Harpsichord News

Bytes to be proud of: A reader comments on tempi in early music

In mid-April I received a most welcome communication from musicologist and keyboardist Beverly Jerold Scheibert, whose extensive research adds considerable information supporting my comments about excessive velocity in the performance of some of Duphly’s more virtuosic harpsichord pieces. With her permission I am sharing her comments and, more importantly to our readers, the citations for her published work so those who are interested may explore more thoroughly the depth of this ongoing topic.

She wrote: 

Your article in the April issue of The Diapason is right on! A terrific disconnect exists between the early sources and what most performers do today. Take instruments, for example. How many performers realize that our (contemporary) reproductions are a dramatic improvement over the original ones, thereby enabling much, much faster tempos? The limitations of early instruments are documented in my article “18th-Century Stringed Keyboard Instruments from a Performance Perspective” published in Ad Parnassum: A Journal of 18th- and 19th-Century Instrumental Music, vol. 9, issue 17 (April 2011), pp. 75–100; and in my book The Complexities of Early Instrumentation: Winds and Brass (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015).

Continuing, she noted: 

You mention L’Affilard and Pajot as being cited today in support of rapid tempos. My article in the Dutch Journal of Music Theory, 15/3 (November 2010), pp. 169–189, examines this question, finding that errors in those texts led to false conclusions. Other early sources that have been misinterpreted are discussed in “Numbers and Tempo: 1630–1800,” found in Performance Practice Review: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/ppr/vol17/iss1/4. There are also the famous Beethoven tempo marks, in which skullduggery plays a leading part, as shown in the article “Maelzel’s Role in Beethoven’s Symphonic Metronome Marks,” The Beethoven Journal, 24/1 (Summer 2009), pp. 14–27. Lastly, there is the matter of engaging the listener meaningfully, so that the composer’s details are not lost in a whirl of notes.

It has been a great pleasure to peruse such well-grounded research presented with style and grace and filled with cogent period quotations. One sample that induced tears of laughter was encountered on page 98 of the Ad Parnassum article, cited above: 

Consider the composer Anton Reicha’s engaging account of his duties at one of Beethoven’s recitals, which probably took place in Bonn before 1792:

One evening when Beethoven was playing a Mozart piano concerto at the Court, he asked me to turn the pages for him. But I was mostly occupied in wrenching out the strings of the piano which snapped, while the hammers stuck among the broken strings. Beethoven insisted on finishing the concerto, so back and forth I leaped, jerking out a string, disentangling a hammer, turning a page, and I worked harder than did Beethoven.” (Source footnoted: Prod’Homme, Jacques Gabriel: ‘From the Unpublished Autobiography of Antoine Reicha’ in The Musical Quarterly, XXII/3 [1936], p. 351).

The complete abstract of this Jerold article reads: 

Documentation about the practical usage of the clavichord, harpsichord, and piano in the eighteenth century indicates that the first two had considerably more volume than today’s reproductions, and that the mechanical limitations of all three instruments could not have permitted today’s advanced technique. In German-speaking countries, the expressive clavichord was favored for solo usage until late in the century, when the improving piano began to assume this role. In contrast, the harpsichord’s loud, penetrating tone was valued for leading and holding together ensembles of musicians who had never experienced metronome training. Its stiff keyboard action, however, could deform the fingers (except in France, where the quilling was lighter). Frequent repairs and strident tone quality, too, led to the harpsichord’s demise. The marked differences between the Viennese and English piano actions brought both advantages and disadvantages for each.

Revelatory indeed! So clavichords were not mere “whisper-chords” and harpsichords were able to dominate ensembles! And stiff actions may have required strengths similar to those needed for playing large tracker organs? Who else has researched these matters so thoroughly?

