Harpsichord News

More Duphly

November’s column on Jacques Duphly and his accompanied harpsichord pieces motivated two readers to send me their welcome compact disc recordings of solo harpsichord works by the 18th-century French composer. 

San Francisco-based harpsichordist Katherine Roberts Perl (www.kathyrobertsperl.com) serves up 68 minutes of Duphly favorites played on John Phillips’ superb replica of a 1707 Nicholas Dumont double harpsichord. Her chosen repertoire comprises five dance movements and the titled works La de Belombre, La Damanzy, Les Grâces, La Vanlo, La de la Tour, Médée, and La Forqueray, concluding with the composer’s most extended piece, his Chaconne in F (Dorian Recordings DOR-93169, recorded in 1996, released in 1998).

Yves-G. Préfontaine’s two-disc traversal of Duphly’s Pièces de Clavecin (ATMA Classique ACD2 2716) was recorded in November 2014 and issued in 2015. The Canadian artist utilizes a very lovely Hemsch-based two-manual instrument by Montréal builder Yves Beaupré. The extensive program, organized by keys, includes 27 works culled from all four books of Duphly’s harpsichord music.

Préfontaine also performs the lengthy F major/minor Chaconne, as does harpsichordist Medea Bindewald (on her Coviello Classics disc, cited in the November article). In comparing play-lists, I was fascinated to note the wide variance in tempi for this composition: Binewald plays it in 7 and a half minutes; Perl 8 minutes, 16 seconds; and Préfontaine 9 and a half minutes—wide enough variance that it sent me to the keyboard for my own read-through (since each of the recordings had seemed faster than I would play the piece).

I do not mean this to be critical of these fleet performances: references to Chaconne tempi in several widely-quoted sources (L’Affilard, 1705, and Pajot, 1732, for instance) suggest quick beats when these 18th-century remarks are translated into modern metronome markings. I was comforted to come across a 2007 reference to the findings of Dutch musicologist Jan van Biezen, who suggests that perhaps we read these arcane writings wrongly and points out that if we were to adjust the suggested speed to include both the back and forth movements of a mechanical device we might come closer to the more stately tempi that the music itself seems to suggest: approximately one beat equaling 78 or 79 MM (www.janvanbiezen.nl/articles.html—accessed “Tempo of French Baroque Dances,” February 28, 2016).

I have noticed for several decades that I now prefer slower tempi than I did in my younger years. Indeed students became quite used to my “I’d take that a bit slower” remark, especially when dealing with baroque music. It is a normal progression (or regression, if you wish): as we age, we move somewhat more slowly. I prefer to allow the music itself an unpressured time to unfold; the Chaconne seems to require both elegance and grace. Surely life must have moved more slowly in an age that did not have mechanized travel or instant communication. (I hope it is not too suggestive of a bad pun to conclude these thoughts with a phrase that composer Duphly might have understood: “chacun à son goût” [“each to one’s own taste”]?) 

Two more mystery novels

The harpsichord is mentioned thirteen times (the clavichord only once) in author Imogen Robertson’s novel Anatomy of Murder, set in the London of 1781. This second book featuring unlikely forensic sleuths Mrs. Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther is a well-written page-turner dealing with the British aftermath of the American Revolution, skullduggery that besets the (fictional) His Majesty’s Theatre production of a new Italian opera starring a phenomenal soprano of unexpected parentage and a favorite continental castrato singer, plus the daily joys and sorrows of both titled and lower-class inhabitants of the fast-expanding and radically changing urban metropolis. (Pamela Dorman/Viking Books, 2012. ISBN 978-0-670-02317-2). 

A visit to Half Price Books, Dallas’s mega-emporium of previously owned reading material, resulted in the acquisition of another work from the pen of Donna Leone, the American expatriate author who resides in Venice. While musical references in Willful Behavior, the eleventh of her Commissario Guido Brunetti series (2002) are less frequent than those in the works I cited in my January 2016 column, there were four that stood out in this volume: an analogy to a Haydn Symphony, a similarity to a Scarlatti oratorio, the mention of Vivaldi’s baptismal church in Venice, and a plot twist reference to Puccini’s opera Tosca. Ms. Leone continues to be both lover and patron of classical music and her books serve as welcome guides to her adopted city for any musical armchair traveler. 

Semibrevity

Guest blogger Mandy Macdonald writes about Nelly Chaplin who performed on her 1775 Jacobus and Abraham Kirkman two-manual harpsichord early in the 20th century (illustrated with a picture of a similar 1755 Kirkman now in the collection of historic instruments at Musical Instrument Museums, Edinburgh). Free access is available at www.semibrevity.com, where you should also scroll down to read the amazing story of T. W. Taphouse, British collector of early instruments, who purchased his first Shudi and Broadwood 1773 harpsichord at age 19, in 1857!

The Semibrevity website continues to broaden our knowledge of these largely unfamiliar early proponents of early music on early instruments in its well-researched and beautifully illustrated postings.

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

By Larry Palmer 

Celebrating Scott Ross

The Diapason for October 1971 (62nd year, number 11, whole number 743) featured a non-organ event on the front page for the first time in the magazine’s venerable history. Under a bold headline that read “Bruges International Harpsichord Competition and Festival,” the article was my several-page review of the triennial event that had taken place in Belgium during the previous summer, July 31 through August 6.  

