah, Gott zu loben. It was refreshing to hear Handel's G-minor Organ Concerto (opus 4, no. 1) as a representative (albeit in transcription) of the conspicuously absent baroque organ repertoire. Jacobs' attractive program also included John Weaver's Toccata and the premiere of Margaret Vardell Sandresky's The Mystery of Faith. With four manuals and 153 pipe ranks, the Schantz organ could have recused the added 85 digital voices to the advantage of the whole.

Lynne Davis at First Congregational Church

American organist Lynne Davis has spent much of her distinguished career in France. For her pre-service recital before Evensong she played three works from the French organ repertoire: Vierne's Toccata in B-flat minor, opus 53/6, Marchand's Grand Dialogue in C, and Franck's mighty Choral in E Major on the immense composite organs of First Congregational Church, comprising five manuals, 339 ranks, and seven digital voices for a truly "surround sound" experience. It was playing of intensity with a distinctly personal approach; especially in the Franck, Ms. Davis presented a nuanced, individual, and ultimately satisfying reading of this Romantic masterwork. In the Marchand, the organ certainly provided commanding reeds for a classic French Grand Jeu, but seemed to be lacking a Cromhorne of sufficiently aggressive character to assure a proper balance for the accompanying voices.

Choral Performances

ensemble amarcord at Wilshire United Methodist Church

The five-man vocal ensemble, all former members of the St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig, filled several unique categories at this convention: they were the only Europeans engaged for the program, and they gave the only ensemble presentation of a work by J. S. Bach, a two-stanza chorale from the Kreuzstab Cantata, BWV 56, "Du, o schönes Weltgebäude." It received an especially eloquent performance, with words perfectly articulated, and the almost-painfully beautiful suspensions viscerally calibrated for maximum tension and release of the piquant harmonies. The particularly welcome program alternated early music (stark and athletic organum, supple Byrd motets, the familiar Tallis anthem If Ye Love Me, elegant in its noble simplicity) with 20th (and 21st) century choral works.  The concluding Gloria (2001) by Sidney Marquez Boquiren was performed with the singers in a circle.  Long-held dissonant chords built around an ostinato pitch, were sustained throughout with nearly-unbelievable breath control. Repeated text phrases swirled like incense to create an unforgettable shimmer of sound. From start to finish this was virtuoso music making, with not a microphone or speaker to mar the sound.

Dale Adelmann's setting of the Spiritual "Steal Away to Jesus"

Heard as the Introit for the Service of Evensong at First Congregational Church, this, and the equally exquisite singing of Herbert Howells' St. Paul's Service by the choirs of All Saints' and St. James' Episcopal Churches, conducted by Adelmann and James Buonemani, proved to be the full ensemble choral highlights of the convention for this listener. Of course, choirs need to be superb at these services to compare with the hymn singing of a thousand, or more, organists, most of them paying attention to punctuation, pitch, and proper vocal production. It makes for participatory experiences that remain in the memory.

New Music

David Conte: Prelude and Fugue (In Memoriam Nadia Boulanger) for Organ Solo. E. C. Schirmer No. 6216.

What a way to begin the first solo organ recital of a convention! A single pedal B-flat sang out gently. Then a theme, beginning with the opening intervals of Raison's (and J. S. Bach's) Passacaglia was spun into a 14-measure cantilena, after which the solemn five-minute Prelude built slowly, always above the continuing pedal point. The ensuing Fugue, its memorable subject carefully shaped by Ken Cowan at the recent Fisk organ in Bridges Hall of Music at Pomona College, fulfilled the promise of the Prelude, moving inexorably from duple to triple accompanimental figurations, and building to a full climax with pedal flourishes. A work worthy of Maurice Duruflé or Gabriel Fauré, and a fitting tribute, as well, to Boulanger, the great French teacher with whom Conte studied for three years early in his career.

George Akerley: A Sweet for Mother Goose for Organ and Narrator. Hinshaw Music, Inc. HPO3009

Winner of the 2004 Holtkamp-AGO award in organ composition, this charmer of a suite weds appropriately pictorial music with rhythmically notated texts for the narrator in a pleasure giving work that should find its way into many organ recital programs. (It is music for young persons of all ages.) "Little Bo-Peep" allows the organist to take off on an extended pedal cadenza, to be halted only by the irritated shout of the narrator. The head of a school instructs her charges on good behavior in "The Clock." There's Irish musical color aplenty in "The Cats of Kilkenny," and, after a recitation of the poetry, the organist plays a solo tone poem to illustrate the "Tale of Miss Muffet." Mathematical note groupings provide comment for "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe;" while the concluding movement ("The Fiddlers") provides chuckles of recognition with its ritornello based on the famous Widor Toccata. That it was so well presented by Mary Preston, with the ebullient Kathy Freeman as narrator, made for a memorable premiere indeed.