A second abstract (for “The French Time Devices Revisited” published in the Dutch Journal of Music Theory) observes:

Much disparity exists among the metronome marks derived from the tempo numbers for early eighteenth-century French time-measuring devices. While some are reasonable, others are implausibly rapid. A newly discovered source, which offers both the Paris dancing master Raoul Auger Feuillet’s tempo numbers for various dance forms and a detailed drawing of the pendulum device for which they were intended, solves the mystery of the conflicting numbers. A comparison of his numbers for pendulum lengths for various dance forms with those for the same dance forms from the two sources with consistently extreme tempos (Michel L’Affilard and Louis-Léon Pajot, comte d’Onzembray) indicates an almost exact correlation when all are measured according to pendulum length instead of the presumed sixtieths of a second. Other deductions of overly rapid tempos result from assuming an incorrect beat unit.

Author Beverly Scheibert first came to the attention of the wider world of harpsichordists with the publication of her excellent study Jean-Henry D’Anglebert and the Seventeenth-Century Clavecin School, issued by Indiana University Press in 1986. Even in this early book she dealt with possible misconceptions about French dance tempi in its third chapter (“Style and Tempo”). I first met Beverly Jerold (the name she most often uses for her current writing) during a Boston Early Music Festival event, and we have occasionally crossed paths (but happily not verbal swords) since then. She has been most kind in sending me various articles that I might have missed otherwise. Now, with this current correspondence, she has once again demonstrated generosity of spirit, and I am pleased that she included enough detailed information to buttress the comments in my small paragraph, and even more grateful that she has given us permission to share these quotations, sources, and abstracts.

Postludium: Two contemporary clavichords

In March, during the Oberlin meeting of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America, two clavichords of exceptional tonal beauty and considerable volume (at least in comparison to many other clavichords, including those in my own collection) were heard in half-hour programs. For her program of two Württemberg Sonatas by Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, Carol Lei Breckenridge played an instrument built by Paul Irvin (Portland, Oregon: www.pyirvin.com), and in the second program devoted to music of Samuel Scheidt, Judith Conrad used a clavichord by Douglas Maple (Lemont, Pennsylvania: www.douglasmaple.com). Both highly skilled players were well served by these experienced builders who had created instruments of credible volume and exciting resonance. Each instrument had a keyboard that welcomed comfortable and assured playing; and, to my knowledge, no broken strings or recalcitrant keys caused undue hardships. Rather, these exciting instruments allowed both artists to play with taste, palpable feeling, and a communicated sense of suitably musical tempi. Bravi to all involved!

Lessons from Couperin

It was not until my first academic sabbatical semester in the late 1970s that I took the time to learn all eight of the preludes published in the remarkable method, L’Art de toucher le Clavecin (1716–1717) by François Couperin “le Grand,” organist, harpsichordist, and Ordinaire de la Musique at the Court of France’s Louis XIV. My scholastic harpsichord study had not been lengthy: a year of intense lessons with Isolde Ahlgrimm (with as much practice as possible) at the Salzburg Mozarteum (1958–59) followed by two of the revelatory three-week summer courses with Gustav Leonhardt in Haarlem (1964 and 1967) comprised the sum total of formal guidance at the instrument.

Ahlgrimm was an inspiring mentor: fluent in many languages, at the time learning baroque dance from Vienna State Opera ballerina Rikki Raab, and fresh from her path-breaking Bach cycle for Philips, the Dutch recording company. My first repertoire assignments from her included a few pieces by the English Virginalists, several short selections by the Austrian composer Paul Hofhaymer (rushed into the schedule when I was tagged on extremely short notice to fill in as harpsichordist for a 500th anniversary celebration in Radstadt, the composer’s birthplace), and signature pieces by Couperin (Les Baricades mistérieuses and B-minor Passacaille), plus, for the year’s finale concert, Bach’s A-minor English Suite. The Mozarteum’s harpsichord was a tank-like Maendler-Schramm double, joined at the end of the year by a new Sperrhake, its size, as Frau Ahlgrimm noted, larger than many of the rooms in which she had slept!¹

Leonhardt’s seminars covered more repertoire: multiple suites by Louis Couperin and Johann Jakob Froberger, plus the big Bach masterpieces, as well as other German and Dutch pieces, all offered with a great deal of mind-changing ideas about number symbolism, rare manuscript variants, and the valuable lessons gained from his Martin Skowroneck two-manual harpsichord, my first encounter with an historic copy instrument, an experience that determined my future preferences and resulted in my first William Dowd instrument, completed in December 1968.

