Harpsichord News

The Art of the Harpsichord: Two Texas Treasures

In mid-June 2017 the Dallas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists hosted its most recent regional convention, an event that attracted a record number of registrants. In addition to programs featuring the plethora of recent organ installations in the metroplex, the area’s most unusual harpsichord also made a stellar impression. I had not been aware that the Magnum Opus instrument was now at home in Texas, but its current owner, Jason Alden, graciously loaned it for a recital by Elizabeth Farr, whose choice of works by Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, J. S. Bach, and Claude-Bénigne Balbastre proved to be the right vehicles for her skillful demonstration of the varied registrational possibilities made possible by this unique instrument.

The harpsichord’s builder wrote the following description of the 12-foot long instrument for publication in the convention program book:

The harpsichord was built in 1983 by Keith Hill and Philip Tyre. It is the largest harpsichord in existence having three keyboards, each of which has its own sweet-sounding 8-foot set of strings, plus a vocal 4-foot played on the middle manual and a robust-sounding 16-foot set of strings played only on the lowest manual. Called ‘Magnum Opus,’ this harpsichord was recently rebuilt by Keith Hill for the purpose of upgrading the acoustics, which involved replacing both soundboards. This harpsichord also has three buff stops (called ‘lute’ stops) in which pads of soft leather are brought into contact with the strings to dampen the bright harmonics of the plucked strings. Additionally, there are three pedals: one activates the 4-foot register for suddenly increasing the brilliance of the sound, another engages the 16-foot register for suddenly increasing the depth, breadth, and power of the sound, and a third pedal makes possible the coupling of all the three registers to be playable from the lowest manual for creating the loudest, strongest, richest sound of which any harpsichord is capable.

Owner Jason Alden is himself quite an addition to the metroplex’s musical scene: a Renaissance man who keeps busy with his Alden Organ Service Company and is also a top-notch organist whom I heard for the first time in concert as he played a superb recital at the most recent East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, thrilling us with a demanding program that culminated in the entire Vierne Symphonie IV. I subsequently invited Jason to relate the history of his involvement with the Magnum Opus harpsichord. He responded:

My association with the instrument was really a result of familiarity with Edward Parmentier’s studio instrument at the University of Michigan. I really still love that instrument because it sounds so colorful, warm, and transparent all at once. Also, it seemed well suited to a very wide variety of literature. You can imagine I heard just about everything played on it during Parmentier’s studio classes.

Once I was ‘out in the world’ I really longed for that kind of sound in my own instrument (a Hubbard double that had been built from a kit by my first harpsichord teacher, Bill Eifrig at Valparaiso University). The Hubbard ended up with a number of problems related to case stress and the collapsing of the gap spacers (which I had already replaced on my own some years before). So I decided to sell it even though I didn’t have another specific instrument in mind.

After looking at Keith’s website and having a couple of phone conversations with him, I quite resigned myself to the idea that I’d never be able to afford one of his instruments. I planned a trip to his shop anyway, hoping he’d take pity on my poor soul! So, I had a nice evening with him in Nashville, and played a couple of instruments he had recently finished. We got to talking about many things that night, and he mentioned that the Magnum Opus was ‘available.’ I was curious, but doubtful that it would work for my budget. After some lengthy discussions, I decided that it would, in fact, work as a home instrument.

Magnum Opus had been neglected for years, and Keith reported to me that when the instrument entered his shop the original soundboard had 17 cracks in it! It was irreparable! So, he began by replacing both soundboards. We decided that there should be decoration [on the soundboard] since the original was decorated. From there it required re-stringing and re-quilling. The result is as good as I could ever hope for as regards my preference for harpsichord sound. I find it not just thrilling to play (it is rather a harpsichord version of the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Rouen Cathedral), but the harpsichord remains intimate and inspires me each time I sit down to play it.

An Exception to
“Everything is Bigger in Texas”

A favorite trick question for visitors to our spacious music room is “How many harpsichords do you see here?” The most obvious answer is “four.” The usual complement of instruments on display comprises a William Dowd single, plus two-keyboard instruments by Yves Beaupré, Richard Kingston, and Willard Martin. A few inquisitive guests may have noticed an additional canvass-covered wing-shaped instrument stored behind the pipe organ: an Italian single by Tom and Barbara Wolf. But only a few very observant viewers give the exact correct total, which would be “six.” The omission of the usually overlooked harpsichord is not surprising, for it is only eight inches long and three inches wide: a handcrafted mini-harpsichord made for a dollhouse by Arthur Bell of Arlington, Texas.

Art Bell was a meticulous observer and connoisseur of miniature models, and his very rare specialty was the creation of exact scale replicas of historical keyboard instruments. My University of Texas at Arlington colleague Linton Powell was the proud owner of one of Bell’s model instruments. I first met the modeler himself at one of Linton’s annual faculty recitals, told Bell how much I admired his painstaking work in producing these scale miniatures, and asked him if I might commission one. A few letters back and forth ensued, his with pictures of several completed instruments that were available, and I opted for a French double with a decorated soundboard. Then came the biggest surprise of all: it was a gift! What a generous and thoughtful person!