Denis Bédard: Duet Suite for Organ and Piano (Details: www.majoya.com)

Duo Majoya (Marnie Giesbrecht, organ; Joachim Segger, piano) gave a most unusual recital at Bel-Air Presbyterian Church. Two Canadian composers provided commissioned works for the Duo; each had some interesting musical ideas to communicate. The more accessible work was this Suite, comprising an Introduction, Fughetta, Menuetto, Romance, and Final, full of wit, good humor, and memorable melodies, many reminiscent of Poulenc's catchy and romantic voice. Three movements from Jeffrey McCune's Crossing to Byzantium, and his arrangement of Stravinsky's Danse infernale de roi Katschei from The Firebird, plus Joe Utterback's brief Images: A Jazz Set completed the program, which would have benefited from more textural variety, perhaps provided by a solo offering from each of these fine players. The Bel-Air organ, reconstituted from a Casavant instrument heavily damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, now consists of 60 pipe ranks plus 91 digital voices, including both Cherubim and Seraphim hanging speakers: not a particularly happy marriage of sounds for this hilltop-sited church.

Other newly-commissioned and prize-winning works heard at convention events I attended included anthems by Byron Adams and Michael Bedford, works for instruments with organ by Mary Beth Bennett, Ian Krouse, and Erica Muhl, plus the Hopkins and Sandresky works mentioned previously, as well as an anthem by Williametta Spencer, premiered in the Ecumenical Protestant service, not on my schedule. 

Workshops

Organ Recordings from the Past, David McVey's self-effacing session on gems from the audio history of organ playing, was a model of effective, well thought-out presentation. All the requisite citations were listed in a spacious 8-page handout. The motto "Res ipsa locutor [The thing speaks for itself]" was borne out as McVey kept comment to a minimum in order to allow complete performances of works recorded by Widor (Andante sostenuto from his Gothic Symphony, committed to disc in 1932), Tournemire (Chorale-Improvisation on "Victimae paschali," 1930), Thalben-Ball (Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, 1931), Sowerby (his Carillon, 1946), Schreiner (Vierne's Naïades, 1959), Biggs (Daquin's Noël grand jeu et duo at the 1936 Aeolian-Skinner organ of the Germanic Museum at Harvard), Fox (Bach's Passacaglia at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, 1963), and Crozier (Dupré's Prelude and Fugue in G minor, opus 7/3, 1959).

Panel Discussion on the Disney Hall Organ, ably moderated by Jonathan Ambrosino, with organ builders Caspar von Glatter-Götz and Manuel Rosales, architect Craig Webb from Gehry Partners, and organ consultant Michael Barone.

An overflow crowd of 500 assembled to hear the whys and wherefores behind the inspiration and evolution of Gehry's unusual organ design for the new hall, and the challenges posed during the installation of the instrument. 

Extra-musical happenings

Television personality and actor David Hyde Pierce (of Frasier fame) brought along the necessary props: his organ shoes, a book of registrations copied down at some early lessons (numbers only, no stop names), a tattered copy of the Gleason Method. Pierce, who really did study organ with several noted teachers, took his audience through a quick course on ornamentation ("I don't care"), temperament, and various other organ-specific arcana. The huge crowd responded with almost-constant hilarity.

The Very Rev. Canon Mary June Nestler's sermon at Evensong moved with quiet humor from her own experiences as a voice student through some of the shared vicissitudes of the organist's profession (especially vis-à-vis relationships with the clergy) to a sound theological conclusion, and a prayer for peace.

Class Acts

Frederick Swann: organist and AGO president extraordinaire

Both for a very fine recital at the Crystal Cathedral, his "home base" during the years 1982-1998, and for his deft, unpretentious handling of the American Guild of Organists presidency, Swann deserves high accolades. Always in command of the music he played, never pompous or overbearing in his official actions, Fred serves as an exemplary leader for the national organization, and he represents the profession well with his high musical and personal standards.  Who would not love him for his one-sentence disposal of the listed "Presidential Remarks" at the national meeting? Kudos, as well, for his service as performances chair of the convention. The artists selected for the program were consistently top-notch.

