Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

Remembering Irma Rogell

“Walks with Wanda,” the only English-language essay in Martin Elste’s lavishly illustrated volume Die Dame mit dem Cembalo [The Lady with the Harpsichord] published by Schott in 2010, consists of five pages—Chapter Four—from an otherwise-unpublished memoir by harpsichordist Irma Rogell, in which she reminisces about her four summers of lessons with Landowska, beginning in 1955 and ending with the pioneering harpsichordist’s death in 1959. The following year, at age 40, Ms. Rogell made her well-received solo recital debut at Boston’s Jordan Hall and during the next five decades she continued to pursue a solid career of recitals, recordings, and teaching. On February 9, 2013 Irma Rogell died in Newton, Connecticut, at the age of 94. 

Alerted to the news of her passing by the ever-vigilant harpsichord enthusiast Robert Tifft, I read Irma Rogell’s obituary, which, strangely enough, did not mention the harpsichord at all. At first a little uncertain that the subject of the notice was indeed “our” Irma Rogell, I checked several tributes written for the funeral home’s guest book; words from Teri Noel Towe and Peter Watchorn, both distinguished members of the harpsichord community, confirmed a relationship with our instrument, and led to correspondence with these gentlemen.

In notes to her recordings it was customarily noted that Rogell had remained faithful to Landowska’s preferred Pleyel concert harpsichord; her own Pleyel instrument built by the Parisian firm was acquired in 1958. However Peter Watchorn’s tribute to Rogell noted that “. . . shortly after arriving in [the USA] to join the staff of the Frank Hubbard Harpsichord Workshop in Waltham, MA . . . one of my first jobs was to work on a new instrument for Irma, and we came to know each other well over the next 25 years.” To my request for clarification about Rogell’s harpsichord(s), Peter responded: “We built a Hass copy for her in 1989—with seven pedals (like the Pleyel). She also had one of Eric Herz’s big Model F instruments—the one with 16-foot. She also had her Pleyel. I’m not sure how long she kept the Hass—she couldn’t tune, so it didn’t see all that much use, I think” [E-mail communication 25 February 2013].  

In an interview with alumna Rogell for the Harvard Magazine (May-June 2005), Emer Vaughn mentioned that “she is writing a memoir of her studies with Landowska . . . ,” the source, obviously, for the excerpt published in Dr. Elste’s book. Trying to ascertain just how much more of this memoir might exist led to correspondence with Teri Towe, Christine Gevert, and Martin Elste, who kindly searched his Landowska files and responded with an additional chapter not included in his published book.  

The first paragraphs from Rogell’s “Chapter Three” immediately show her to be a captivating writer:

“What is she like?” The question came unexpectedly that first time and I heard myself say spontaneously, “She is just like your grandmother—that is, of course, if your grandmother also happened to be Empress of the World.”  

That first imperious “madame” with which she had greeted me at our first meeting was the last such greeting. Always thereafter I was “little one.” She surrounded me with love, exactly, in fact, as my beloved great-grandmother had done. Which is why she was “Mamusia,” the Polish word for little mother, which is what she preferred to be called.

I hope this short excerpt will whet the appetite for further reading in the published chapter from Irma Rogell’s memoir. On her walks with Landowska many topics familiar to Landowska aficionados were covered. One puzzling bit of history—the story of Landowska’s husband Henri Lew and his sudden demise after being hit by an automobile—is set in Paris rather than the usually cited city of Berlin. The correct venue, Berlin, is listed in Martin Elste’s comprehensive chronology of Landowska’s life, so it must be that memory—whether Landowska’s, as she related an oft-told anecdote, or Rogell’s, as she remembered a conversation from fifty years earlier—simply transposed the site in which the event actually happened.

By all means, do not allow the lack of a reading knowledge of German to deter you from acquiring Die Dame mit dem Cembalo. The pictorial feast assembled for this 240-page, coffee-table-sized book includes 306 images, many not seen previously in print. These include record labels and album covers, two pages of finger exercises from a notebook belonging to St-Leu student Lily Karger, a Bach Invention score with Landowska’s fingerings, numerous witty caricatures, and, as an exceptional labor of love from Dr. Elste, his own recent photographs of the current state of places Landowska called home in Paris, Berlin, St-Leu-la-Forêt, New York, and Lakeville, as well as her final resting place in the cemetery of Taverny (France), where her urn is placed next to that of her brother Paul Landowski.

Of Landowska’s “last student,” Irma Rogell, Emer Vaughan chose these words to end his 2005 Harvard Magazine profile “A Musical Education”:

Now, after years of touring, recording . . . and teaching, Rogell again plays mainly for her own enjoyment .  .  .  she listens to her old tapes (“Hard work!”) for new recording projects, “because I’d like to share my belief that the harpsichord can be a very expressive instrument, which is at the core of what I learned from Landowska.”

To hear an example of Rogell’s keyboard artistry, access her performance of the Sarabande from Handel’s Suite in D Minor, HWV 437, as recorded on the 33-1/3 rpm disc La Tomba di Scarlatti (1982), the fourth item in the section illustrating the sounds of the Pleyel harpsichord on Robert Tifft’s website devoted to Janos Sebestyen and other 20th-century harpsichordists of note: http://jsebestyen.org/harpsichord/audio.html#Pleyel. 

If any reader has further information about Irma Rogell and her unpublished memoir, please share it with the Harpsichord Editor at [email protected] or write to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275.

Pedaling the French: 

A ‘Tour de France’ of Revival Harpsichordists 1888–1939

I. Near-death and slow rebirth

“Make what you want: this upstart piano will never replace the majestic claveçin!” Thus began my 1989 book Harpsichord in America: a Twentieth-Century Revival with these combative words from the composer Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727–1799). Looking back from our historical perspective, we all know how that prediction turned out! Even for Balbastre himself: his capitulation was a work for the new “upstart” keyboard instrument, a Marche des Marseillois, “arranged for the Forte Piano by Citizen Balbastre, and dedicated to the brave defenders of the French Republic in the year 1792, the first of the Republic.” At least Citizen [Citoyen] Claude-B B survived!

Following a very few antiquarian-inspired appearances throughout the piano-dominated 19th century, the harpsichord’s return to the musical scene as a featured instrument occurred during the Paris Exhibition of 1888 at the instigation of Louis Diémer (1843–1919), a piano professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Diémer was able to borrow a 1769 Pascal Taskin harpsichord to play in several concerts comprising concerted works by Rameau and solo pieces by various French claviçinistes. Of the latter the most popular composer was Louis-Claude Daquin, whose Le Coucou became one of the most-performed works during the early harpsichord revival period.

Diémer and his concerts must have inspired the salon composer Francis Thomé (1850–1909) to write a Rigodon for this most recent French harpsichordist, and thus provide history with the very first new piece for the old instrument. Inspired by Daquin, but also meant as a tribute to Diémer’s “legendary trilling ability,” Thomé’s pièce de claveçin was published by Lemoine in 1893. Around the middle of the 20th century this work was discovered and later recorded in 1976 by harpsichordist Igor Kipnis on a disc of favorite encores. After being captivated by its simple antiquarian charm, I too was able to acquire an original print of the work, thanks to my German friend and European “concert manager” Dr. Alfred Rosenberger, who found it at Noten Fuchs, Frankfurt’s amazing music store, where, apparently, the yellowed score had been on their shelves ever since its publication date. 