Several years later when I learned that my first harpsichord mentor Isolde Ahlgrimm, now in an assisted-living apartment, had donated her David Rubio harpsichord to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, I turned again to Art Bell and requested another miniature instrument that could be sent to help her overcome the terrible sense of loss that not having her instrument any longer had engendered. For the second time Bell refused payment. However, we were both deeply touched and amply rewarded by Frau Ahlgrimm’s heartfelt response in the last typewritten letter I received from her, dated July 22, 1992. I have kept her idiomatic spelling and syntax in the following excerpts:

. . . you should have seen me, the packing was put aside, I started to cry! Having my harpsichord back means so much to me. It was the worst moment of my moving . . . . As it is now, [the model] has a place of honour in my bookshelf and I feel as if it would have come back, telling me that I should not be unhappy, it always will keep me in memory . . . . I do still hope to get a place on the side of my harpsichord, somewhere on a nice cloude, the little one holding in my hand as a little baby. Mr. Bell did a wonderful work . . .

He did indeed! I only wish that these minute instruments were playable; an 8-by-3-inch model would be a dream instrument to transport, but its key span assuredly would be too narrow for human fingers. Might there be a viable solution?

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).

Well-Tempered: Lou Harrison
and the harpsichord

Long before others had expressed interest in the use of varied historic temperaments for harpsichord tuning, the American composer Lou Harrison advocated using just, meantone, and other exotic ones as the preferred aural components for the realization of his early keyboard compositions. Among the earlier 20th-century works for plucked keyboards, Harrison’s Six Cembalo Sonatas (composed between 1934 and 1943) hold a special place because of his spare, mostly two-part idiom, perfectly suited for effective performance at the harpsichord, and his understanding that non-equal tuning adds a further dimension to the expressivity of music, an important advancement among composers of the early keyboard revival. Originally published as a facsimile of his holograph manuscript as part of the New Music Edition series produced by Harrison’s mentor and friend, Henry Cowell, Six Sonatas joined a small group of well-crafted American works for revival instruments, appearing midway between Theodore Ward Chanler’s Prelude and Fugue for Clavichord (1934, the unpublished manuscript is held by the Library of Congress) and Walter Piston’s Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord (1945, published by Boosey and Hawkes). Harrison’s six short pieces have continued to garner kudos from a small but savvy group of players who program revival repertory.

While gathering material for my 1989 book Harpsichord in America, I wrote to the American iconoclast with some questions about the genesis of these early works. His answers came in an extensive two-page typewritten, single-spaced letter, dated September 11, 1979, from which I quote the following passages:

It is entirely possible that [a dating problem] derives from the fact that I wrote [the sonatas] individually or in groups of two at several times, thus the first one actually dates from the mid-30’s but the whole set was not completed until the early ‘40’s. I am sorry that I cannot get you any closer dates than that. The original impulse came from two sources as the Sonatas themselves have probably already made clear to you. The first of these was my intense admiration for Manuel de Falla and especially for his use of the harpsichord in several instances including the famous Concerto. This was, in my own feelings, perhaps erroneously embedded in a matrix of feeling which concerned California. The ‘Mission Period’ style of life, artifacts, and feelings intrigued me very much. You will, of course, remember that this was the WPA period and that the dominant impulse was ‘Regionalism.’ Thus, the Cembalo Sonatas reflect ‘Nights in the Gardens of Spain,’ ‘Flamenco,’ as well as ‘Indian Dances’ and ‘Provincial Baroquery’ in the West. As to the question for whom they were composed, the answer is—everybody who is interested. Of several, I played the premiere on a tiny Wittmayer [spinet] that Eileen Washington had brought from Munich to San Francisco in the late ‘30’s and which was used at San Francisco State College (University now). Later, Henry Cowell published them in the New Music Edition and they were circulated by the State Department to various embassies as part of our cultural campaign. Alas for those days!!!

Later they were played, I think, in part by Sylvia Marlowe in Times Hall [New York City] and then still later (this was the 50’s I believe) Ralph Kirkpatrick took them on tour nationally, along with Henry Cowell’s ‘set’. [Set of Four, composed for Kirkpatrick, published by Associated Music Publishers]. He also played all six Sonatas as a ‘Suite’ which I had had vaguely in mind when I arranged them in the printed order.

. . . I am very happy that you play a Dowd instrument. My own is a simple Zuckermann Flemish model, but I do enjoy it. Last night I re-tuned it in the Kirnberger Well Temperament, one of six tunings that I am going to be writing about for the Canadian magazine, Continuo . . . .

P. S. I now remembered that Margaret Fabrizio [harpsichord teacher at Stanford University] made a tape with me of the Sonatas on a tiny Wittmayer which she had in her home down in Big Sur during the late ‘50’s. We individually tuned each Sonata in Just Intonation and the result was fun.

What a personable and interesting letter to receive from a composer! But then this “gentle person” was so much more than merely a reliable source for new music! In The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (published in 1986) the extensive entry for Lou Harrison was written by his only slightly younger colleague Ned Rorem (born 1923), who provided this utterly fascinating introductory paragraph: 

Born in Portland, Oregon, on May 14, 1917, Harrison studied with Cowell in San Francisco, and with Schoenberg in Los Angeles [!]. During World War Two he organized recitals of percussion music with John Cage and by himself, while working as a florist, record clerk, poet, dancer, and dance critic, music copyist (his handwriting is known for its beauty), and playwright. . . . In 1943 he moved to New York City, where he was intellectually (though not musically) influenced by Virgil Thomson. . . . He wrote for [various musical publications] including The New York Herald Tribune . . . and conducted the first complete performance of a symphony by Charles Ives (the Third) in 1947.