By the time of that first sabbatical leave I had moved to Dallas to take over the harpsichord program begun by James Tallis (who, sadly, died in 1969 at the beginning of his second year on the Southern Methodist University faculty). Our harpsichord class had blossomed: students were legion; majors and minors filled my load, which also included teaching ten organ majors. Organist colleague Robert Anderson had a full studio of twenty major students. As I look back at those years of vibrant organ and harpsichord enrollments I reflect on the irony of it all: while trying to hone my teaching skills I was besieged with candidates, but by the time I was experienced and, hopefully, had something valuable to teach them, the number of students in these majors had begun its national downward trajectory.

During the years when organists made up the majority of harpsichord students (two semesters of harpsichord study were required for the master’s degree in organ) one could expect some level of knowledge about Baroque performance practice, legato playing, and other organistic skills. With the decline in number of majors, but aided by the welcome encouragement of my colleague, superb pianist Joaquin Achúcarro (who encouraged his brilliant piano students to study harpsichord and/or organ, thus following the Maxims of the composer Robert Schumann), one was required to introduce most basic Baroque stylistic concepts and techniques, and here we arrive at the discussion of these remarkable Couperin examples.

I adopted the eight preludes as the required foundation for harpsichord study. Every subsequent harpsichord student began with Prelude One (C major). Many of the advanced players found it extremely difficult to make music of something they regarded as a simple exercise. Couperin’s fingerings, promoting his new-found style of finger substitution as a basis for producing a fine legato, are relevant today, although getting a contemporary player to forego the constant use of a pivotal thumb is a difficult task for both student and teacher. (I do not forbid thumb use, but make its use less “ordinary.”) 

Prelude Two (D minor) seems light years advanced in difficulty. (I continually wonder how Couperin’s students fared? Probably they had a better teacher!). So, instead of assigning it next, I move to Prelude Four (F major), which seems a more logical successor to Prelude One. (It even begins with the same mordent and follows that with a similar bass note one octave lower). This piece, however, adds a wonderful introduction to the sliding of the second finger from A-flat to A-natural (as in the penultimate measure’s bass line).

I then move back to the Third Prelude (G minor), which provides a lesson in listening. There is one totally wrong note in the original engraving of this piece, a note not corrected in the 1717 second printing. It is the unique rare example in which one can prove that the note is incorrect! (I had, in my devotion to the text, played it wrong for quite a long time before I was led to the truth at a Bernard Lagacé masterclass.) The proof that the bass B-flat on beat four of measure 16 should be C, a whole step higher, is shown by the guide note in the original print which clearly indicates a C. Perhaps this is the reason that the composer and engraver did not bother to change it in the subsequent edition? Engraving another whole copper plate, after all, would have been extremely tedious and expensive.

But what a lesson this makes: nearly all of us are far too bound by the printed notes in a score. It is rare, in my experience, that any piece of music is totally accurate. Printing errors, human errors—they do exist. So, by using this splendid example during lessons, I assign the piece and wait to hear what will ensue. Will the student hear an ugly sound on that beat, note the sequence deviation in the bass pattern, and at least question it? Or not?

Usually “or not” wins! And what a teaching moment that becomes, when I can simply say, “Use your ears! If it sounds wrong, it probably IS wrong, especially for music of this tonal style!” Having the original printed error to buttress the argument (and sometimes it did turn into an argument: “How could you be sure?” “Change a note in the score? How awful,” et cetera)—that was both valuable and necessary. Then we point out the offending measure and bless the fact that the incorrect note came at the change of staves (quite possibly because of this change, in fact). Lesson learned: listen and be vigilant, even when playing from Ur- or Ur-Urtexts!

Finally, in the ordering of the first half of these eight pieces, the Second Prelude in D minor provides a triumphant conclusion and a well-earned sense of achievement when its technical challenges are mastered.