As a somewhat-related aside, the probable first harpsichord composition of the 20th century, or at least the earliest one to appear in print, is a Petite Lied by French organist/composer Henri Mulet (1878–1967). This aptly titled work of only 17 measures in 5/4 meter was issued in 1910. (See Harpsichord News, The Diapason, January 2011, p. 12, for a complete facsimile of the score.)

The solo harpsichord works of François Couperin, in a fine 19th-century edition by Johannes Brahms and Friedrich Chrysander, also found some popularity among pianists. From the musical riches to be found in Couperin’s 27 suites, came the lone musical example to be included in the 20th-century’s first harpsichord method book: Technique du Claveçin by Régina Patorni-Casadesus (1886–1961), a slim volume of only eight pages, most of them devoted to stop-changing pedal exercises (thus the genesis of my title—“Pedaling the French”). This one tiny bit of Couperin’s music is the oft-performed Soeur Monique from his 18th Ordre, a work admired and used by many church musicians—some of whom doubtless would be shocked to read in the authoritative reference work on Couperin’s titles, written by Historical Keyboard Society of North America honorary board member Jane Clark Dodgson, that “Sister Monica” may not be a religious “sister,” but refers instead to girls of ill repute, as in a “lady of the night,” according to the definition of the word Soeur by the 17th-century lexicographer Antoine Furetière (1619–1688), “our sisters, as in streetwalkers, or debauched girls.” (See Jane Clark and Derek Connon, ‘The Mirror of Human Life’: Reflections on François Couperin’s Pièces de Claveçin, London: Keyword Press, 2011, p. 170.)

II. Early recorded sounds

Beyond printed music and pedagogical writings, how did the classic French keyboard repertoire fare in the newly emerging medium of harpsichord recordings?

After giving a historical salute to the 16 rare 1908 Berlin wax cylinders that share surface noise with some barely audible Bach performed by Wanda Landowska, the earliest commercial recording of a harpsichord dates from about 1913 and was issued on the Favorite label. It preserves an anonymous performance of a work with at least tangential connections to France: the Passepied from J. S. Bach’s French Overture in B Minor (BWV 831). (See Martin Elste, Meilensteine der Bach-Interpretation, reviewed by Larry Palmer in The Diapason, June 2000.)

More easily accessible today are the earliest harpsichord recordings made in 1920 for the Gramophone Company in England by the Dolmetsch-influenced harpsichordist Violet Gordon Woodhouse (1871–1948). Her repertoire included Couperin’s L’Arlequine from the 23rd Ordre (as played on Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, volume 3, Pearl GEMM CD 9242) and Rameau’s Tambourin, from his Suite in E Major. Mrs. Woodhouse became something of a cult figure among British music critics (George Bernard Shaw), upper-class society (the Sitwells), and adventurous musicians (including the avant-garde composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji [1892–1988]), who wrote of Violet’s powerful musical presentations that her playing was “dignified, moving, and expressive, and of a broad, sedate beauty, completely free from any pedagogic didacticism or stiff-limbed collegiate pedantry.” (Quoted in Jessica Douglas-Home: Violet, The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse, London: The Harvill Press, 1966, p. 228.) This should put many of us in our rightful places, although Sorabji’s own excursions into keyboard literature lasting from four to nine hours in performance (example: a Busoni homage with the title Opus Clavicembalisticum) just might call his own authority into question.

Eight years younger than Woodhouse, the better-known Wanda Landowska (1879–1959) made her first commercial recordings for the Victor Company in 1923, just prior to her American concert debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra. These six sides included short pieces by the three 1685 boys (Handel, Bach, and Scarlatti) as well as the Rigaudon and Tambourin from Rameau’s Suite in E Minor, and what might be considered the first recording of a contemporary harpsichord work, Landowska’s own Bourée d’Auvergne #1. 

Lesser-known players got recorded, too: Marguerite Delcour recorded Couperin’s Le Tic-toc-choc [Ordre 18] in 1924. The following year, 1925, one of Landowska’s Berlin students, Anna Linde, recorded the ubiquitous Rameau Tambourin and the even more ubiquitous Coucou by Daquin. If you recognize Linde’s name it might well be for her edition of Couperin’s L’art de toucher le Claveçin—with its translations into English and German offered side by side with the original French, and the printed music made unique by her Germanically precise “corrections” to the composer’s picturesque (but occasionally unmathematical) beaming of some quick roulades in his preludes. Both of Linde’s recorded legacy pieces sound amateurish enough that I seriously doubt that Sorabji would have enjoyed hearing these performances.

As a matter of history, however, it is quite possible that Anna Linde’s 1925 disc was the first harpsichord performance to be recorded electrically (rather than acoustically), and the difference in sound quality became even clearer in the years immediately following. A 1928 Woodhouse performance of Bach’s Italian Concerto sounds surprisingly present even today, and the performance shows—perhaps best of all her recorded legacy—what her admirers so rightly admired. Indeed her artistry is such that I have thought, often, that had Mrs. Woodhouse needed to earn her living as Landowska did, she could have eclipsed the divine Wanda as a concert harpsichordist. However, as the wife of a titled Englishman she could not make a career onstage for money . . . and that was that! It would have been fascinating to have had two such determined women competing for the title of “the world’s most famous harpsichordist.” 

Realistically, however, Landowska’s tenacity, as well as her superb musical knowledge and sensitivity, should not be denigrated in any way. The 1928 recording of her own second Bourée d’Auvergne (Biddulph LHW 016) especially highlights the rhythmic dimension of her exciting artistry.

In the United States, where Landowska was a welcome visitor during the 1920s, there were several earlier players of the harpsichord; and, not too surprisingly, all of them attempted at least some pieces by French composers. Some of these participants in harpsichord history are nearly forgotten: one of more than passing importance was the Princeton professor Arthur Whiting: a well-received artist in nearby New York City and a campus legend at Princeton, he was known for his ability to attract huge crowds of undergraduates for his popular recitals on both piano and Dolmetsch-Chickering harpsichord. I have not located any recordings by Professor Whiting. The New York Times did mention his concert at Mendelssohn Hall (NYC) on December 11, 1907, which included a Gigue and Rigaudon by Rameau. The unnamed reviewer praised Whiting’s playing as “clear, beautifully phrased, and skillful in ‘registration’ if that term may be used to denote the employment of the different timbres that the instrument affords.”

Writing a letter to the editor of The Times on January 11, 1926, the prominent music educator Daniel Gregory Mason offered a response to a letter from Landowska in which she made the statement that she had “single-handedly [!] restored the harpsichord to its rightful position in the world of music.” In this correspondence Professor Mason called attention to some other “‘Harpsichord Pioneers’—among whom he named the Americans: Mr. Whiting, Miss Pelton-Jones, Miss Van Buren, and Lewis Richards.”