Slightly more than four decades after that Ives symphony premiere, I had my one face-to-face meeting with Lou Harrison on Monday, April 25, 1988. I had the opportunity to speak with Lou when he and his life partner William Colvig (also born in Oregon in 1917) were in Dallas to attend a concert presented by the contemporary music ensemble Voices of Change. The program featured music by Toru Takemitsu and Harrison. During our brief conversation I asked Lou if he had composed any additional music for harpsichord, to which he responded that he had, indeed, just completed his new work, A Summerfield Set, and that he would be happy to send me a copy. The eagerly awaited package, mailed on May 5 from the Harrison-Colvig home at 7121 Viewpoint Road in Aptos, California, arrived on May 9. Inside were the Xeroxed pages of a three-movement piece comprising a Sonata—Air—Sonata da Capo, Ground, and Round for the Triumph of Alexander (the young son of organist-harpsichordist Susan and her husband Harry Summerfield). Suffice it to say that the first readings revealed a most attractive work, one that I have enjoyed playing on several occasions, including the first movement’s London premiere in recital at the Handel House.

The handwritten letter (seen in the accompanying illustration) corroborates Rorem’s comment about Harrison’s exceptional calligraphy, and it remains a highly prized treasure amidst my collection of composer/performer autographs.

In the years that came after Harrison’s wildly varied early career, the lauded composer/conductor became more and more fascinated with the ethnic music of America’s natives as well as the exotic scales and instruments to be found in Asia (which he visited for the first time in 1961). With Colvig, whom he met in San Francisco in 1967, Harrison travelled extensively, and the two men shared an interest in collecting and building unusual percussion instruments, including several Javanese gamelans for which ensembles Lou composed highly individual scores.

Among a very extensive list of compositions, two short operas are of particular interest: the first, Rapunzel, garnered two prizes for Lou. In 1954 he was awarded a 20th-Century Masterpiece Citation for the best composition utilizing voice and chamber orchestra at the Rome meeting of the International Conference of Contemporary Music. A second “prize” must surely have been that this winning selection, “Air,” was sung by none other than the young soprano Leontyne Price! Both composition and performance received ecstatic press notices.

A second opera, originally for puppets and esoteric instruments, is based on an episode from the life of Julius Caesar. Young Caesar was subsequently revised for traditional western instruments and human performers to enable performances by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus. I hope that some enterprising opera company might schedule this work (which may be seen on YouTube) during the forthcoming Harrison centennial year. 

Although saddened by the death of Colvig in 2000, Lou remained musically productive until the final hours of his very productive life. Harrison was on his way to a celebratory festival devoted to his music organized by the Ohio State University in Columbus. Two graduate music students had been dispatched to drive Lou from Chicago to the campus. It was during a stop in Lafayette, Indiana, that the composer was felled by a fatal heart attack on February 2, 2003. The four concerts of Harrison’s music thus served as a memorial tribute, but it was far from a somber occasion. In a perceptive Wall Street Journal piece “Lou Harrison’s Music Is as Joyful as He Was” (February 18, 2003), author Brett Campbell concluded an extensive review of the wide-ranging Ohio State concerts with these exultant words: 

Characteristically, the composer had just finished revising the symphony [his third] after tinkering with it since its 1982 premiere, and he looked forward to hearing it performed. Looking forward while looking back, ever striving to create music of lasting beauty—that was the irrepressible, irreplaceable Lou Harrison. 

Celebrating the music of Lou Harrison: Scores and CDs

For my own centennial tribute to Lou and his music I plan to perform a selection, or perhaps even all of the Six Sonatas as well as my favorite movement (the Sonata) from A Summerfield Set during our final house concert of this current season (April 26, 2017). It was difficult to decide whether or not to publish this essay now or in May, but I have opted to do it well before the anniversary arrives in the hope that some of our readers will want to seek out the scores, learn the music, and perform Harrison’s music as a tribute to this important and truly unique American composer. 

The score of Six Cembalo Sonatas is available in Susan Summerfield’s revised, annotated score, published by Peer International Corporation, New York (1990; edition number 02-037365-535). The musical notation seems quite small (at least to my aging eyes), but Ms. Summerfield’s suggested ornamentation (printed in red) for the repetitions of both A and B sections in these pieces may be helpful to some players.

A Summerfield Set is listed in various editions. (I possess only the Xerox facsimile of the holograph.) Lou had indicated that Hermes Beard Press was the publisher; in a computer search for that organization I was directed to WorldCat and found there the publisher listed as FrogPeakMusic, Lebanon, New Hampshire (2009). 

A very fine traversal of Lou Harrison’s keyboard music that includes works for harpsichord, tack piano, and fortepiano, and utilizes his suggested historic and experimental tunings, is to be heard on a compact disc recorded by Linda Burman-Hall (New Albion Records, San Francisco, 2002), playing on instruments by Robert Greenberg, Joop Klinkhamer, and Thomas and Barbara Wolf. Excellent informative notes include diagrams charting the various non-equal tunings employed. Ms. Burman-Hall includes an additional 1999 Sonata for Harpsichord (8 minutes in length) and a collection of accessible shorter keyboard pieces that she has formed into a very beguiling suite (Village Music).

For a performance of A Summerfield Set on modern piano, I recommend the disc Lou Harrison (MMD60241X Music Masters, Amrico and Musical Heritage Society, 1990), which includes orchestral works (Solstice and Canticle) conducted by Denis Russell Davies. The elegant pianist Nohema Fernandez, at the time a faculty member at U CAL Santa Cruz, is currently Dean of the School of Music at U CAL Irvine. Her slightly more relaxed tempo of the Summerfield Sonata movement is closer to my preference, but that is a matter of personal taste. The Santa Cruz school’s website also makes available a complete listing of Lou Harrison’s extensive oeuvre. 

Another satisfying recording of Six Cembalo Sonatas may be found on Elaine Funaro’s 2001 Centaur CD Overture to Orpheus. Her instrument and its tuning are by the master harpsichord builder Richard Kingston.