Usually from that point on I leave it up to the student to select an order for the “final four” pieces, having often wondered why Couperin put them in his chosen printed sequence? The pieces do increase in difficulty, but my reaction to the order of the final two usually leads me to play Number Eight (E minor) before Number Seven (a stately French Ouverture Prelude in B-flat Major), especially if I am programming all of the pieces and interspersing them with quotations from the lively dialogues the composer has provided in his Observations. Of these bon-mots my absolute favorite is typical: “A reflection: Men who wish to attain a certain degree of perfection at the harpsichord should never do any rough work with their hands. Women’s hands, on the contrary, are generally better for harpsichord playing . . . .”

What a wonderful response should your significant other try to shame you into doing yard work or other (non-practicing) manual labor!

About editions: I prefer the Alfred Masterwork Edition, edited by Margery Halford. It provides the full text in French with an English translation in a printing that has no obvious errors (save for Couperin’s, as noted above), and one that is refreshingly both “Made in America” and inexpensive. Performance suggestions, printed in light gray, may be helpful for some ornaments, but Mrs. Halford and I have had a long-term disagreement about the performance of the so called “passing appoggiatura”—basically a passing note, especially in the figure of the descending third. The editor once admitted that she likes my interpretation of these petite notes as unaccented passing tones, but asserted that there was no documentary evidence for performing them in that manner (i.e., before the beat, not on it).

About the time that I was learning these pieces, that is, the late 1970s, a number of players, independently, began treating these notes as passing tones. Among them were Leonhardt (several years after the classes with him) and other luminaries; all of us just happened to start doing it independently. I am pleased to share with our readers that the world did not come to an end (at that juncture), and that Robert Donington, in the second revised edition of his The Interpretation of Early Music (W. W. Norton, 1992) clarified the “passing-ness” of those little notes with his Postscript to Chapter 18 (page 228), as well as his citing of Leopold Mozart and a French writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Dictionaire de musique, Paris, 1768), who clinches the argument with his native authority (page 227). 

Other than that, and not warning of the wrong note in one of her many footnotes, the Halford edition is a fine one. A caution: one to avoid is the 1930s German Breitkopf edition of L’Art (edited by Anna Linde), in which many of the fast note groupings have been changed to reflect correct mathematically barred patterns, but thereby lose their graphic, semi-improvisatory visual invitations to “play fast, and fit them in as you are able.” If you want a true 18th-century feeling, choose one of several facsimile editions, but only if you wish to deal with soprano and alto C-clefs. Both Broude Brothers and Fuzeau have published reprints of the original 18th-century copper engravings.

I continue to love Couperin’s exceptional contributions to harpsichord pedagogy and frequently play them as the warm-up musical pieces they were intended to be. In retirement from academe, I continue to instruct several mature students; even those who are currently teaching music themselves are required to traverse François-le-Grand’s stylistic and basic introduction to their new and unfamiliar instrument. Only after they have learned to control these beautiful sounds are they permitted to proceed on to other Baroque and subsequent pieces that drew them to the harpsichord in the first place.

In Memoriam: Paul Wolfe 

(1929–2016)

The last of Wanda Landowska’s American students passed away in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Christmas Day. I am gathering material for a more detailed memoir of this gentle man and fine musician. If any reader has information, vignettes, or pictures of Paul, I would appreciate receiving your contributions for a memorial tribute to be published next month.

Notes

1. For more information on Ahlgrimm’s teaching, see Kim Kasling: “Harpsichord Lessons for the Beginner,” The Diapason, March 1977 (also reprinted in Peter
Watchorn’s fine book, Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna and the Early Music Revival, Ashgate Publishing, Burlington, Vermont, 2007).