The two ladies differed greatly: Frances Pelton-Jones was one of those wealthy women who could afford to pursue her artistic ambitions (rather similar to the would-be soprano Florence Foster Jenkins). Her recitals in New York were of the club-lady variety; baffled critics most often mentioned the stage decoration and the beauty of Pelton-Jones’s gowns. Lotta Van Buren, however, was a thoroughly professional player and harpsichord technician whose work with Morris Steinart’s instrument collection at Yale was very beneficial, as was her association with Colonial Williamsburg and its program of historical recreations, including musical ones. 

As for Lewis Richards, Mason proceeds: “Mr. Richards, who has played the harpsichord throughout Europe as a member of the Ancient Instrument Society of Paris, was, I believe, the first to appear as a harpsichordist with orchestra (the Minneapolis Symphony) in this country, and contributed much to the interest of Mrs. F. S. Coolidge’s festival in Washington . . .” 

Richards did indeed precede Landowska as the first known harpsichord soloist with a major symphony orchestra in the U. S. He was one of the few American musicians to record commercially in the 1920s. His Brunswick 10-inch discs of The Brook by Ayrlton, Musette en Rondeau by Rameau, Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith, and the Mozart Rondo alla Turca were played for me by Richards’ daughter, whom I was able to visit in her East Lansing, Michigan, home (on the day following an organ recital I had played there). The sound is somewhat compromised, for I was recording a scratchy 78-rpm disc that spun on an ancient turntable in a garage; but one gets the impression that Mr. Richards was a charismatic and musical player.  

These discs went on to make quite a lot of money in royalties, and Richards actually taught harpsichord at the Michigan State Institute of Music in East Lansing, which almost certainly certifies him as the first formally continuing collegiate teacher of harpsichord to be employed in the United States in the 20th century.

All of these players played early revival instruments. All have, therefore, used their pedal techniques to obtain a more kaleidoscopic range of colors than we may be used to. Of great interest (at least to me) is the recent emergence of curiosity about, and interest in these revival instruments and their playing techniques, frequently demonstrated by questions received from students. One of the finest concert figures of the “pedal” generations was the distinguished Yale professor Ralph Kirkpatrick (now more knowable than previously, courtesy of his niece Meredith Kirkpatrick’s recently published collection of the artist’s letters; see our review in the April 2015 issue). In his early Musicraft recordings, especially those from 1939, we are able to hear the young player show his stuff, just before his 1940 appointment to Yale, displaying superb musical mastery of his Dolmetsch-Chickering harpsichord. From Kirkpatrick’s program that included four individual Couperin pieces, culminating in Les Barricades Mistérieuses, and five movements from Rameau’s E-minor set, I ended this essay with the Rameau Tambourin (as played on The Musicraft Solo Recordings, Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, volume 2, Pearl GEMM CD9245). Kirkpatrick’s mesmerizing foot-controlled decrescendo gives a perfect example of his skill in “pedaling the French.”

(From a paper read in Montréal, May 23.)

HKSNA 2015 International Conference in Montréal

Hosted by McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, the fourth annual conclave of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America (May 21–24) offered lectures, mini-recitals, and evening concerts, far too many events for any single auditor to encompass. Two papers that followed mine, Elisabeth Gallat-Morin’s beautifully illustrated “The Presence of French Baroque Keyboard Instruments in New France” and Graham Sadler’s innovative “When Rameau Met Scarlatti? Reflections on a Probable Encounter in the 1720s” attested to the depth of innovative scholarship.

McGill’s instrument roster includes the superb Helmut Wolff organ in Redpath Hall and 15 harpsichords. One third of these came from the workshop of the Montréal builder Yves Beaupré; among the other ten instruments is a 1677 single-manual Italian instrument from the collection of Kenneth Gilbert. This unique historic treasure was available for viewing and playing for small groups of attendees.

The Vermont builder Robert Hicks was the only harpsichord maker who brought an instrument for display. Max Yount demonstrated this eloquent double harpsichord in a masterful recital presentation of Marchand’s Suite in D Minor. Clavichord took center stage for Judith Conrad’s program. Karen Jacob’s thoughtful memorial tribute to Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society founder George Lucktenberg was enhanced by several solicited remembrances from others whose lives had been touched by the late iconic early keyboard figure.

Evening concerts were presented by harpsichordist/organist Peter Sykes and six former students who organized a tribute to McGill organ professor emeritus John Grew. Saturday’s concert brought the final stage of the ninth Aliénor international competition for contemporary harpsichord music. Six winning works (selected by a jury from nearly fifty submitted pieces) were performed by HKSNA President Sonia Lee (Laura Snowden: French Suite), Larry Palmer (Sviatoslav Krutykov: Little Monkey Ten Snapshots), James Dorsa (Ivan Bozicevic: If There is a Place Between, and his own composition Martinique), Andrew Collett (playing his own Sonatina for Harpsichord), and Marina Minkin (Dina Smorgonskaya: Three Dances for Harpsichord). Following an intermission during which the audience submitted ballots naming their three favorite works, Aliénor presented world premieres of two commissioned works for two harpsichords: Edwin McLean’s Sonata No. 2 (2014), played by Beverly Biggs and Elaine Funaro, and Mark Janello’s Concerto for Two (2015), played by Rebecca Pechefsky and Funaro.

And the three pieces chosen by the audience? Smorgonskaya’s Three Dances for Harpsichord, Collett’s Sonatina, and Dorsa’s Martinique. Bravi tutti.

Comments, news items, and questions are always welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, e-mail: [email protected].

Buried Treasures: 

The Harpsichord Pages 

in Retrospect (2006–15)

Once upon a time (well, twice actually, in The Diapason issues of January 1974 and February 1979), we offered cumulative indices of harpsichord-related matters in the journal, from Philip Treggor’s first harpsichord column (October 1967), through December 1978. Treggor continued his responsibility for harpsichord news until December 1968. Following his resignation, harpsichord submissions were managed by the magazine’s Chicago staff until September 1969, at which point I took over at the invitation of Editor Frank Cunkle.

As it has been 36 years since we have offered a third cumulative listing of harpsichord-centered writings, it may be time to offer this “backward” look, covering the past ten years. I cannot begin to count the number of instances in which the previous retrospectives have been of use to me: so much so that I keep these indices filed next to my bound copies of the magazine. If this present list proves useful to you, please let me know. I could then plan to complete indexing the years 1979 through 2005. Our January issue includes the journal’s composite index of the previous year; this would be a logical target date for continuing such offerings.

In the following citations, the title or subject appears first, followed by the month and year of publication, page number(s) in parentheses, and author. My contributions are indicated by the letters LP; other, less-frequent contributors, by their full names. I have added a few articles not specifically published under the Harpsichord News rubric. Categories sometimes overlap, particularly those of Personalities
and Obituaries.

Instruments and Builders

William Dowd: An Appreciation, Jan 09 (22), LP; The Earliest Surviving English Spinet by Charles Haward [c.1668], July 09 (12, 14), Charles West Wilson; Harpsichord News: ARTEK Goes German, July 15 (13), LP; Autobiography of a Clavichord (Dolmetsch-Chickering 2006), Dec 15 (12–13), LP.