The Convention Committee

To Dr. Robert Tall and his legions of hardy workers for the stellar planning and smooth organization of a first-rate convention, especially noted in the efficient and on time management of the necessary bus transportation. Mailing the convention program book (itself a work of art) more than a month before the actual event allowed attendees the opportunity for advance preparation and orientation. Bravi tutti!

Additional Observations

It was my first experience to see two hotel elevators (in the headquarters hotel, the Westin Bonaventure) marked with historic plaques, noting their use by actor (now Governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1993 movie The Terminator.

Crystal Cathedral organist Christopher Pardini's fine performances of The Joy of the Redeemed, composed by AGO founding member Clarence Dickinson, not only showcased the Aeolian-Skinner organ in the Cathedral's Arboretum, but served as an effective aural connection to an important figure in the Guild's history.

What a savvy idea to present this year's AGO President's Award to Craig Whitney, an assistant managing editor at The New York Times and author of the best selling book All the Stops. His enthusiastic and engaging writing about the world of organ music and its personalities has provided  some much needed popular awareness for the profession.

Peter Krasinski's masterful organ improvisation at the AGO annual meeting was based on the song "Chicago, Chicago," a theme selected and presented to him by improvisation committee chair Ann Labounsky. This served as a not-so-subliminal aural advertisement for the next national convention, to be held July 2-6, 2006.

July 24–August 7, 2004

Karyl Louwenaar Lueck holds degrees in piano from Wheaton College, Illinois (BM), the University of Illinois (MM), and the East- man School of Music (DMA); she also holds a certificate in harpsichord from the Musikhochschule in Cologne, Germany. In 1972 she joined the faculty of the Florida State University School of Music, where she teaches piano, harpsichord, fortepiano and continuo, and serves as Keyboard Area Coordinator. In addition to regular performances with Baroque Southeast, the Tallahassee Bach Parley and FSU colleagues, she performs on occasion with other period soloists and groups.

We have printed reports on most of the Bruges harpsichord competitions since I wrote an article about the second triennial event for The Diapason of October 1968. That year there were 34 competitors; the jury included Isolde Ahlgrimm and Gustav Leonhardt; and, continuing a standard set at the first competition, no first prize was awarded in the solo harpsichord category.

For the October 1971 issue of the magazine, Bruges made the front page with news that American Scott Ross had become the first harpsichordist to achieve a first prize. The fourth competition, in 1974, again made the first page of our October issue, but this time, alas, none of the 33 competitors equaled Ross' high achievement.

And so it continued. For the following ten competitions we have had various reporters: Dale Carr wrote of the 1977 one, in which the highest award was a third prize, while the competitors numbered 52. In 1980, Bruce Gustafson counted 74 competing harpsichordists, but not until 1983 would Karyl Louwenaar be able to describe the excitement of another top prize winner as Christophe Rousset won his first place in solo playing, to become the second person crowned by the jury in this exacting event. It was also the year that the undersubscribed continuo competition was replaced by a fortepiano contest.

This month we are delighted to have Dr. Louwenaar Lueck's report on the fourteenth playing of the Bruges events. A distinguished contributor to the world of early keyboard, she is a professor at Florida State University, and has served as president of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society and chair of its Jurow Harpsichord Competition. When I learned that she planned to go to Bruges this past summer, I invited her to submit her impressions to The Diapason. After her initial response of "Phooey, I wanted to enjoy myself," this article shows that she was able to find enjoyment in her writing as well as in her visit to Belgium.

--Larry Palmer

The fair city of Brugge held its 41st Early Music Festival July 24-August 7, featuring triennial competitions for harpsichord (the fourteenth held since 1965) and pianoforte (the eighth since 1983). Given this year's very large field of ninety harpsichordists, the first-round playing lasted a full 3-1/2 days, at the close of which the jury chose nineteen semi-finalists, four of which later advanced into the final round. The pianoforte competition's four finalists were chosen directly from the thirty-nine preliminary round players, as no semi-final round had been planned.