I wish for us all both excitement and enjoyment as we explore the riches to be found in Lou Harrison’s beautiful and idiomatic music. Do be sure to share it with others, wherever you can.

Some thoughts on programming

A frequently asked question after a recital is: “How did you come up with such a program?” Depending on the tone of voice employed, I am either elated or frightened! The planning of interesting programs took center stage for me during the summer of 2016 when I was faced with choosing repertory for six varied concerts, a task both enjoyable and dreaded, in nearly equal proportions.  As I write this column all six programs have been performed, each designed to engage its very different audience. 

They were, in chronological order: 

1) an annual private program for a Dallas doctor who owns a lovely Flemish-style two-manual harpsichord made by the San Antonio builder Gerald Self; audience: four or five; 

2) and 3) two consecutive organ recitals in the free Friday afternoon concert series at First Presbyterian Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the instrument is a three-manual Fisk organ; usual audience: 50–100; 

4) the opening program of season 33 for our Dallas house concert series, Limited Editions; maximum attendance: 40; 

5) a harpsichord recital on a specific theme for the one-day Waxahachie Chautauqua to be played in the early 20th-century open-air auditorium, an historic building in the Texas town’s Getzendaner Memorial Park: 40–60 auditors; 

6) a season-opening benefit concert for the Dallas-based Orchestra of New Spain, offered in the lofty music room of an architecturally exciting lakefront home with an eight-stop tracker organ by local builder Robert Sipe: audience, a full house of 80.

During my six-decade career of playing, listening, and teaching I have developed some fundamental ideas about effective program planning. Primary among considerations is the expected audience. Are the auditors primarily academics, professional or amateur musicians, or a more general lay group of listeners? What is the purpose of the program: education, entertainment, a general or specific event, sacred or secular—or, as so often happens, a mixture of all these categories?  

Too often, it seems, we performing artists, especially in choosing music for single instrument solo recitals, tend to select works that please us, but ones that too often leave the audience baffled, bewildered, or bored. This result frequently stems from a lack of variety in the music selected—the end result of programs that are based primarily on our personal gratification rather than consideration for our listeners. After many seasons of enduring frequent punishment (and, no doubt, sometimes inflicting the same on my listeners) I am, at last, exercising my elder right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of auditory happiness by leaving the premises at intermission, or simply choosing not to attend that particular concert if I have seen a program that promises little except for “too much of the same.”

“So, Palmer,” you say, “let’s see what you came up with to satisfy the varied audiences you mentioned above.”

For the doctor’s private recital I considered it necessary to pay at least slight homage to the July 3 date, the eve of our national birthday, so I began with George Washington’s March, a short, snappy piece dedicated to the first United States President, published in George Willig’s Musical Magazine, Philadelphia, 1794–95. Next came J. S. Bach’s Capriccio on the Departure of his Beloved Brother, BWV 992, a much-loved early work obviously modeled on the then recently published Biblical Sonatas of Johann Kuhnau, and provided this with narration describing the varied pictorial sections of the work.  For stylistic variety, some contemporary music composed in 2014 by the Michigan harpsichord maker Knight Vernon, a two-page Rondo from his Three Contemplations, followed by the 1982 Triptych (Carillon, Siciliano, and Final) by the American master Gerald Near­—all delightful melodic, witty writing, and not too much for the doctor, whose musical taste is well centered in the eighteenth century. The program continued with François Couperin’s Les Ondes (The Waves), a piece reminiscent of the composer’s better-known Baricades Mistérieuses. The A-major key led directly to the opening notes of W. A. Mozart’s Fantasia in D Minor, K. 397, utilizing my own ending rather than the published final measures, which are not by Mozart.  Finally, to conclude this modest-length recital, the shortest of Bach’s harpsichord toccatas, his Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914.

For the first Santa Fe TGIF recital I chose to title the 35-minute program “Opus 133 Goes to the Opera” and began it with the 16th-century Milanese composer Giovanni Paolo Cima’s two-page Canzona Quarta: La Pace, followed by Herbert Howells’s Master Tallis’s Testament. Then came opera composer Giacomo Puccini’s youthful Salve Regina for tenor and organ, followed by a transcription of his hauntingly beautiful Flower Duet from Madama Butterfly. My favorite opera composer Richard Strauss contributed the Gavotte from his final opera Capriccio, performed here with a short bit of the concert ending he composed for harpsichordist Isolde Ahlgrimm (my first transference of this piece from harpsichord to organ) followed by the signature aria that drives the plot of the opera, the tenor’s Sonnet (with words by the opera’s character Olivier and music by his rival Flamand, both of whom are attempting to win the love of a widowed countess, who cannot decide between them, thus underscoring the main conceit of the drama: which is more important in opera, words or music?). A main reason for choosing this excerpt was the return of Strauss’s final opera to the five-opera repertory for Santa Fe Opera 2016. The program concluded with Di rigori armato il seno, the Italian Tenor’s virtuoso solo from Der Rosenkavalier and segued into the sublime Trio for three sopranos, heard this time in organ transcription.

For the second TGIF offering, a program for solo organ, I alternated the varied textures and sounds of Festivity by the British composer Cyril Jenkins, Gerald Near’s Air with Variation (yes, only one) from his Sonata Breve, a 12-measure Bach fragment, Fantasia in C, BWV 573, as extended to 26 measures by various editors, followed by César Franck’s Fantasie in C (in the 1868 version that he may have played for the dedication of the organ at Notre Dame Cathedral, plus the addition of the final Adagio from the usual published version of the piece), and both Prélude and Divertissement from 24 Pièces en style libre by Louis Vierne. As an encore, the enthusiastic audience heard Calvin Hampton’s Consonance, my first ever organ commission, given to my Oberlin classmate in 1957.