Repertoire and 

Performance Practice

Mozart and the Harpsichord: An Alternate Ending for Fantasia in D minor, K. 397, Nov 06 (20), LP; “Entartete” Music: Hugo Distler and the Harpsichord, Aug 08 (22–23), LP; Harpsichord News: Chris DeBlasio Dances, Soler, Scarlatti, Lully, the Borrel Manuscript, May 09 (14), LP; Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s English Suite at 100, Dec 09 (36–37), LP; The Chopin Bicentennial at the Harpsichord, Feb 10 (23), LP; Addenda to Chopin, Aug 10 (11), LP; A Harpsichord Piece by Henri Mulet, Aug 10 (11), LP; Mulet Petit Lied—a complete facsimile, Jan 11 (12), LP; Harpsichord Works of Asiko Hirabayashi, Nov 10 (12–13), LP; J. S. Bach’s English and French Suites with emphasis on the Courante, May 11 (24–25), Renate McLaughlin; Gathering Peascods for the Old Gray Mare: Some Unusual Harpsichord Music Before Aliénor, Dec 12 (27–29), LP; Soler’s Fandango: new edition from Ut Orpheus and recording by Diego Ares, Dec 13 (12), LP; Multi-Media Mozart—Words, Notes, and Sounds [Harpsichord News], Feb 14 (12–13), LP; Christmas Music for Harpsichord, Oct 14 (12), LP; Going [J. William] Greene—Music for Harpsichord, June 15 (11), LP; Pedaling the French: A Tour de France of Revival Harpsichordists 1888–1939, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Harpsichord Plus: The Accompanied Harpsichord Music of Jacques Duphly, Nov 15 (10), LP. 

Personalities in the Harpsichord World

Helmut Walcha, Oct 07 (28–29), Nov 07 (21–23), Dec 07 (21–23), Paul Jacobs; Oscar Peterson, Feb 08 (12), LP; Gustav Leonhardt (anecdote, footnote 3 in AGO National Convention Review), Nov 08 (27), LP; Pavana Lachrimae: A California Tribute to Gustav Leonhardt, Aug 12 (18), Lee Lovallo; Crazy about Organs: Leonhardt interview from 2000, Nov 12 (20–22), Jan-Piet Knijff; Gustav Leonhardt—a Letter to the Editor from Hellmuth Wolff, Jan 13 (3); Mamusia: Paul Wolfe Remembers Wanda Landowska, Oct 12 (23–25), Craig Smith; Janos Sebestyen, May 12 (12–13), Robert Tifft; Harpsichord in the News: Mahan Esfahani, Jory Vinikour, Frances Bedford, and a 1615 quotation from Trabaci about the status of the instrument, July 12 (10, 12), LP; Remembering Irma Rogell (and a review of Martin Elste’s book Die Dame mit dem Cembalo), April 13 (11–12), LP; A Triptych for Rafael [Puyana], May 13 (11–12), Betina M. Santos, Jane Clark, and LP; Virginia Pleasants Turns 100, Feb 12 (11); Harpsichord Playing in America after Landowska, June 11 (19–21), LP; Ralph Kirkpatrick Centennial, June 11 (13–14), Gavin Black; Remembering Wm. Neil Roberts, Sept 11 (12–14), LP; Joseph Stephens—In Memoriam, Sept 14 (15), LP; Remembering Hilda Jonas, Dec 14 (11), Glendon Frank and LP; Remembering George Lucktenberg, Feb 15 (11), LP; Remembering Richard Rephann, Mar 15 (25), Allison Alcorn.

Pedagogy and Technique

Dear Harpsichordists: Why Don’t We Play from Memory?, Sept 11 (24–25), Paul Cienniwa; Continuo (On Teaching), Nov 11 (15–17), Dec 11 (11–13), Jan 12 (16–17); Gavin Black; Recital Programing, Aug 12 (13–14), Gavin Black.

Reports on Harpsichord Events

Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society 2006 Meeting in Rome, Georgia, June 06 (12), LP; Westfield Center 2006 Conference, Victoria, British Columbia (includes mentions of Colin Tilney and Edoardo Bellotti), Dec 06 (29), Herbert Huestis; Boston Early Music Festival 2007, Sept 07 (22–23), LP; East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 2012: A Harpsichordist in Aeolian-Skinner Land, Feb 13 (20), LP; Continuo: the Art of Creative Collaboration—Westfield Center 2013 Conference at Pacific Lutheran University, 2013, July 13 (20–21), Andrew Willis; Historic Keyboard Society of North America 2013 meeting in Williamsburg, VA, April 14 (10–11), LP; HKSNA International Conference in Montréal and Aliénor Competition, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Broadening a Harpsichordist’s Horizons: Remembering 2014 ETPOF, Sept 15 (11), LP. 

Reviews of Books, 

Music, and Recordings

A Guide to Musical Temperament (Thomas Donahue), reviewed by G. N. Bullat, June 06 (16); Guilty Pleasures: Mark Schweizer’s The Soprano Wore Falsettos, Choices (a novel) by Paul Wolfe, CD of Landowska reissues, DVD: Landowska—Uncommon Visionary [Harpsichord News] Mar 07 (10), LP; Peter Watchorn Plays Bach’s WTC I [Harpsichord News] Aug 07 (12–13), LP; Fernando Valenti’s Scarlatti recordings, Feb 08 (12, 14), LP; Peter Watchorn’s Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna, and the Early Music Revival and a published score for Richard Strauss’ Capriccio Suite, June 08 (12), LP; The Best Medicine—a review of Schweizer’s The Diva Wore Diamonds, Aug 09 (10), LP; New Harpsichord Music, Oct 09 (18–19), John Collins; a new compact disc set of Bach’s Six Partitas, and the publication of A Medici Harpsichord Book from Ut Orpheus, April 12 (12), LP; Joys of Re-Reading: Blue Harpsichord, Early Music mystery series by James Gollin, and more, Aug 14 (11), LP; Harpsichord News: Words and Music—Ralph Kirkpatrick Letters and Frank Ferko Triptych, April 15 (12), LP. 

Obituaries

Daniel Pinkham (d. 2006), Feb 07 (8); A Pinkham Memoir, Mar 07 (20), James McCray; Albert Fuller (d. 2007), Dec 07 (10); Remembering Albert Fuller—Trombones in Dido and Aeneas?, Feb 08 (14), LP; Fenner Douglass (d. 2008), June 08 (8); Thomas Dunn (d. 2008), Mar 09 (10); Virginia Pleasants (d. 2011), Feb 12 (11); Gustav Leonhardt (d. 2012), March 12 (10); Christopher Hogwood (d. 2014), Nov 14 (10); Bruce Prince-Joseph (d. 2015), July 15 (10); Paul Jordan (d. 2015), May 15 (18–19); Roger Goodman (d. 2015), Sept 15 (10); Alan Curtis (d. 2015), Oct 15 (10).

Esoteric Ephemera

Nineteenth-century harpsichord citings: Bizet and a Chopin student [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), information from John Carroll Collins reported by LP; Historic 20th-Century Harpsichordists in Hungary, Italy, and the Czech Republic [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), Robert Tifft; Bytes from the Electronic Mailbag: Fandango, Misspellings of the Word Harpsichord, April 14 (10–11), LP; November Musings: Blessed Cecilia (In Honor of Isolde Ahlgrimm’s 100th Birthday), Nov 14 (12), LP; A mystery, a cautionary tale: Mark Schweizer’s The Maestro Wore Mohair and Simon Menges’ misadventure [Harpsichord News], Oct 15 (12), LP.