The text began: A First Prize

At 1 o’clock in the morning, a weary, but exhilarated audience applauded an extraordinary winner: Scott Ross, born 20 years ago in Pittsburgh, Pa., and now a resident of France, became the first harpsichordist ever to be awarded a first prize in the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition. Ross had been an electrifying personality since the opening round, when, playing next-to-last on the third afternoon, he gave flawless and illuminating performances of the Bach Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp Minor (WTC II) and of the William Byrd Fantasy III. He received so much applause from a heretofore soporific audience that the secretary of the jury had to ring the bell for order.

The seven-member jury for the 1971 competition certainly highlighted the international scope of the event, comprising Kenneth Gilbert (Montreal), Raymond Schroyens and Charles Koenig (Brussels), Colin Tilney (London), Robert Veyron-Lacroix (Paris), Isolde Ahlgrimm (Vienna), and Gustav Leonhardt (Amsterdam). This distinguished panel had selected five finalists and ultimately ranked them in this order: following Ross’s triumphant first, second place went to John Whitelaw (Canada), third to Christopher Farr (England), and fifth place to Alexander Sung (Hong Kong). No fourth prize was awarded, but a finalist’s honorable mention was presented to the French contestant, Catherine Caumont.

During my long tenure as harpsichord contributing editor, a position to which I was appointed in 1969 by The Diapason’s second editor, Frank Cunkle, there have been other issues with non-organ cover art and quite a few featured articles celebrating harpsichords and harpsichordists. Festive issues dedicated to Wanda Landowska (1979) and William Dowd (1992) come to mind most vividly. But in claiming the surprising novelty of a first-ever cover position, I am relying on the historical acumen of Robert Schuneman, the editor who succeeded Mr. Cunkle. Although I have bound copies of each year of The Diapason beginning with 1969 (and some single issues prior to that), I cannot claim that I have perused every one of the magazine’s copious publications. If any reader knows of a prior non-organ event that was featured on a first page or cover, I would appreciate being informed.

Scott Ross and a Prélude Non-Mesuré

It has been true in many instances that I have learned a great deal from my students, and now that my studio comprises only two adults, each of whom visits for a monthly harpsichord lesson, I am still the beneficiary! One of these delightful individuals surprised me with a two-page unmeasured prelude composed by Scott Ross. Notated entirely in whole notes in the style of a French baroque composition, Ross’s short piece was created as a sight-reading exercise for one of the Paris Harpsichord Competitions. As far as we can ascertain, the work has never been published, but there are at least three performances posted on YouTube, and a computer-generated score may be followed. An Internet friend alerted my student to this work, provided her with his photo-montage of the score, and she generously shared a copy with me.

I am absolutely entranced by this modern adaptation of a French genre in which all the notes are present but grouping and shaping of the musical ideas is entirely up to the performer. In this case Ross’s Preludio all’Imitazione del Sig. Vanieri Tantris Soldei is a wickedly clever evocation of chromatic harmonies to be found in Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde (as revealed by the acrostic Tantris Soldei, obviously a slight scrambling of the opera’s title). This prelude should engender smiles of recognition from any operatically savvy listener, and it gains a most lofty status among clever recital encores, so far as I am concerned.

Not the least of pleasures is that Ross’s clever addition to our repertoire brought back such vibrant memories of his Bruges triumph and reminded this writer of what we lost when Scott Ross succumbed to AIDS-related pneumonia and died at his home in France, at the age of 38. The Prélude joins Scott’s recorded legacy of French claveçin pieces and his complete recording of the 500-plus Keyboard Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti to remind us of what was silenced by such an early demise.

From a Letter to the Harpsichord Editor:

Beverly Scheibert comments on the March and April harpsichord columns:

Re the Italian trill: In all Italian sources I have seen, it begins on the main note, except from those who were working abroad (and one of these illustrates in another writing a long trill beginning on the main note). My article in The Consort 64 (2008: pp. 90–101, by Beverly Jerold) documents that the upper-note trill was confined primarily to perfect cadences, where it forms a dissonance against the bass. Most other trills are simply an inverted mordent.

Re Couperin’s petites notes: You are perfectly right, except that many are to be played on the beat, but with “no value,” so that the main note seems to retain its rightful position. I have located six French sources that describe this ornament as having “no value whatever,” eight that say it “counts for nothing in the measure,” and fourteen that illustrate it as falling before the beat. Because of all the harmonic errors created, D’Anglebert’s illustration (and that of his four copiers) cannot be taken literally. Notation standards 300 years ago were not ours, as confirmed by two French (and several German) sources whose explanatory text contradicts their musical example. There is no accurate way to notate a realization of an ornament that has “no value whatever.”

Our thanks to Ms. Scheibert for these musicologically supported and eminently sensible observations.

Early Keyboard Journal

Early Keyboard Journal Volume 30 (2013) is available at last. After many publishing delays the intriguing and extensive article, “The Other Mr. Couperin” by Glen Wilson, is finally in print, as is David Schulenberg’s “Ornaments, Fingerings, and Authorship: Persistent Questions About English Keyboard Music circa 1600.” It is available from the Historical Keyboard Society of North America:

http://historicalkeyboardsociety.org.

Remembering Isolde Ahlgrimm on her birthday (July 31)

Born in 1914 in Vienna, my first harpsichord teacher Isolde Ahlgrimm was truly a citizen of the musical world, which lost a major figure of the harpsichord revival when she died in 1995. However, her legacy lives on, well documented in Peter Watchorn’s Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna and the Early Music Revival (Ashgate Publishing, 2007) as well as in the pedagogical gem Manuale der Orgel und Cembalotechnik (Finger Exercises and Etudes, 1571–1760, Vienna: Doblinger, 1982) in which Ahlgrimm presents a collection of useful technique-building examples from the heyday of our instrument. Her descriptive texts are printed in parallel columns of German and English, so there is no need to fear this book if German does not happen to be a comfortable language.