Back in Texas I played the opening house concert, program number 99 since the series’ inception. At the Schudi organ (1983) the Jenkins, Near, and Cima works heard in Santa Fe, followed by music performed on Richard Kingston’s Franco-Flemish double harpsichord (1994): Buxtehude’s Praeludium in G Minor, BuxWV 163; three short works by three composers, all of whom have been associated with the University of Michigan School of Music: Knight Vernon’s Rondo, a Dallas premiere of William Bolcom’s The Vicarage Garden (composed in 2015), and Gerald Near’s Triptych (all three movements as listed above). Since the Chautauqua program was imminent, I previewed harpsichord works from that program: Glenn Spring’s clever Hommage to Debussy and the whole-tone scale (Le soir dans la ruelle, 2006), Couperin’s Baricades Mistérieuses (which began on the same B-flat that ended the Spring piece), Water (from Five Elements) by Californian Ronald McKean (one of the Aliénor Contemporary Harpsichord Music Competition winners in 2008), and the Mozart D-minor Fantasia. Finally, acknowledging the concert’s date (September 11), at the organ: New Mexico composer Gregory Alan Schneider’s Melancholy Prelude (composed on 9/11/2001 as his meditative response to that day’s tragedies). After a moment of solemn silence, Eugene Thayer’s America: a fugue a 5 voci (from his Second Organ Sonata, composed in 1865–66) offered an uplifting and patriotic conclusion with music from an earlier time of strife and warfare in our country, based on a tune known by everyone—another tenet that I have been striving to keep: whenever possible include at least one piece that will be, in some way, familiar to all listeners.

By the time of the September 24 Chautauqua date, I had found a singer who could fill the void created when my usual collaborative artist was forced to cancel all his vocal appearances for the fall. Baritone Daniel Bouchard, a recent graduate of Southern Methodist University, enabled us to present a wide-ranging program to complement this year’s theme, “The World of Water.” The organizers had requested Handel’s Water Music, so it was with three excerpts that I opened that program: the first section of the Overture, the Air, and Hornpipe as transcribed for keyboard in the eighteenth century. Two Purcell songs (Fairest Isle and I’ll Sail Upon the Dogstar), the Spring, Couperin, and McKean pieces heard earlier in the month, and the almost-certain premiere performance of Gabriel Fauré’s enchanting four-song cycle L’horizon chimérique with the accompaniment played on a harpsichord. The program concluded with American river songs: Shenandoah and Shall We Gather at the River? The large crowd of interested folk who flocked to the stage to greet us and to ask questions about the instrument seemed to validate the program choices we had made.

The sixth concert showcased the organ, beginning with three centuries of Iberian organ music by composers Cabanilles, Domenico Scarlatti, and José Lidon. Since the organ was built originally for a Lutheran organist, I thought it right and proper to program some Lutheran music: the chorale Dearest Jesus, We Are Here and J. S. Bach’s one-page prelude on that tune, followed by the C-Major Fantasy, and a one-page setting of Gelobet seist du, Herr Jesu Christ by Friedrich Hark, who, like Hugo Distler, was a casualty of the Second World War. As respite from the organ, three pieces on my John Challis clavichord: Bach’s ubiquitous Prelude in C Major (Well-Tempered Clavier Part I) and Howells’s De la Mare’s Pavane (from Lambert’s Clavichord), ending with a one-page song that I composed earlier this year, using as text poet De la Mare’s four-line poem Clavichord, in which I used brief quotations from the two clavichord pieces. After a long intermission, the refreshed (and fed) audience returned for Jenkins’s Festivity, two Hungarian religious folk song settings by Ferenc Farkas, Guy Bovet’s The Bolero of the Divine Mozart, two American river songs, and Thayer’s America: a fugue a 5 voci.

For audience enjoyment of these concerts, perhaps one of the most important elements may be the short spoken introductions that I customarily offer before playing the pieces. It behooves us to remember that, while we may have toiled for many long hours to learn the music, much of what we perform will be new to many in our audience, no matter where or what we play. I usually try to sketch out, in written form, the main points I wish to share. We academics (and, from what I observe, some non-academics) are prone to ramble, when what is needed for communication before a musical work is generally some short but cogent bit of its history or mention of a particular unusual moment—in other words, anything that will engage a listener’s interest and keep it focused on the music. But plan these words carefully, and keep them brief and clearly enunciated!

I hope that these paragraphs may be of some help in suggesting that shorter pieces may provide a welcome variety in programming for diverse audiences. Of course there are times and places for our complete organ symphonies, great and lengthy masterpieces from the harpsichord repertoire, and the many wonderful works that are available for collaborative performance. I continue to find gems that I had overlooked, and I am particularly grateful when friends and correspondents send suggestions from their own unique experiences. Stay curious, read reviews, and keep subscribing to The Diapason.

Autobiography of a clavichord: As told to Larry Palmer

I am known as “Number Nine”—a moniker bestowed on me because of my position in the handwritten logbook of instruments built by dedicated craftsmen of the Chickering Piano Company. This select group comprising the Early Music Department of the Massachusetts firm was led by Arnold Dolmetsch, a great visionary who supervised the building of all 34 of us clavichord siblings during that first decade of the 20th century. As clavichords go, I am big-boned: a large girl of five full octaves with a polished, unblemished mahogany body set on four sturdy legs. From 1906 until the 1911 financial depression made it necessary for Chickering to discontinue the building of such fascinating examples of past keyboards and bowed instruments, Dolmetsch and his skilled workers produced approximately 100 instruments—the first of their types to be constructed in the United States in modern times. 