And Something New: Mysteries
with Musical References

The American expatriate author Donna Leon (born in New Jersey in 1942) has published 24 books in her series starring Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venetian constabulary. Number one, Death at La Fenice (1992) introduces the soprano Flavia Petrelli who is singing Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata at the venerable opera house. German maestro Helmut Wellauer dies before the final act of the opera, and Brunetti finds that he has a complicated bit of detecting to do before solving this clever crime.

For Acqua Alta, book five in the series, Leon brings back this soprano, a “favorite character because of her voice.” By the novel’s end Flavia is off to sing her first Handel opera, a plot twist chosen so that, should Petrelli return in future books, Leon would be able to write about her best-loved music. In real life the author became closely associated with American conductor Alan Curtis; together they created an opera company, Il Complesso Barocco, to perform rare works by Handel and other baroque composers. References to harpsichord are found on pages 201–2 of Acqua Alta, and again on page 229 when Flavia’s companion Brett chooses Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony for listening rather than harpsichord music, the “plunky sound of which would snap her nerves.”

Volume 24 of the Brunetti stories arrived in 2015: Falling in Love is set in La Fenice again, this time with Petrelli starring as Puccini’s Tosca. Music figures prominently, the plot is gripping, and I particularly enjoyed a comment on page 154, where Brunetti is reminded of a CD shop owner who opined that “the weirdest customers were people who liked organ music. ‘Most of them shop at night,’ his friend said. ‘I think it’s the only time some of them ever leave their houses.’”

Further “baroquery” is to be found in Leon’s standalone novel The Jewels of Paradise (2012) which features a musicologist and a plot driven by the legacy of Italian composer Agostino Steffani (1654–1728). Highly recommended for all fans of mystery novels and baroque music. Finally, dear readers, should you come across references to the harpsichord, please send me the citations! ν

Comments are always welcome. Please submit them to [email protected] or by post to Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229.

Harpsichord Plus: 

The Accompanied Music 

of Jacques Duphly

As a genre, accompanied harpsichord music seems to have come into being early in the 18th century. Indeed, the harpsichord accompanied by lute is commented on late in the 17th century when the lutenist Porion accompanied the keyboardist Hardel. In Rome the harpsichord accompanied by violin was noted in 1727 at Cardinal Colonna’s, and only two years later, in 1729, there was a similar event in Paris, for which the keyboardist was none other than François Couperin’s daughter.

The first examples to appear in print seem to have been the Pièces de Claveçin en Sonates, op. 3, of Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (1734). (Earlier works sometimes cited as examples of this genre—works by Dieupart [1701] and Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre [1707]—actually appear to be different editions of the same pieces, not meant to be played as duos.) Mondonville’s sonatas were followed by Michel Corrette’s Sonates pour le Claveçin avec un Accompagnement de Violon, op. 25 (1742); Mondonville’s Pièces de Claveçin avec Voix ou Violon, op. 5 (1748); and by the one popular group of compositions still found in the active performing repertoire of the 21st century, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s five sets of Pièces de Claveçin en Concert, published in 1741. That these Rameau pieces belong to this same line of publications cannot be doubted, for the composer wrote in his preface: “The success of recently published sonatas, which have come out as harpsichord pieces with a violin part, has given me the idea of following much the same plan in the new harpsichord pieces, which I am venturing to bring out today . . .”

A little further on Rameau continued: “These pieces lose nothing by being played on the harpsichord alone; indeed, one would never suspect them capable of any other adornment . . .”

This primacy of the harpsichord, which really was meant to be accompanied by the other instrument, is borne out by the words of Charles Avison, who, in 1756, insisted that the violins should “always be subservient to the harpsichord,” and by C.-J. Mathon de la Coeur, the editor of Almanach Musical, who wrote in 1777,

We cannot resist pointing out here that the harpsichord is the only creature in this world that has been able to claim sufficient respect from other instruments to keep them in their place and cause itself to be accompanied in the full sense of the term. Voices, even the most beautiful ones, lack this privileged position; they are covered mercilessly . . . but as soon as it is a question of accompanying a harpsichord, you see submissive and timid instrumentalists softening their sounds like courtiers in the presence of their master, before whom they dare not utter a word without having read permission in his eyes. 

Methinks times have changed since M. de la Coeur published these comments!

Why, then, one might ask, would another instrumentalist agree to perform with a harpsichordist in such a subservient manner? And further, what was the purpose of having an accompanying instrumentalist there at all? As to the first question, one could assume that not all pieces on a program would be of the accompanied type; some sonatas for the solo instrument with (or without) a figured basso continuo could return a preeminent position to the non-keyboard instrument. As for the second question, Avison answers this in the preface to his op. 7 (1760): “They are there to help the expression.”

The second half of the 18th century was a transitional time when the fortepiano was making ever deeper inroads into the public awareness, when the abrupt dynamic contrasts of a C. P. E. Bach or the Mannheim composers were popular, and every possible device or gimmick was being invented and employed to aid the harpsichord in producing more dynamic variety: pedal-activated machine stops, the soft leather “plectra” of the peau de buffle register, organ-like foot-pedal-operated louvers that were installed above the soundboard, and instrumental accompaniment.

The six accompanied pieces of Jacques Duphly have been played less frequently than his other harpsichord works because they were omitted from Heugel’s 1967 Le Pupitre volume of his “complete” harpsichord pieces. A modern edition of the three G-major pieces with violin had been published in Paris in 1961, but the additional three in F major were not generally available to contemporary players until the Swiss publisher Minkoff offered its facsimile edition of Duphly’s Third Book of Harpsichord Pieces in 1987. My attention was drawn to these six enhanced works when reviewing the four compact discs that comprise Yannick Le Gaillard’s complete recording of Duphly’s output, in which he included all six of the “added violin” pieces in collaboration with violinist Ryo Terakado (ADDA 581097/100, 1988). 

For those to whom Duphly is not a household name, the composer was born in Rouen in 1715 and had the exquisite good taste to die in Paris in 1789 immediately before the aristocratic world in which he functioned was totally upended by the French Revolution. One gets a succinct picture of this minor master of the keyboard from two contemporaries. Pierre-Louis Daquin wrote in 1752: “. . . Duflitz [sic] passes in Paris for a very good harpsichordist. He has much lightness of touch and a certain softness which, sustained by ornaments, marvelously render the character of the pieces.” Marpurg, writing in 1754, has passed on to us this portrait of a rather particular character who obviously preferred light action for his keyboards: “Duphly, a pupil of Dagincour, plays the harpsichord only, in order, as he says, not to spoil his hand with the organ. He lives in Paris, where he instructs the leading families.”

Duphly had published his first two books of harpsichord music in 1744 and 1748. These volumes did not include any accompanied pieces, but his third book (1758) begins with three works in the new style. (It must have been taken for granted at this time that one could play either with or without the accompanying instrument, for nothing that mentions the added partner is noted on the title page, or elsewhere.) The accompanied pieces simply appeared with a third staff added above the usual two for the harpsichord; the word Violon is engraved above this additional staff.