Of particular interest are the pieces I plan to play in celebration of Frau Ahlgrimm’s natal day: three single-page fugues (pages 54–56) designed to be played by one hand only (with the choice of right or left to be decided by the player). These pieces were composed by Philipp Christoph Hartung for his Musicus-Theoretico-Practicus, published in Nürnberg in 1749. As the composer wrote, “(These three numbers) are to be played by the right hand or left hand alone. From this one gains an ability which can be put to good use at times when it is necessary to take one hand or the other away from the keyboard.” Ahlgrimm always laughed at the suggestion made by some keyboard teachers that Baroque composers did not use exercises. Her levity is proven to be deserved: she made her point with these 78 pages of period examples and her explanations. Those who use the Manual will surely be more technically secure for having done so.

According to Janus

The ancient Romans worshipped many gods. Janus, who provided the name for our first month of the year, had two faces, which allowed him to look in both directions: back to the past and forward to the future. Thus, a Janusian column seems appropriate for the first month of a new year.

Looking Back: Topics of the
2016 Harpsichord News
Columns

January: Buried Treasures: The Harpsichord Pages in Retrospect (2006–2015); Something New: Mysteries with Musical References

March: William Bolcom’s Compositions for Solo Harpsichord

April: More Duphly; Two Additional Mystery Novels; Semibrevity Website

May: Historical Keyboard Society of North America Conference at Oberlin College: Duphly, Skowroneck, Leonhardt, and Kreisler—A Twisted Tale

June: Tempi in Early Music from Beverly Jerold Scheibert; Two Clavichords at the Oberlin HKSNA

July: In Memoriam: Drawings by Jane Johnson (A Retrospective Feature Article)

August: Broadening a Harpsichordist’s Horizon: The Fifth East Texas Pipe Organ Festival Continues Tradition

September: Striking Gold: Some Thoughts on Performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations

October: Well-Tempered: Lou Harrison and the Harpsichord

November: Some Thoughts on Programming

December: Christmas Musings: Joseph Wechsberg’s The Best Things in Life; Recordings of the complete harpsichord works of Marchand and Clérambault on compact disc and 21st-century solos on another from the British Harpsichord Society; plus a Christmas Vignette (excerpted from Palmer: Letters from Salzburg).

Two Vignettes from 2016 East

Texas Pipe Organ Festival
(November 6–11)

The most recent pipe organ fest in November followed its traditional, successful schedule, albeit with a bit more time allowed for dining and socializing. After the brilliant Sunday evening opening organ recital by Richard Elliot on Kilgore’s prized Roy Perry-designed Aeolian-Skinner organ (Opus 1173, First Presbyterian Church), Christopher Marks (new to the artist roster) began the first full day of the festival on Monday with a recital on the same instrument. His well-designed program devoted to music by Seth Bingham (1882–1972) showed the conservative American church musician to be a composer consistent in craftsmanship, and one indebted to the French school of organ music as well. Nostalgia welled up when, for the first time since high school, I heard again two pieces from Bingham’s organ suite Harmonies of Florence (1929): Savonarola, and one that was in my repertoire in those youthful years, Twilight at Fiesole. These pieces brought back memories of another outstanding advocate for French music, Oberlin professor of organ Fenner Douglass, with whom I had the great privilege of studying during my senior year. Douglass played French organ music ranging from Titelouze to the most recent works of Messiaen, but an American whom he admired and whose music he performed was none other than . . . Seth Bingham. 

Vignette Two: In Janus-Speak,
Ave atque Vale (Hail and 

Farewell)

I was not particularly looking forward to the fourth organ concert of our annual “day in Shreveport” even though the program was to take place on the grandest of the festival organs (Aeolian-Skinner opus 1308) in the most accommodating acoustic: St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral. Replacing the indisposed Marilyn Keiser as recitalist was the winner of the 2016 Longwood Gardens Competition, Joshua Stafford. His stylishly eclectic program comprised Leo Sowerby’s Comes Autumn Time, Seth Bingham’s Roulade (heard for the second time at this Festival), Lemare’s transcription of Dvorák’s Carnival Overture, a quiet Lied (Douze Pièces) by Gaston Litaize, and, following intermission, Liszt’s lengthy Fantasie and Fugue on the Chorale “Ad nos” from Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète. From the opening notes until the final strains of his patriotic encore, it was apparent that this young man is a stellar musician with a seemingly effortless technique that could encompass anything. But more than that, he demonstrated music-making of the highest order, delivered without affectation, obviously played with delight and musical intensity. At the conclusion of this amazing recital, before the final chord had died away in the reverberant cathedral, the audience, as one, rose to its feet, shouting “Bravo.” My own word choice was “Bravissimo!” Welcome to the company of outstanding artists, Joshua Stafford. I can scarcely wait to hear more from your talented fingers, feet, heart, and soul.

The closing event of the festival on Thursday evening was a recital by Frederick Swann at Kilgore’s First Presbyterian Church. Announced as the veteran artist’s final organ concert (he will continue to play church services), this repeat of the program he had given as a rededication concert for Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1173 following its 1966 revision by Roy Perry, capped Swann’s career of some 3,000 recitals with graceful, intense playing, always offered to the benefit of the music. In a class act that will be remembered for a very long time, the acclaimed organist did not play a traditional “encore” to acknowledge the continuing ovation of the large crowd; instead he instructed us to open our hymn books and sing, supported by his inspired accompaniment, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation.” These two unforgettable musical events receive my vote for best in show, ETPOF VI. 