Most of my fellow musical instruments would refer to their purchasers as “owners,” but in my more than 100 years of existence I have learned that these caretakers might be described more accurately as “keepers” since our longevity has proven to be more enduring than theirs! The first of my four keepers purchased me for $200 on November 1, 1906, and I was delivered to 14 Harris Street in Cambridge, where I began my active musical life with Miss Mary Phillips Webster. My mistress loved me dearly and took painstaking care of my needs: dusting, polishing, tuning, and best of all, playing gently on my delicate keys. In 1908 our family was increased by the addition of a large mahogany (with boxwood inserts) Dolmetsch-Chickering double-manual harpsichord—Number 52 in the logbook, and Miss Mary, an excellent pianist who had made her professional concert debut in 1884, continued her explorations of pre-Beethoven music with both of us, gradually giving pride of place to my louder younger brother, whose birthday, like J. S. Bach’s, occurred on March 21. Number 52 was particularly happy with his special connection to “ancient” music’s foremost representative.

Miss Webster (cited by Keeper Number Three as the first woman to study music at Radcliffe College), taught music theory and history privately from her home, as well as at the Perkins School for the Blind, where she headed the girls’ music division for three years. Later, during my years with her, she served on the music faculty of the Milton Academy. Politically active in the women’s movement to obtain voting rights, she was well known in New England as a lecturer, a published composer, and author. Our household was often a gathering place not unlike the French salons, and I became very accustomed to enjoying the gentle wit and intellectual bravura of the academic world: an ambiance that has continued to comfort and amuse me throughout the rest of my softly voiced life.

In 1917 (I think it was) Miss Webster’s harpsichord was returned to Chickering, who resold it to Smith College. Like many maiden ladies, Miss Mary never mentioned her actual age to me, but as is typical for musical folk, her love for this divine art kept her youthful in spirit. But, as she became elderly and housebound, my dear mistress continued the downsizing of her earthly belongings, so a few years later, I, like my harpsichord brother, was passed on to a second keeper, the young academic named Austin Warren (1899–1986). Young Warren took good care of me during his graduate student days at Harvard and Princeton, but he was far from the proficient musician that my dear Miss Mary had been. When he left Massachusetts in 1939 after thirteen years of teaching at Boston University to take a position as professor of English at the University of Iowa, he passed me on to his devoted friend, another younger professor, Wallace Fowlie (1908–98). Fowlie’s encomium to me in his 1977 book Journal of Rehearsals continues to cause me to blush and even to intensify my capacity for “Bebung” (the German term for one of the unique abilities that we clavichords have: the production of a gentle vibrato completely through finger pressure—since our tone producer, a brass tangent, actually touches our strings directly, the application of slight pressure causes them to go sharp, while the lessening of the pressure brings the string back to pitch—something that big brother harpsichord has never been capable of doing, to my great delight and his despair!).

But I digress! Wallace Fowlie, my dear third keeper, rented his first single-occupancy apartment at the beginning of 1940 while teaching at Bennington College. This domicile was in Old Bennington, and my presence in this, his first truly private space, led to my being described in his journal as the “one precious object of my possessions.” I also remember, with great nostalgia, the visit to Wallace’s home by the young harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick, who had been engaged to teach at Bennington during one semester. Dr. Fowlie asked RK if he could take some clavichord lessons with him, to which the skeptical Kirkpatrick fired back, “Do you own a clavichord?” It was Kirkpatrick who received the larger surprise when Fowlie replied that he did, indeed, possess a clavichord built by Dolmetsch as his ninth early instrument for Chickering. Kirkpatrick responded, “I had wondered where No. 9 was. You have one of the best clavichords—quite possibly the longest in the country.” 

Demanding a visit to see the instrument, RK touched me, tuned me carefully, and then sat down to play the first prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Entranced, he continued with the fugue, and, Fowlie reports, ultimately played most of the entire first book of the WTC during his visit. What glorious music we made together: it was definitely the acme of my artistic life thus far! 

You can see why I (as a modest middle-aged lady) would be moved to redness (or a darker mahogany) by these words. If I had my own copy of Fowlie’s wonderful volume (and if I could read it), I would surely pore over the special words about me on page 101 and concentrate even more on the ensuing description of the metaphysical effect my quiet musical tones had on my keeper, on the special aura of the room in which I resided, and on his abilities to play and hear more accurately the lovely notes that issued from my resonant sound cavity. 

Being family to Dr. Fowlie, a distinguished scholar of the French language and its literature, who eventually moved on to spend the major part of his teaching career at Duke University, I became especially nostalgic for my French-born maker Arnold Dolmetsch. Especially at Christmas time I would tremble with longing to have someone—anyone—play my favorites among the old French Noëls as a reminder of such delightful holiday music-making during my younger days.

And while he is not a speaker of French (or even a very good reader of that Gallic language) my fourth, and current, keeper (who writes these columns for The Diapason) has made certain that I occasionally get to make music with very proficient executants stroking my keys and stretching (and releasing) my strings. Dr. Fowlie’s “most precious possession” arrived at the Harpsichord Clearing House in 1992, and since “keeper four” had previously requested the opportunity to bid on the next Dolmetsch-Chickering clavichord to come through the HCH, he was not very pleased to learn, upon inquiry, that I was already “spoken for.” Responding with righteous fury, my present keeper caused a reconsideration of the prior sale and after some soothing and needed “spa-time” with a firm of furniture restorers who uphold the stellar reputation of New England’s craftspersons and their ability to clean and repair antiques, I was transported to my second southern home, Texas.