The first three accompanied pieces, in F major, present varied tonal pictures. Number one is an Ouverture that begins with a Grave in the customary dotted rhythm, continues with a livelier contrapuntal section, and ends with a two-measure stately cadence. Two character pieces follow: La De May is a gracious rondo named for Reine DeMay, a midwife who played some role in a shady enterprise involving Casanova and the Parisian banker Pouplinière. There is, however, nothing particularly shady about this delicate, rather sunny piece. The third piece, La Madin, is an Italianate gigue, named in honor of the Abbé Henri Madin, choirmaster of the Chapelle Royal and governor of the musical pages. It may be a reference to these youngsters that informs the playful character of this quick-paced work.

That these pieces are worth restoring to the repertoire is not in doubt. Indeed, all of Duphly’s pieces are worthwhile for reasons admirably articulated by Gustav Leonhardt, one of the first modern harpsichordists to champion these French works. In notes to a disc of solo works by the pre-revolutionary composer, Leonhardt wrote, “. . . Duphly’s pieces concealed within their notes the secret of sonority. Such a style of composition demands as much expert knowledge as writing difficult or bizarre works. The perfect always seems easy in the eyes of the non-initiated.”

Duphly’s third volume continues with the very best of his solo harpsichord compositions—the F-minor rondeau La Forqueray, a monumental F-major-minor-major Chaconne, the turbulent and virtuose Medée, winsome and moving D-major Les Grâces, the rocket-themed D-minor La De Belombre, and two graceful Menuets. Then comes the G-major accompanied set—three character pieces, all in quick tempi, titled La De Casaubon, La Du Tailly, and La De Valmallette, the latter two both known Parisian vocalists. The volume concludes with five more solo harpsichord pieces in various keys.

In revisiting the Le Gaillard recordings I found them to be somewhat superficial and too unyielding for my current tastes. Searching the web to see if there were some more recent recordings I came across two that were of interest: a disc of accompanied works by Duphly and the very young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose earliest-known keyboard sonatas (K. 6–9) belong to the accompanied harpsichord genre, recorded at the Musée des Beaux Arts, Chartres, by harpsichordist Violaine Cochard and violinist Stéphanie-Marie Degand (Agogique AGO009, 2010). Online reviewer Johan van Veen wrote of this recent offering, “Considering that the Duphly pieces are not often recorded and that Mozart’s sonatas are too often—if at all—played on rather inappropriate instruments, this disc deserves an enthusiastic reception.”

A recording entirely devoted to works by Duphly receives my highest recommendation: harpsichordist Medea Bindewald, whose playing demonstrates the most satisfying musicality, with just the right amount of agogic give and take, is joined by violinist Nicolette Moonen on the German label Coviello Classics (CD COV91404). Recorded during August 2013 in Swithland, UK, here is a first-rate program selected from three of the four Duphly volumes, played from the original engraved texts (the same scores that I recommend, all four volumes of which are available in the series of Performers’ Facsimiles published by Broude Brothers). Ms. Bindewald lists Robert Hill (Freiburg) and Ketil Haugsand (Cologne) among her teachers, so it is not completely surprising that she plays a magnificent instrument built by another Hill brother, the American harpsichord maker Keith Hill. I was charmed and delighted throughout the ample hour-and-a-quarter of this well-chosen recital. Only occasionally did I wish that the violin were slightly less prominent in its balance with the harpsichord. After all, the bow was meant to accompany the keyboard! (Thank you, Mr. Avison and M. Mathon de la Coeur!)

When I first spoke about Duphly to a Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society gathering at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on April 6, 1991, I began by expressing appreciation to the author who had already published most of the information offered here. Once again, I need to share my gratitude to this pioneering scholar of French early keyboard music, Professor Emeritus David Fuller, from the State University of New York at Buffalo, whose research and writings have formed the basis not only of my own presentations, but, as I have noticed in researching the topic, nearly everyone else’s. As the authority who published “Accompanied Keyboard Music” in the journal Musical Quarterly (60:2, April 1974, pp. 222–245), as well as the subsequent articles on Duphly and the Accompanied Sonata in the New Grove Dictionary of Music, Fuller has been both leader and guide for Duphly studies. I came to know David better when I was asked to write his biography for the American Grove, and also when we “shared” a harpsichord major student, Lewis Baratz, who, after completing his undergraduate study with Professor Fuller, graced the master of music program in harpsichord at Southern Methodist University, before going on to earn his doctorate in musicology.

And I cannot think of, or play, Duphly’s music without remembering a beloved mixed-breed pet—part Dachshund, part Lhasa Apso—who loved to listen to the harpsichord, usually unaccompanied. Adopted from the local SPCA animal shelter, where his name was listed as “Blue,” he shared our Dallas lives for the larger part of two decades, during which time he seemed at ease with the more distinctive name I had chosen for him. ν

Comments or questions are always welcome. Please send them to [email protected] or Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, TX 75229.

Italian Christmas: 

Fiesole Revisited

Reader Mark Dirksen, business manager for John-Paul Buzard Pipe Organ Builders of Champaign, Illinois, wrote in response to the Christmas excerpt from my Salzburg memoir in our December 2016 Harpsichord News column:

. . . I am writing to acknowledge your lovely reminiscence of a Christmas Day in Fiesole in 1958 because it uncannily mirrors my own.

In 2004–05 my wife and I were fortunate enough to go on a “pilgrimage to an unknown destination.” That academic year took us on many adventures: mission work in South Africa and three glorious months living in Paris to mention just two highlights.

Christmas found us in Florence. It was a lovely December day in mid-Italy, just such a one as you describe, and we motored up to Fiesole, having been told of the glorious views. And lo! There was that same Monastery and the same Chapel, with Christmas Day Mass in progress: the monks, a handful of parishioners, and two very blessed Americans. It was truly a Christmas to remember­—followed by a lovely picnic lunch beside the Arno in a plaza all to ourselves. Thanks for bringing that memory back!

Paul Wolfe Remembered

Born in Waco, Texas, in 1929, Paul Wolfe grew up in the small town of Hico (a unique name that he used as a prime element of his e-mail address). Only 16 when he graduated from high school, Paul continued his education at the University of Texas (Austin), earning his undergraduate degree at 19! A fine pianist, he became interested in the harpsichord and was counseled to study the instrument with either Ralph Kirkpatrick or Wanda Landowska. Paul chose the latter option, and, together with Rafael Puyana and Irma Rogell, had the distinction of being in the final group of students to be taught by the iconic artist.

For an interesting and comprehensive report on Wolfe’s Landowska years and his career as a harpsichordist in Europe and the United States, I refer our readers to the feature article, “Mamusia: Paul Wolfe Remembers Wanda Landowska” (The Diapason, October 2012, pp. 23–25), copiously illustrated with ten rare photographs. Author Craig Smith, currently a freelance writer on music and the arts, was formerly a classical music critic for the Santa Fe New Mexican and a longtime friend of Paul Wolfe. When I invited Paul to reminisce about his Landowska years at our final Southern Methodist University summer harpsichord workshop in New Mexico (Summer 2008), he agreed to speak to the class, but only if Craig Smith were engaged to be the “host questioner” for the interview.