The Future: Hello 2017

Billing itself as “the world’s best-selling classical music magazine,” BBC Music is a very good journal. Each monthly copy has affixed to its cover a compact disc, custom-produced to form part of the month’s offerings. For the December 2016 issue the featured composer is Johann Sebastian Bach. Articles discuss “the secret of his genius in ten masterpieces,” attempt to make sense of the extensive Bach family tree, and generally aid the reader/listener in various musical discoveries. This issue also contains 110 reviews of classical music discs by knowledgeable critics. The accompanying CD is of JSB’s final masterpiece, The Art of Fugue, in an orchestration devised by harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani for a substantial baroque instrumental contingent made up of two violins, viola, cello, viola da gamba, violone, two flutes, recorder, oboe, oboe d’amore, oboe da caccia, bassoon, cornetto, and two harpsichords (the players are members of the Academy of Ancient Music). This baroque chamber orchestra version is an attempt to suggest the type of coffee-house performance that Bach might have put together. With some moments of solo harpsichord, but many more with the instrumental band, it is indeed a colorful and unusual performance.

To suggest something for the future, I would like to reference a BBC Music “last page”—one of its “Music That Changed Me” series. In the September 2005 issue, the featured musician was the brilliant, energetic British harpsichordist (and conductor) Richard Egarr. I have been an admirer of his nimble-fingered, exciting playing for quite some time, and a part of what nourishes this spirited musical drive surely could be traced, in part, to the choices he makes for his own listening. Egarr cites six recordings, and I note with interest that only two of them comprise music for a solo keyboard. Both of these discs are historical testaments from unique and path-breaking musical artists. I suspect that many of Egarr’s own savvy musical instincts come from his “listening outside the [keyboard] box,” something I have long advocated, and that I recommend to our readers as a sure path to continuing aural adventures during this new year. My own choices nearly always include vocal works, for listening to good singers or choral ensembles helps incredibly in learning to make our own phrases breathe naturally (a benefit that is also attained by playing, or listening to, wind instruments).

So, for the record (as it were), here are Egarr’s six choices: Music of the Gothic Era (David Munrow); Early Violin Music (Musica Antiqua Köln); Mahler, Symphony I (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein); Moritz Rosenthal (historical recording of piano music issued by American Columbia’s Biddulph label); Tchaikovsky, Marche Slav (London Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski); and, as the second keyboard item: Bach’s Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould, piano), which he cites as a performance style that he has had to overcome in his own study of the monumental work.

Finally, dear readers, a few hints of some developing columns that may appear during the first half of 2017: from a group of colleagues who perform contemporary harpsichord music, some listings of their favorite works; an in-depth examination of a Bach prelude and fugue from the WTC; a guest article about some legendary French harpsichordists; an article on harpsichord pedagogy. Any suggestions for other topics of interest?

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey, teaching harpsichord, organ, and clavichord. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Clavichord

When I wrote several columns about tuning and temperament beginning in July 2009, I introduced the series with the following:

Most organists do not have to do any tuning as such, or at least can do without tuning if they prefer. However, it is very convenient indeed for any organist to be able to touch up a tuning . . . . Beyond that, however, it is very useful and enlightening for any organist to understand the role of tuning, temperament, and the nature of different intervals in the esthetics of organ and harpsichord sound and repertoire, and in the history of that repertoire.

I can say something similar about the relationship between the organist’s calling and the history, technique, and musical nature of the oldest stringed keyboard instrument—and the one that is in many ways the most mysterious as it appears in modern musical culture—namely, the clavichord. It is utterly possible to be an organist, organ student, organ teacher, organbuilder, organ tuner, organ aficionado, and so on, without ever studying or playing­—or even hearing or just thinking about—the clavichord.

Organists are very often called upon to play the piano in any number of different performance situations. They are less often but not too infrequently called upon to play harpsichord. And, of course, electronic keyboard instruments are found everywhere: anyone who is a working keyboard player is likely to be asked to use them from time to time. However, I have never once heard any report of a modern-day organist being required, or even asked, to use a clavichord in a practical performance situation.  

It can be illuminating for an organist to get to know something about the clavichord. This is true partly because learning or knowing anything can be illuminating. (Finding out more about trombone or hammered dulcimer or painting or dance or baseball could end up shedding light on something about organ study or organ performance.) The clavichord is also a fellow keyboard instrument, with a history going back to the very earliest days of the surviving keyboard repertoire. It is abundantly clear that organists over many centuries typically spent at least as much time playing the clavichord as they did playing the organ. If all of any given person’s experiences tend to inform one another, then everything that went on in the interlocking worlds of organbuilding, organ playing, organ improvisation, organ composition, and all other aspects of church music between some time in the early fifteenth century and some time in the eighteenth was influenced by players’ experiences with clavichord. 

It can be hard to sort out or analyze in any concise way what the nature of that influence was. There are few if any contemporary written sources that discuss that issue. (“Here is how my clavichord playing influences my organ playing.”) For the purposes of this introduction, I describe the instrument itself. There are things about the construction, design, and acoustics of clavichords that are fascinating and that raise issues that feel almost philosophical to me. Next month I will discuss some of those issues, talk about some aspects of playing technique and some of my own evolving thoughts about how my own clavichord experiences have affected other things about my musical life. I will also provide a bit of a bibliography and discography.

I should mention that it has been my experience that many organists have not had much opportunity to encounter clavichords in person or to learn very much about them. When I give workshops to groups of organists about early keyboard instruments, I ask, “Who here has played harpsichord?” and usually get 80–100% percent positive response. With the same question as to clavichord, the most usual response is zero, sometimes a person or two. So I am optimistic that these couple of columns will fill a need.