The clavichord specialist Virginia Pleasants, nearly as old as I, played a splendid recital on me during a joint conference of Southeastern and Midwestern Historical Keyboard Societies in Fort Worth and Dallas in 1998. What a pleasure to have such a sensitive specialist bring out wonderful music from my innards. But it surely must be that my most glorious Texas moment thus far was my 100th-birthday concert on October 27, 2006, when another splendid clavichordist, Gregory Crowell, joined Keeper Four in a program that culminated in J. S. Bach’s Concerto in C Minor for Two Keyboards, BWV 1060, played in partnership with my new younger brother at my Dallas home, a newly-acquired 1939 clavichord by John Challis. What a fun evening that was! And one overflowing with historic synchronicity—for Challis, in 1939, was not long-returned to Ypsilanti, Michigan, following his apprenticeship in Haselmere, UK, with my own maker, Arnold Dolmetsch. So we two instruments, separated by a generational 33 years, are both products of the USA, and both of us continue to survive and benefit from the skillful craftsmanship of these builders from those pioneering years of the early instrument revival.

This Christmas season we will be three clavichords at home, having welcomed Keeper Four’s “other” clavichord, returned from its longtime residency in his university office. This, the first he had acquired of us delicate, quiet keyboards, was a German portable instrument (“Reiseklavichord”) made by the Passau builder, his friend Kurt Sperrhake. It was a remarkable light-weight instrument whose prototype was originally designed for Isolde Ahlgrimm, the much-travelled Austrian artist who needed a carry-on instrument for practicing during her many concert tours. Late at night on Christmas Eve, when all should be sleeping, perhaps we will all break forth in Christmas arrangements by LeBègue, Edwin McLean, or J. William Greene, and express our communal wishes for other visitors to come and play us—preferably those who specialize in artistic clavichording. In our letter to Santa we’re specifically pushing for Massachusetts resident Judith Conrad, whom we hear is particularly adept at both playing and singing (just a hint to Keeper if he should read this).

As the oldest playable instrument in the house (yes, I know that I’m stored just in front of a 1797 Kirckman
fortepiano, but that one is not playable) I continue to keep the other clavichords in line. And, covered by warm layers of protective padding, I provide a soft, safe sleeping “shelf” for my oft-dozing companion, the indoor cat Mewsetta, who occasionally shares her resting place with feline number one, Walph Vaughan Williams. I am totally certain that Miss Mary Webster, Professors Austin Warren, Wallace Fowlie, and Keeper Four will all rest more comfortably knowing that all is under control and flourishing. (But I do wonder, quietly—with enhanced bebung—who will be my eventual Keeper Number Five?) ν

Sources 

Campbell, Margaret. Dolmetsch: the man and his work. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1975.

Dolmetsch, Mabel. Personal Recollections of Arnold Dolmetsch. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958; reprinted by DaCapo Press, 1980.

Fowlie, Wallace. Journal of Rehearsals. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1977.

MacCracken, Thomas G. “The Dolmetsch-Chickering Viols.” Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America, volume 48 (2013–14), pp. 25–66.

Palmer, Larry. Harpsichord in America: A Twentieth-Century Revival. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Second paperback Midland Book edition, 1993.

Personal correspondence with Richard Troeger, Thomas MacCracken, and Peter Brownlee, fellow aficionados of Arnold Dolmetsch and his remarkable legacy.

Comments or news items for these pages are always welcome. Address them to [email protected] or, via post, to 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229.

ARTEK goes German

Two days before Johann Sebastian Bach’s 330th birthday, while exercising my daily morning custom of reading The New York Times I was happily surprised to see a picture of a very ornate harpsichord being played by Gwendolyn Toth. What a pleasant way to begin a March morning, I thought. Accompanying the photo was a Critic’s Notebook piece, “Plucking Away, 300 Years Later,” by James R. Oestreich. A quick scan of his essay convinced me that I wanted to know more details about this festival of German music played on four Germanic harpsichords, so I contacted Dr. Toth, who responded to my request with an electronic copy of the 16-page program booklet as well as the illustrations that brighten this column.

Gwen Toth founded ARTEK (The Art of the Early Keyboard) in 1986. Various programs under her direction have been lauded in the New York media, and several of us in Texas have benefitted from the generosity of Toth and her husband Dongsok Shin, who have shared difficult-to-find replacement parts for at least two of our Willard Martin harpsichords (one of them a Saxon-style instrument). So it was with particular empathy that I read the programs and extensive notes from this festival and forthwith decided that there was much of interest to share with the readers of this column.

To celebrate Toth’s new two-manual harpsichord, a close copy by John Phillips of the celebrated 1739 instrument made by Johann Heinrich Gräbner the Younger of Dresden, Toth devised two concert programs plus several associated events to occur on Friday and Saturday, March 13 and 14. One might be quite certain that Johann Sebastian Bach would have approved of these particular dates, especially the second!* The venue was New York’s Immanuel Lutheran Church, where Toth is the music director (in addition to her positions as orchestra director at Manhattan College and harpsichord teacher at Montclair State University). 