My own fondly remembered friendship with Paul Wolfe came about when Nick Fritsch of Lyrachord Records decided to transfer to compact disc and reissue Paul’s path-breaking harpsichord recordings made in the mid-1950s for Expériences Anonymes. Rightly concerned that many listeners in the 1990s might not understand the colorful sounds and frequent changes of registration available on earlier revival harpsichords, Nick commissioned me to write an essay, “When They Had Pedals,” to be published together with Paul’s original extensive notes on the music. As a consistent attendee of the Santa Fe Opera I travel every summer to that most wonderful arts mecca; so, during one of these annual visits I was able to make an appointment to meet and speak with Paul Wolfe concerning the reissue project.

He liked my essay, I enjoyed his company, and consistently, through the ensuing years, we continued to share quite a number of delightful dinners or lunches at several of Santa Fe’s better restaurants. Later in that tradition it was settled that our favorite spot was SantaCafé, where, on a shaded dining patio, Paul could order his favorite lunch—an all-beef frankfurter on a bun, with sauerkraut slaw, jalapeño mustard, and rosemary potato chips, Santa Fe’s take on New York-style cuisine.

Paul’s association with and eventual marriage to Brigitta Lieberson (also known as Vera Zorina) brought him into a highly artistic family that included the composer Peter Lieberson and his wife, the irreplaceable mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, both of whom thus became Paul’s stepchildren. Mental vignettes of his love for two pet dachshunds and his racy sports car driving at “Presto” speed, my memories of Paul are those of a vibrant and charming human being who was blessed with a fine musical talent as well as a quiet gift for warm friendship. No longer playing the harpsichord, Paul turned to writing as an artistic outlet. The resulting novel Choices (2006), a racy story of intrigue at a fictitious Italian music festival (cleverly dubbed Lospello by the crafty author), is a good read for those not offended by adult situations and language.

And now his hands and voice are stilled: Paul passed away on Christmas Day 2016, the last of Landowska’s American students. The two Lyrachord double-disc albums, When They Had Pedals, issued in 1998, comprise works by Frescobaldi and the English virginalists (LEMS-8033), played on Wolfe’s 1907 Pleyel instrument, and
G. F. Handel’s Suites 3, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 15 (LEMS-8034), performed on the well-loved Rutkowski harpsichord Wolfe purchased in 1958.

Masterful Froberger by Glen Wilson

Referencing admired compact discs brings us to 23 Suites for Harpsichord plus Tombeau and Lamentation by the 17th-century composer Johann Jacob Froberger, recorded by harpsichordist Glen Wilson. American-born, a Juilliard graduate who studied with Albert Fuller, then a favored pupil of Gustav Leonhardt (1971–75), Glen Wilson has pursued his stellar career in Holland and Germany. The music heard on this two-disc album from Naxos provides more than two hours of evocative and individual harpsichord playing. I recommend this set highly and suggest that referencing Wilson’s extensive 15-page online essay (in which he sets forth his well-researched ideas that form the bases for the performances on Naxos 8.573493-94) will provide all readers a fascinating study of both composer and player.

An Internet search for “Glen Wilson Harpsichordist” will lead directly to his website: www.glenwilson.eu/. After chuckling at the home page’s whimsical drawing “Flying Harpsichord” by Emma Wilson, age 7 (1997), click on Articles and Sound Clips to access Article 6 (the Naxos-connected one). Also of immense interest and import is Article 1, “The Other Mr. Couperin,” in which Wilson, a deft and determined musicological sleuth, presents the probable answer to a dichotomy that has puzzled me for a number of years: why is Louis Couperin’s harpsichord music so much more polished and interesting than his compositions for the organ? Read Wilson’s quite remarkable online report and consider his well-reasoned conclusion!

A Recital Program by J. William Greene

Finally, in a fortuitous e-mail, I received a program recently played at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, by J. William Greene. Readers of this column may remember encountering Greene’s winsome compositions for organ or harpsichord, especially his Christmas Ayres and Dances (see Harpsichord News, June 2015, p. 11).

In Part One of his recital the artist played a Peter Fisk single-manual harpsichord (2011), tuned in meantone. Works performed were by Frescobaldi, Dirck Janszoon Sweelinck (son of the better-known Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck), Delphin Strungk, Dieterich Buxtehude, and (to continue our previous theme) the Suite XXVII (27) by J. J. Froberger, a formerly incomplete set of pieces now fleshed out to suite-length, thanks to several recent discoveries of additional source material. This suite begins with the short, but extremely pictorial Allemande, “written to document a marine tragedy that took place on the Rhine [River].” (A facsimile of the original manuscript is to be found in the Froberger/Wilson article cited above.)

For Part Two of this imaginative program, Dr. Greene offered four Couperin preludes from L’art de toucher le clavecin (recently the focus of Harpsichord News), and the artist confided that he added Prelude Four as an encore! The remaining selections were J. S. Bach’s Ouverture, BWV 820, Carlo Antonio Campioni’s Sonata II in E Major, and Fandango by Padre Antonio Soler. The harpsichord was a Frank Hubbard French 18th-century double-manual instrument from 1979, tuned in a well-temperament.

I am certain that a “Zugabe” [Encore] was well earned, and could only wish that I had been present to hear this decidedly unusual harpsichord repertory. Bravo!

Striking gold: some thoughts on performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations

Among iconic works for harpsichord, Bach’s masterful variation set BWV 988, published in 1742 as the fourth part of the composer’s Clavierübung series, is a culminating goal for those of us who revere and play the solo keyboard works of the Leipzig Cantor. Unique in its scope, variety of invention, and complex displays of variation techniques, as well as for the high level of keyboard skills required to perform this Aria with its thirty diverse variations, the “Goldbergs” remain a lofty destination on any harpsichordist’s “must-achieve” list.

Landowska and the first
recording of the Goldbergs

The most prominent 20th-century harpsichordist, Wanda Landowska, added these variations to her public performance repertoire in May 1933, just two months before her 54th birthday. She committed her interpretation to discs in November of that same year. This very recording, played on her signature Pleyel harpsichord equipped with 16-foot register and foot pedals for controlling registers, has been available in every successive recording format: 78-rpm vinyl; LP (331⁄3 rpm); and, ultimately, as a crown jewel in EMI’s 1987 “Great Recordings of the Century” series of compact discs. Like those of her contemporary, tenor Enrico Caruso, the pioneering harpsichordist’s recordings have survived each new technology, and their historic performances continue to delight each successive generation of listeners.

Landowska’s recording of the Goldbergs

Landowska recorded the complete work without repeats, but added idiosyncratic recapitulations of the first eight measures in variations 5, 7, and 18, resulting in a total duration just a few seconds shy of 47 minutes of music.