Clavichord construction

The clavichord is a stringed keyboard instrument. As with every string instrument, its principal sound-producing element is a set of strings drawn tight enough to be able to vibrate at a defined pitch. And as with almost every string instrument, those strings rest on mostly wooden elements that amplify and color the sound that the strings make. Specifically, the strings rest directly on a bridge, which is sort of like a short wall, and the bridge rests on the soundboard, which is a flattish plank built in such a way as to be resonant, sort of like a wooden drum head. There are metal pins on the bridge that hold the strings in place and participate in shaping the sound. When a string is made to vibrate, it passes those vibrations through the pins to the bridge and then to the soundboard. The sound that the listener hears is the amalgam of what the string throws off into the air directly and what the pins, bridge, and soundboard create. This description fits pianos, violins, guitars, harpsichords, dulcimers, banjos, and so on.

The pitch of a note on a string instrument is determined in part by the material of the strings and in part by how tightly it is drawn. It is also determined, importantly, by the length­—not the length of the whole piece of string, but by the length of the portion that is being made to vibrate. In pianos and harpsichords, among other instruments, the strings have speaking lengths that are fixed when the instrument is built. You can observe that length, as it is between two pinned bridges. String outside those bridges doesn’t vibrate. With violins and many other instruments, changing the speaking length of strings is part of the act of playing. 

Most clavichords have strings in unison pairs. When I talk about making “the string” sound or determining the speaking length of “a string,” I mean the unison pair if there are such pairs or an individual string if there are not unison pairs. You can see the overall layout of a clavichord in photograph 1, and a close-up of the bridge resting on the soundboard, with pairs of strings crossing it, in photograph 2. 

Each string instrument also has some way in which the strings are made to vibrate. With guitars, lutes, autoharps, and so on, the strings are plucked by hand or by a hand-held implement. With the harpsichord and its variants, the strings are plucked indirectly through a keyboard. With instruments of the violin and gamba families, the strings are made to vibrate by being rubbed with a bow, and something similar happens with a hurdy-gurdy. With hammered dulcimer and piano, the strings are struck.

This is where things get interesting as to the clavichord. Clavichord strings are made to vibrate by being struck. But whereas on a piano or with a hammered dulcimer, the device that strikes a string (the hammer) moves away from that string instantly, with the clavichord the element that strikes the string (a piece of brass called a tangent, that is found at the back of each key) remains in contact with the string until the key is released. Pretty much everything that is different or interesting about the clavichord, that which makes a clavichord a clavichord, stems directly from this setup. Here are some aspects of this:

1) When the tangent touches the string to make it vibrate, it also blocks sound waves from traveling across the spot where it touches the string. 

2) This means that the speaking length of the string starts specifically where the tangent is touching it. 

3) In turn, this also means that logically the tangent would seem to divide the string into two separate speaking lengths, one to its left, one to its right. It would indeed do this, except that:

4) In order to avoid the tangent’s causing two separate notes to sound, the strings to one side of the tangents are permanently damped by cloth wound between them. Only the other sides of the strings are allowed to sound, and the strings pass over a bridge and soundboard only on that side. You can see tangents, strings, and the damper cloth (known as listing cloth) in photograph 3. 

5) Since the tangents define one end of the sounding string, they are also initiating the sound of the string at its very end. This is different from other stringed keyboard instruments, where the action that makes the strings sound is located some ways away from either end of the strings. You can observe this by looking inside any harpsichord or piano. On non-keyboard string instruments, the player can make choices, within a certain range, about where along the strings to initiate the sound. 

6) The very end of a string is by far the least efficient place to try to make it sound; the middle is the most efficient. The loudest sound that you can try to make from the end of a string will be a lot quieter than a sound that you could get from elsewhere on the string. It is this fact, and not anything else about the construction of the instrument, that is the source of the clavichord’s overall low volume: not the bridge or soundboard design, not the size of the instrument, not the cloth wound around the strings, nothing about the shape or design of the keyboard.

Here are a couple of experiments that you can do that relate to this. If you have access to a violin or guitar or something similar, try plucking a string at the very end, either end. Then try plucking it at the middle, then elsewhere. You will easily get more volume near the middle than you can possibly get at either end. You can do the same at a harpsichord by playing and holding a note to gets its damper out of the way and then plucking that string at various points. Then try this with a clavichord: play and hold a note to get the tangent in position on its string. Then pluck that string near its middle. You will observe that you can get a lot more volume that way than you can get by actually playing that note from its key.

7) The speed or force with which a tangent touches a string is directly correlated with the volume of sound that it produces. That means that with the clavichord as with the piano you can shape the dynamics of individual notes by using different amounts of pressure or force in playing. The subtlety with which you can modulate dynamics on the clavichord is in every way equal to the same on the piano. The dynamic range is much, much narrower, going from “nearly inaudible” to something that might be called “mezzo piano.” The upper volume limit varies from one clavichord to another, but is always determined by #6 above.

8) The tangents in striking the strings can also distend them enough to change their pitch. If you play a note on a clavichord first gently and then very hard, you will sometimes notice that the latter is a bit higher in pitch than the former, or that the pitch wavers or seems unsettled. This varies from one clavichord to another, but it can place limits on the effectiveness of varied dynamics or on the useful dynamic range of a particular clavichord. 

9) On a brighter note, this same attribute can be used to create a musical effect that is surprising for a keyboard instrument, namely a sort of vibrato. If after you play a note, while you are holding it, you vary the pressure on the key, the pitch will waver. Next month, I will talk about this as an interpretive/expressive effect, and about how to execute it. 