The first program comprised the complete second part of Bach’s Clavierübung, but with a most interesting twist: because the Gräbner instrument has an expanded bass range (the lowest note is DD rather than the usual FF), Toth decided to play the French Ouverture in the key of G minor rather than its published key of B minor, a downward transposition of a major third. As she wrote in notes to the program, “ . . . Ultimately one faces the question of, having the extra lower notes, how does one make use of them?” Since the composer himself had made a downward transposition from its original C minor to B minor for the published version of his monumental work, it seemed to be an apt way to revel in the magnificent possibilities provided by the added bass strings. Following intermission came the Italian Concerto, but in this case an attempt at a similar downward change of key did not prove satisfactory, so Toth decided to play it in its usual key of F, thereby “displaying the beautiful sound of the high range of the instrument” as well.

Master harpsichord builder John Phillips continued the festive evening with a question and answer session. In his eloquent written notes to the program, Phillips provided two possible explanations for the unusual range of this harpsichord’s prototype: 

If it were intended for ecclesiastical use the low DD would, at Kammerton, sound the same pitch as the CC (16-foot C) of the organ at Chorton—a whole step higher. If it were to be played in consort with the organ, including its 16-foot range, there would be no need to go below DD. Since it was tuned to Kammerton, it could still play with other instruments without transposing. If the intended use were for the theater orchestra, the low DD would be the same as the lowest note of a violone in the most usual tuning. In either case, this instrument would have excelled as a ‘big band’ continuo harpsichord. 

Additionally Phillips mentioned his surprise that he had produced a total of 13 Gräbner-inspired harpsichords since the first commission for one in 1998: 

Even though the first copy of the 1739 instrument was musically revelatory to many, I assumed that no one else would be interested in such a big . . . and heavy harpsichord. I was wrong. Musicians took to them. The one before you is my third 1739 . . . and there are ten more Gräbners of other somewhat smaller varieties as well.

Events on day two began in the afternoon with several free workshops: the first was concerned with “Concepts of Early Keyboard Technique,” led by Dr. Toth, who utilized both a harpsichord and a clavichord, a favorite pedagogical instrument in the 18th century, for her presentation. The second workshop, “Lessons in Harpsichord Quilling and Maintenance,” was guided by Dongsok Shin, who serves as harpsichord technician for both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Opera.

At eight that evening a concert of music for multiple harpsichords engaged four distinguished New York harpsichordists: Bradley Brookshire (assistant conductor and harpsichordist at the Metropolitan Opera), Stephen Rapp (assistant organist at St. Patrick’s Cathedral), Gwendolyn Toth, and Dongsok Shin. The music, most of it rarely heard in concert, included Concerto in D for two harpsichords by Joseph Schuster (Toth and Shin), Duetto in C Minor for two harpsichords by Müthel (Shin and Rapp), Sonata in G Minor [Allegro] by Mattheson (Brookshire and Shin), Sonata in F for two harpsichords by W. F. Bach (Rapp and Brookshire), Concerto in B-flat Major for two harpsichords by Graun (Toth and Rapp), and, for the grand finale, Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1065, by J. S. Bach, with the entire ensemble, including ARTEK strings.

Four diverse Germanic instruments by three builders provided appropriate keyboards for this stylish presentation. In addition to John Phillips’s magnum opus, Owen Daly of Salem, Oregon, contributed his newly finished harpsichord based on one built in Hamburg in 1728 by Christian Zell. Daly’s harpsichord, with a compass of FF–d′′′, has a classic disposition of three stops: 8′, 8′, and 4′ registers, with manual coupler and buff stop. Of special interest is its stringing in Stephen Birkett’s historically produced iron and brass wire. 

Philip Tyre was the builder of Bradley Brookshire’s 1990 harpsichord. Originally a single-manual instrument (GG–e′′′) with two 8′ stops and a 4′ register, strung in brass throughout, its prototype was a harpsichord built in 1738 by the organ-maker Christian Vater of Hannover. In 2005 Willard Martin added a buff stop and enlarged the case to accommodate a second keyboard. 

The fourth harpsichord, owned by New Jersey resident Edward Brewer (an Oberlin classmate of mine, who often transported me as a passenger on his motorcycle during our junior year in Salzburg), was built by Thomas and Barbara Wolf of The Plains, Virginia, and is also a two-manual instrument based on Vater’s single-manual harpsichord, “but with rather different sound results,” according to Dongsok Shin’s note in the program.

Director Toth ended the program note to her solo recital with these wise words, “Playing Bach on a German harpsichord has been truly a revelation. Both the orchestral quality of the full sound and the clarity of the individual notes serve his music in a way no French harpsichord (for many years the instrument of choice for Bach) can ever match. A perfect marriage of instrument and repertoire.” 

I would concur, having experienced one of John Phillips’s instruments slightly more than a decade ago during the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society’s conclave at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. There, on our quest to hear Bach as Bach might have heard Bach, we tried to absorb into our minds and ears not only the fullness of sounds produced by the magnificent nine-foot harpsichord, but also those created through the quiet beauty of Willard Martin’s Lautenwerk, a gut-strung keyboard instrument; and those dynamically controllable sounds made possible through David Sutherland’s fascinating recreation of a Dresden fortepiano: all three instruments based on prototypes that Bach almost certainly knew. Many years earlier, Isolde Ahlgrimm had noted wryly that “Bach probably would have been quite surprised to hear his music played ‘authentically’ on the ubiquitous French-style instruments of the mid-20th-century harpsichord revival, lovely as they are.”

I daresay that ARTEK’s German odyssey is yet one more hopeful journey in the ever-ongoing attempt to bring more historical accuracy into our performances of music from the past.

* Should you have difficulty making sense of this sentence, please e-mail me at [email protected] or write to Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229. I will be happy to send an explanation. As always, news items and comments are welcome.