For only the fifth time in the long history of the harpsichord competition the jury declared a First Prize winner: 19-year-old Benjamin Alard from France, who captivated the audience with his confident, well-shaped reading of the Ricercare à 3 from the Musikalisches Opfer, and an exhilarating performance of Bach's Concerto in D minor with Paul Dombrecht's ensemble "Il Fondamento." Alard's victory was sweetened further when he received the audience prize as well. The judges (Blandine Rannou, Ketil Haugsand, Johan Huys [president], Gustav Leonhardt, Davitt Moroney and Ludger Rémy) awarded second prize to Maria Uspenskaya from Russia, who made Bruges competition history by being chosen as a finalist also for the pianoforte competition and winning a co-equal third prize there. Co-equal third prizes in harpsichord were awarded to American Adam Pearl (a student of Webb Wiggins and "Promising Non-Finalist" award winner in the 2002 Jurow Competition) and to Mikhail Yarzhembovskiy from Russia.

Pianoforte competition judges Wolfgang Brunner, Johan Huys (president), Linda Nicholson, Alexei Lubimov, Ludger Rémy and Bart van Oort awarded no first prize this year. Second prize winner was Keiko Shichijo (Japan); third prize winner, co-equal with Maria Uspenskaya, was Irina Zahharenkova (Estonia); and winner of both fourth and audience prizes was Nicoleta Ion (Romania). In addition to these major prizes, honorable mentions were awarded to eight fortepianists and fifteen harpsichordists; among the latter was Joseph Gascho, another student of Webb Wiggins and winner of the 2002 Jurow Competition. The total value of all prizes awarded in both competitions was 24,900 euros (approximately $31,000).

While the annual competitions provide large blocks of daytime programming for the Flanders Festival, they are set within the rich context of many other events, including an array of midday and evening concerts, a large and impressive exhibition, and some smaller lectures, presentations and demonstrations.  Event venues range from the Provinciaal Hof on the main square (competitions) to the nearby Hallen Belfort (exhibition), to beautiful historic churches such as the Sint-Annakerk (concerts and recitals) and the modern Concertgebouw (midday recitals in the chamber music hall, evening concerts in the large hall).

Some of the musical highlights for this listener were Gustav Leonhardt's splendid performance of works by Buxtehude, Ritter, Pachelbel, L. Couperin, J. S. Bach and Forqueray, played on a one-day-old harpsichord by J. G. Karman (The Netherlands); Alexei Lubimov playing Glinka, Dussek and Schubert on a four-day-old early Graf copy by Paul McNulty; Davitt Moroney's revealing performance of works by William Byrd; the stunning Baroque trumpet playing in I Barocchisti's performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2; the uniquely beautiful music of Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman [1694-1758] performed by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra; and Ensemble Arte-Musica Milano's very fine performances of Domenico Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas, mandolin concerti, and cantatas for soprano and strings.

Denzil Wraight's discussion of "Cristofori's gravicembalo che fa il piano e il forte" was most illuminating, especially as enhanced by Aline Zylberjach's fine Scarlatti playing on Wraight's own Cristofori piano "copy" with its brass strings and cypress soundboard.

Finally, the exhibition was almost overwhelming with its 60+ exhibitors displaying dozens of old and new keyboard instruments as well as scores and facsimiles, books, CDs, tools and supplies. In one corner a caterer served lunch, snacks and beverages--a friendly and welcome touch.

While local citizens and tourists reveled in the warm sun and lack of rain, this visitor, for one, had hoped for cooler weather. Some of the venues became quite uncomfortable by late afternoon; but at least outdoors the evenings were always pleasantly cool. Two real heroes of the festival were Edmund Handy and Andrew Wooderson, official tuners for the competitions and concerts, who did amazingly fine work under sometimes challenging conditions. Also deserving of special mention and thanks are the many builders who provided harpsichords and pianos for the competitions and other events; unfortunately they were seldom identified by name.

Kudos go also to competitions coordinator Stefan Dewitte and his very fine staff, all of whom worked hard and long hours, always remaining friendly and helpful.  Finally, the esteemed--and now retiring--director of the Flanders Festival, Robrecht Dewitte (Stefan's father), was specially honored at the competition award ceremony for his long and distinguished service.  Although it may be difficult to imagine this event without Mr. and Mrs. Dewitte, the festival surely has a very bright future because of their outstanding leadership. Long live the Festival van Vlaanderen Brugge!