10) As you release a note on a clavichord, the sound waves try to go out across the entire length of the string. In doing so they meet the cloth that has been wound around the strings for the main purpose of keeping the left-hand side of each string from sounding, as point 4 explains above. This cloth immediately damps the sound. Whereas on every other keyboard instrument the dampers descend on the strings to cause them to stop sounding, with the clavichord the dampers are already lying in wait, and the sound goes to meet them. 

11) Since the speaking length of a clavichord string is determined by the placement of the tangent, it follows that the same string can be made to play more than one different note. If you place tangents at different points along the length of a string, each of those tangents will define a different end-point for the speaking length of that string, and therefore make a different pitch. In theory, there is no reason that you couldn’t get all of the notes across the whole compass of an instrument from a total of one string, each note made by a tangent at the back of its key, at the right place on the string to create the correct pitch for that note. An instrument set up like this could only play one note at a time and would be of limited relevance to playing what we think of as the keyboard repertoire. 

However:

12) It is, by extension, also possible to group several adjacent notes, short of the entire compass of the instrument, onto the same string by placing their tangents all on that string, in the correct alignment to produce the desired pitches. This was extremely common in clavichord design from the very earliest days through the early to mid-eighteenth century. Some of the earliest clavichords have some or all of their notes sharing strings in groups of four, perhaps E-flat, E, F, F-sharp.

Later, well into the eighteenth century, it was common for certain notes to be grouped in pairs, with, for example, C and C-sharp, E-flat and E, F and F-sharp, G and G-sharp, and B-flat and B sharing strings. This was musically acceptable because it was not considered necessary to write or improvise music in which those adjacent semitones were played together. (If you play two adjacent keys whose notes share a string together, you hear the higher note, plus an odd clicking noise.) It is entirely possible to play the two notes that share a string in very quick succession, even to trill on them. 

You can see pairs of tangents addressing different places on the same strings in photograph 4. Reading left to right tangents 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 6 and 7 are in pairs. Tangent 5 is alone on its pair of strings. The first two play F and F-sharp, the next two play G and G-sharp, the next one plays A, and the last two play B-flat and B.

A clavichord on which some notes are grouped in pairs or larger units sharing strings is called a fretted clavichord. A clavichord on which every note has its own string or pair of strings is called an unfretted clavichord. Unfretted clavichords only became common in the mid-eighteenth century.

To be continued . . . 

Seeking Haydn

A recent compact disc of compositions by Joseph Haydn performed on the harpsichord has provided novelty for the ears as well as provoking a lot of thought as to which keyboard instrument best serves this great composer’s creations. This conundrum occurs rather frequently for music of the later eighteenth century, especially since the extensive recording of classical sonatas by Haydn has been achieved most frequently by pianists, and similar endeavors seem to have been somewhat lacking from those of us who play instruments that pre-date the nearly-ubiquitous eighty-eight-keyed instrument.

Recorded early in 2017 by Finnish harpsichordist Pierre Gallon (born 1975), the compact disc Joseph Haydn per il Cembalo Solo is a recent release by l’Encelade (ECL1701: information available at www.encelade.net). Playing a 2004 harpsichord built by Jonte Knif (based on mid-eighteenth-century German instruments), Gallon has selected a varied repertoire of rarely heard Haydn works, including these five multi-movement compositions­:

Partita, HobXVI:6 (Divertimento per il Cembalo Solo): Allegro, Minuet, Adagio, Allegro molto [before 1766];

Sonata per Clavicembalo, HobXVI: 27: Allegro con brio, Menuetto, Presto [1776];

Divertimento, HobXVI:12: Andante, Menuet, Allegro molto [before 1766];

Sonata per Cembalo “a Principe Niccolo Esterhazy,” opus 13, HobXVI:24 [ca.1773];

Capriccio, HobXVII:1: Theme and Variations “Acht Sauschneider müssen seyn” [1765], a humorous popular folksong about the eight persons required for castrating a wild boar[!], a charming example of Haydn’s legendary sense of humor.

Interspersed with these large-scale compositions are three short pieces from the second set of 12 Lieder für das Clavier (1781/84): Geistliches Lied [#17], Minna [#23], and, as the compact disc’s final track, a gentle benediction: Auf meines Vaters Grab (At my Father’s Grave) [#24]­—each serving as a sonic “sorbet” to clear the listener’s aural senses.

Pierre Gallon displays a secure and brilliant technique, sometimes too much so, perhaps. Allegro (“happy”) and Presto (“fast”) frequently seem to be identical tempi, thus presenting a jet-fueled interpretation of music originally conceived in a horse and oxcart age. Occasionally I wished for more vocally inspired phrasing that would allow slightly more time before forging ahead to the next musical idea. There is, however, much sensitive and beautiful playing in the slower and gentler movements, and overall the disc is recommended as a welcome introduction to these rarely heard Haydn works. 