Also of compelling interest are Landowska’s commentaries on BVW 988. Originally written as program notes for the recording, they comprise 31 fascinating paragraphs, available in the book Landowska on Music (collected by Denise Restout, assisted by Robert Hawkins; New York: Stein and Day, paperback edition, 1969; pp. 209–220). They recount the tale of 14-year-old Danzig-born Bach student Johann Theophilus Goldberg who, as a protégé of Bach’s patron, the insomniac diplomat Count Kayserling, played the Variations for him (as chronicled by Bach’s first biographer Forkel), here embellished further by colorful imagery from Landowska. Brief descriptions of the individual movements of BWV 988 culminate in her evocative appreciation of Variation 25, third of the three variations in G minor, dubbed by the author as “the supreme pearl of this necklace—the black pearl.”

Concluding her essay, Landowska, who also was lauded by her contemporaries as a fine pianist, showed exquisite taste as she opined: “. . . the piano, which has no more than a single eight-foot-register, goes contrary to the needs and nature of overlapping voices. Besides, the bluntness of sound produced by the impact of hammers on the strings is alien to the transparency obtained with plucked strings, a transparency so necessary to poly-melodic writing. By interchanging parts on various registers of a two-keyboard harpsichord, we discover the secret of this foolproof writing which is similar to a hand-woven rug with no wrong side.”

[Comment by LP: It has always seemed strange, perhaps even perverse, that many pianists choose to play almost exclusively the pieces that Bach specifically designated for harpsichord with two keyboards—those major works found in parts two and four of his engraved/published keyboard works. To my ears, such performances are rarely successful. Perhaps the most bizarre of all such attempts was encountered during an undergraduate pianist’s audition for admission to a harpsichord degree program: the applicant attempted to play the slow movement of the Italian Concerto on a single keyboard (of a harpsichord). Admission was denied.]

A second thought-provoking set of program notes

Matthew Dirst, educated at the University of Illinois, Southern Methodist University, and Stanford University, now professor of music at the University of Houston, is well known as a Bach researcher who specializes in the reception history of the master’s works. He is also that ideal musicologist who is a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist, with multiple international prizes to support that affirmation. His writing is witty, lyrical, often thought provoking, and accurate! The seven paragraphs that he penned for the program of his complete Goldbergs, sponsored in 2005 by the Dallas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, serve as representative examples. Dirst has played the complete set in many venues, but his thoughts on playing all the movements in one long program are both enlightening and liberating. 

As one who has strayed quite often from the obligation to “play them all,” I applaud this more flexible stance: “Bach surely never intended—much less gave—such a [complete] performance. His purpose in assembling large collections was, as he writes in more than one title page, ‘for music lovers, to refresh their spirits. . . .’ But if we are to believe Forkel’s story about the insomniac count, it would seem that listening attentively to all these variations in one sitting is hardly what Bach had in mind . . . Fortunately, Bach’s music survives equally well in large helpings at prime time or as small courses during the wee hours.” Bravo, Matthew!

My first public Goldbergs

Elena Presser, the Argentinian-born American artist, has devoted much of her career to creating works of art inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In June 1987 the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University hosted an exhibition of Presser’s 32 wall sculptures, The Goldberg Variations. Replete with number symbolism and specific colors often representing musical keys, this artist’s works share fascinating artistic insights that are inspiring and capable of expanding one’s understanding of Bach’s musical architecture. Each plexi-boxed creation depicts one movement: the basic Sarabande/Aria, the ensuing thirty variations, and the closing recapitulation of the Aria.

I was invited to perform the complete work as part of the opening festivities for this exhibition. It was my first complete traversal of Bach’s magnum opus. At age 48, I was only a few years younger than Landowska had been when she played her first complete set. At a special dinner following the concert I was seated next to Elena Presser. Thus began a friendship, abetted by my driving her to the airport for her return flight to Miami. During this trip I expressed an interest in commissioning one of her future art creations. Several years later, without any more discussion or correspondence, I received an invoice for a single piece inspired by Bach’s French Ouverture (in B minor), BWV 831. It took several years to pay for this commission, but the Presser piece remains a joyous highlight of the Palmer music room art collection.

Later in that summer of 1987 the museum director requested a second performance of the Goldbergs to mark the final week of the exhibition. This time we had a slide of each artwork to be shown simultaneously with the playing of the motivating movement: another successful expansion of artistic energies that made sense to the appreciative auditors/viewers.

It must have been something in the atmosphere that inspired more and more diverse Goldberg performances that year: from a far-away east coast, harpsichordist Igor Kipnis sent a program from his Connecticut Music Festival—and there was a listing of his solo performance of the entire piece, with another innovation: Kipnis prefaced Bach’s masterwork with three Polonaises from the pen of its first executant, the young Goldberg! Since Igor and I often exchanged newly discovered scores, I requested information about these pieces, to which he responded by sending copies. On several subsequent outings of the Goldberg Variations I have emulated his interest-generating prelude to the cycle.

For most of my Goldberg programs I have relied on the Landowska-inspired program notes written by her American student Putnam Aldrich (a faculty member at the University of Texas, Austin, and, subsequently, early music/harpsichord guru at Stanford University). Professor Aldrich’s cogent notes came to me through a close friendship with Putnam’s widow, Momo, who had been Landowska’s first secretary during the early years of her residence at St-Leu-la-Forêt. After Put’s death, Mrs. Aldrich moved to Hawaii to be near their only daughter and the grandchildren. It was during a treasured series of post-Christmas visits to Hawaii that I culled much information from her as I gathered materials for the book Harpsichord in America: so much, indeed, that the book is dedicated to her.

The ultimate luxury of two collaborators

That my final harpsichord student at SMU should be the Central American pianist José Luis Correa was a tremendous boon. Moving to Dallas for study with artist-in-residence Joaquin Achucarro, José also signed up for harpsichord lessons, and he bonded with this second instrument, the harpsichord, with intense devotion and dedication. Although I was on sabbatical leave during my final semester (his fourth of harpsichord study) I continued to give him lessons. My general absence from the harpsichord studio gave him much extra time to indulge his passion for the instrument—so all things worked out well. For his “final exam” I decided that we would divide the Goldberg Variations equally and perform them at the third house concert (Limited Editions) of the 2014–15 season. And so we did: I played the Aria, José the first variation; we then alternated back and forth through the whole cycle, with only two exceptions to this musical ying and yang: twice I performed two consecutive movements so I could play my favorites: Landowska’s “Black Pearl” and the rollicking Quodlibet. On the flip side, this allowed José to have the final glory of playing the Aria da Capo: fitting, it seemed, to pass a small torch to a new generation of harpsichordists.

And that is what Señor Correa has become! Back in his native Colombia he has positions as pianist and harpsichordist with a chamber orchestra—and the great joy (he wrote) that the instruments belonging to that group are now stored at his house, so he has a harpsichord (and a chamber organ) always available for practice.

I recommend highly the division of performing that alternating the variations provides. Sharing in this way gives each player an opportunity to recover from the intensity of his own performance before beginning the next assignment. As for the audience, hearing two differing harpsichord timbres helps to keep them focused on the music. Unfortunately, not everyone will have the luxury of a Richard Kingston Franco-Flemish double (played by LP) and a Willard Martin Saxon double (played by JC). I can only report that our concert was a great success: prefaced this time not by Goldberg’s Polonaises but by a much-loved and scintillating work for two harpsichords­—Carillon (1967) by the British composer Stephen Dodgson (1924–2013).