Some relevant Haydn research

So: which should it be? Harpsichord or piano? If I may quote myself, “The best answer is ‘Yes,’” as I stated in the notes to an edition of Samuel Wesley, Jr.’s Sonata in F Minor (published in 2007 by Skyline Publications, Eau Claire, Wisconsin). Wesley’s 1781 autograph manuscript was acquired by the Bridwell Library at Southern Methodist University. To honor the 300th anniversary of the birth of the senior Charles Wesley, the library mounted an extensive exhibition celebrating the musical Wesleys. I was asked to play the modern premiere of the sonata, for which Clyde Putman prepared a more legible “Finale” performing score that subsequently served as the basis for the modern publication. It is a beautiful edition that also includes full-sized facsimiles of the entire previously unknown manuscript as well as the essay from which I continue to quote:

The manuscript indicates that Wesley’s Sonata is “per il Cembalo,” the Italian word for harpsichord, an instrument not much associated with carefully calibrated dynamic changes, even in our own time. It is true that Cembalo (as a broader generic term for a keyboard instrument) was retained on title pages of keyboard publications well into the 19th century (notably by Beethoven, and continuing as late as several early piano works of Liszt!). However, dynamic indications alone do not negate harpsichord performance, especially since some late 18th-century British harpsichords could offer quite a range of volume and color. Larger instruments by Shudi, Kirkman, or Broadwood might include machine stops operated by foot pedals, thus allowing a player to change from the softest to full registrations, and back again, in an instant. A few harpsichords even had organ-like louvers, placed above the strings and soundboard, and also operated by a pedal. . . . With minor adjustments the Sonata works well as a harpsichord piece; but, given the rapidly changing aesthetic of the time, and the performance indications in the manuscript, there should be no deterrent to a performance on the piano, or, for that matter, the clavichord!

Returning to research specifically about Joseph Haydn, a fortuitous find in my personal library was a single copy of the magazine Harpsichord & Fortepiano for June 1998 (Volume 7, number 1: ISSN 1463-0036) in which Richard Maunder’s article “Keyboard Instruments in Haydn’s Vienna” details a fascinating overview of some choices that must have been available to our composer of the month. Originally delivered as a lecture for the British Clavichord Society, Dr. Maunder’s six-page, amply illustrated article offers information designed to refute three common myths: (1) that harpsichords were out-of-date by about 1770; (2) that the piano was well established by 1770, and that all of these pianos were made by Viennese builders; (3) that the clavichord was most prevalent in north Germany, but was rarely used in south Germany and Austria. Citing existing instruments, eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements, and documentary evidence from some Mozart family letters and the Eszterháza archives, the author successfully rebutted all of these assumptions. Known as a brilliant mathematician as well as a prominent musicologist, Maunder subsequently published a 288-page volume amplifying his premises (Keyboard Instruments in Eighteenth-Century Vienna, Oxford University Press, 1998; ISBN 0-19-816637-0). This information is the result of an online search using the author’s name. I have not seen the full text, but noted that used copies of the book are available, starting at $136.

The front cover of the June 1998 magazine cited above is graced with a lovely portrait of my first harpsichord mentor, Isolde Ahlgrimm, which, I believe, must be the reason I received the single issue, most likely from Ahlgrimm’s biographer Peter Watchorn, whose fact-filled Ahlgrimm discography, list of chamber music colleagues, publications, and instruments, plus three additional period photographs of the superb artist make this a periodical to cherish. It also reminded me of two important comments from our dear teacher—the first, describing an invitation she had received to perform music on Haydn’s own harpsichord in a Viennese museum: “It was, of course, a great honor, but I would have preferred less honor and a better instrument that did not sound like clacking false teeth!”

The second vignette is my grateful memory of “Ille’s” counsel as I prepared for my first performance as continuo harpsichordist for the recitatives of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation in Salzburg during spring 1959. “Check the ‘Applausus,’” she told me. I had never heard that word before, so she explained that it referred to a letter that Haydn sent to the performers of his cantata of the same name when he was unable to attend its premiere. Comprising ten specific items to observe in the performance, the most important for me at this time was number three, which stated “In the recitatives the instrumentalists should come in immediately after the vocalist has finished, but on no account is the vocalist to be interrupted, even if such a procedure were prescribed in the score.” (For a complete translation, see Karl Geiringer, Haydn—A Creative Life in Music. I note that a third edition, 1982, is one of the options available; my own paperback copy is the second edition [1963].)

Incidentally, I became a lifelong fan of Haydn after the soul-searing conclusion of the first chorus in his Creation oratorio: the quiet recitation, “And God said ‘Let there be light,’” segued into “and there was light”—surely one of the simplest, but most arresting choral/orchestral explosions in all of the oratorio literature! 

Two further volumes of great interest are both by A. Peter Brown. The larger volume is Joseph Haydn’s Keyboard Music: Sources and Style, published in 1986 by Indiana University Press. At slightly more than 450 pages, it is the most comprehensive collection of information about its subject. Brown’s second publication, also from Indiana, 1986, is Performing Haydn’s The Creation (Reconstructing the Earliest Renditions), 125 pages.

Also recommended is “Haydn’s Solo Keyboard Music” by Elaine Sisman, published as the eighth chapter of Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music, edited by Robert L. Marshall as a volume in the Routledge Studies in Musical Genres series, second edition, 2008.

As I draw this column to its conclusion, I share with you a slight possibility that I have recently observed in Haydn’s Sonata No. 60 (Hob. XVI/50 in Volume Three of Christa Landon’s Complete Wiener Urtext Edition, UT 500029). In the first movement of this Sonata in C Major, dating from c. 1794–1795, I note that the indication “open pedal” is printed several times. Landon suggests this might mean “with raised dampers,” and would thus assign the piece to the piano. I wonder if it might refer instead to the harpsichord louvers I mentioned many paragraphs ago? Haydn had experienced several long visits to London by this time . . . . Hmmm. The possibilities continue to expand and excite. Seeking Haydn is a continual exploration, as are the mysteries of his genius and the joys to be found in his many contributions to our keyboard literature. The search for enlightenment never ends; therein lies its beauty.

HKSNA, Duphly, Skowroneck, Leonhardt, and Kreisler: A Twisted Tale

The 2016 meeting of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America took place in Oberlin, Ohio, March 20–24. Eschewing the expensive rooms at the about-to-be-replaced Oberlin Inn I decided to book lodging at the Ivy Tree, a charming bed and breakfast accommodation only a few blocks south of the Oberlin Conservatory. At breakfast on the penultimate day of the meeting I met the New York City-based harpsichordist Aya Hamada, a Japanese-American graduate of Juilliard, who mentioned that she had made a compact disc of works by Jacques Duphly. The following day she gave me a copy of that disc, recorded in France on a harpsichord “attributed to the builder Nicholas Lefebvre”—an instrument from the collection of Gustav Leonhardt.

The fourteen tracks comprising Ms. Hamada’s recording reward the listener with fine examples of Duphly’s oeuvre, chosen from all four of his published Pièces de Claveçin. Included are many favorites: Chaconne, Medée, Les Grâces, and La Forqueray from among those that have been mentioned in several recent columns. The playing is stylish and satisfying, the sound of the instrument resonant and exciting, and the explanatory notes, presented in both Japanese and English, recount the fascinating tale of a late twentieth-century “experiment” contrived by Leonhardt and the builder Martin Skowroneck.

Although the “Lefebvre” instrument was introduced to the public in April 1984, it was not until 2002 that Skowroneck published an article giving forth the information that the instrument was not by an eighteenth-century French maker, but one that the contemporary German maker had crafted utilizing historical techniques, hand tools rather than electrically powered ones, and old materials. The fake date for the two-manual instrument was given as 1755 (in tribute to the fact that it was Skowroneck’s 55th instrument), and Leonhardt utilized the resulting harpsichord for recording works by Bach, Forqueray, and other classic French composers. The instrument passed muster with most of the listening public—after all, it was our revered Leonhardt who was playing: thus all was well.

Hamada’s 2014 recording, made in the Chapelle de l’Hôpital Notre-Dame de Bon Secours in Paris, marks the first use of Skowroneck’s imitation French double-manual instrument since Professor Leonhardt’s death in 2012. This disc, issued as WCC-7784 (Nami Records Co. Ltd., Japan, available at Amazon.com) is thus not only Hamada’s debut recording, but also a tangible memento of an extraordinary prank concocted by two friends, who between them provided some of the most exhilarating instruments and playing heard in our time. The tale of their gentle hoax is well laid out in Hamada’s notes, which are based on Skowroneck’s article “The Harpsichord of Nicholas Lefebvre 1755: Story of a forgery without intent to defraud,” published in the Galpin Society Journal, vol. 55 (April 2002), pp. 4–14.

And what about Kreisler?

Being reminded of the successful attempt to dupe most of the antique instrument experts with their prank brought back to memory the somewhat similar decades-long practice of the elegant violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962), who, not wishing to have his own name appear so many times on his solo programs, labeled many of his own well-liked compositions with names from music’s past historical eras: Tartini, Boccherini, Porpora, Martini, Louis Couperin, Jean-Baptiste Cortier, Vivaldi, Friedemann Bach, Pugnani, Dittersdorf, Francoeur—most of them names not well known to audiences of the early twentieth century. 

When, in 1935, the New York critic Olin Downs queried the composer about the sources for these “early manuscripts,” Kreisler revealed his hoax. When various members of the critical fraternity expressed outrage at this nose-thumbing of their “expertise,” Kreisler responded, “You have already found the compositions worthy; while the name on them now changes, the value remains.” Today, known as Kreisler’s own creations, these works form a fairly important part of the solo violin repertoire. Favorites, dating from my earliest record collecting days in the mid-1950s, remain the exhilarating Concerto in C in the Style of Vivaldi from 1927 and the hauntingly beautiful Chanson Louis XIII and Pavane ‘in the Style of Louis Couperin’ from 1910 (decades before that Couperin became a staple of the French keyboard repertoire). Incidentally, I made my own harpsichord transcription of Kreisler’s gentle pastiche to play in a house concert several years ago.

Dredging up these memories reminded me that I had purchased an original edition of Kreisler’s autobiographical book Four Weeks in the Trenches: The War Story of a Violinist (published by Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York, in 1915). The “Great War”—now quite familiar to contemporary audiences since the Masterpiece Theatre segments of Downton Abbey—was in its early stages when Kreisler’s work, translated from the original German, appeared in print. How close the violinist came to dying in this conflict is touchingly chronicled in this brief memoir of 85 small-sized pages. I purchased the volume (at that time totally unknown to me) during an annual summer visit to the bookseller Nicholas Potter in Santa Fe. Re-reading Kreisler’s book provided yet another connection: my copy had once belonged to the prominent American composer Elinor Remick Warren (1900–91), as evidenced by her printed bookplate on the inside front cover. A Google search yielded fascinating insights into her long struggle to gain acceptance as a major composer—a status acknowledged when her 69-minute work The Legend of King Arthur became only the third American work of such magnitude to be presented at England’s Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 1995. (The only works from this side of the pond heard previously were both by Horatio Parker: Hora Novissima in 1900 and the third part of his St. Christopher in 1902.)

A twisted path indeed . . .

One further item of interest: while the Early Keyboard Journal (formerly published jointly by the Southeastern and Midwestern Historical Keyboard Societies) has fallen somewhat behind during the five years in which the successor organization, Historical Keyboard Society of North America, has been functioning, word from the recent board of directors meeting in Oberlin indicates that volume 30 is nearing publication. I encourage our readers to consider joining this excellent organization and thus receive this journal, which will include a thought-provoking, carefully reasoned article on Louis Couperin by the American harpsichordist Glen Wilson.