Buried Treasures: 

The Harpsichord Pages 

in Retrospect (2006–15)

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

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

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

Instruments and Builders

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

Repertoire and 

Performance Practice

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

Personalities in the Harpsichord World

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

Pedagogy and Technique

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

Reports on Harpsichord Events

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

Reviews of Books, 

Music, and Recordings

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

Obituaries

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

Esoteric Ephemera

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

And Something New: Mysteries
with Musical References

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

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

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

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

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

The A Team:
Antoinette Vischer’s
Commissions for Harpsichord

Marguerite Bertha Antoinette Vischer (born February 13, 1909, in Basel, Switzerland) was the only child of a wealthy banker and his wife. She began her musical career as a pianist, and, with the connections that her affluent family was able to provide, had a fair success, although her hands were smaller than ideal for a pianistic career. In 1931 Vischer began her harpsichord studies in Vienna with Herr Erhard Kranz, and there she made her debut as a harpsichordist on an instrument of undoubtedly sturdy character, as was the wont of Germanic production instruments of the time. A brief press notice of the concert informed the public that “Fräulein Vischer played Bach’s C Minor Fantasia and Fugue on a harpsichord loaned by Herr von Hoboken.”

During the same year, probably at the suggestion of Basel’s musical guru Paul Sacher, Vischer studied with Wanda Lan-dowska, the reigning priestess of the harpsichord, at her “temple of early music” in St-Leu-la-Fôret, near Paris. Although it is not known just how many lessons Vischer had with Mme. Landowska, a communication regarding the price of study exists in the Vischer Collection at the Sacher Foundation: private lessons cost 400 French francs each; a bargain package of three could be had for 1,000.

Rolf Liebermann

Back home in Switzerland, Vischer spent the next 21 years concentrating on “old” music. She developed a group of devotees for her early music house concerts, many of them with collaborators Max Meili, tenor, and Fritz Wörsching, lutenist. It was the Swiss composer and international opera administrator Rolf Liebermann who initiated Vischer’s interest in contemporary music, beginning with a question to her, “Why only old music?” Since the harpsichordist admired Liebermann’s polyphonic style of writing, she offered her first commission to him, resulting in his Musique pour clavecin in 1952. An astute multi-faceted musician and administrator, Liebermann encouraged Vischer to record. Her first essay in this format included Liebermann’s new piece as well as a work by another Swiss composer, George Gruntz.

Bohuslav Martinů

Liebermann also served as Vischer’s conduit to other composers: a 1958 letter affirms his fulfillment of Vischer’s wish that he contact Bohuslav Martinů, the Czech composer, at that time resident in Switzerland. This connection led to one of Vischer’s finest commissions, Martinů’s 1958 Sonate pour clavecin, as well as his Deux Impromptus, two small satellite pieces completed in 1959, the year of the expatriate composer’s death.

From that first 1952 commission until Vischer’s death in 1973 she commissioned at least 44 new works that bolstered (and sometimes battered) the contemporary harpsichord repertoire. Composers rarely refused her offers: that she was the only daughter of a Swiss banker doubtless helped, but it was evident as well that she was interested in novel forms of musical expression—the more startling the sounds, or the method of producing them, the better.

Maurice Ohana

In 1960 Vischer turned to the French-Spanish-Moroccan composer Maurice Ohana. His Carillons for the Hours of the Day and of the Night incorporated bell-like clusters, the French folksong Frère Jacques, and, for the accommodation of her small hands, two wooden rulers, one 12-inch, one 13½-inch, to achieve the spans of large diatonic and chromatic tone clusters, triple forte, composed as conclusion for the evocative work.

Luciano Berio

Vischer first met Luciano Berio during the intermission of a concert in Basel, and she gladly accepted the composer’s invitation to visit him in Milan. Was it, perhaps, the influence of the “many shared whiskeys” which led to the unusual format of that harpsichord composition, Rounds? This graphic work is to be played right-side up, then upside down, and finally repeated in its original format, but at a faster tempo. Perhaps because of the vocal prowess of Berio’s wife Cathy Berberian, a voice part was added for an alternative version, which was the one Vischer chose to employ for her recording of the work.

In the waning years of the twentieth century when I visited the Sacher Foundation for some research in the Vischer Collection, it was a delight to discover a letter to Vischer from my first harpsichord teacher, Isolde Ahlgrimm, who wrote:

Congratulations on the recording [of] the Berio piece . . . . I find it fantastically played. I am, presently, in need of help because one of my students wishes to play the Berio without voice part, and I cannot read this notation. Never-the-less I am of the opinion that one cannot disregard this music, which is much better written than all the ‘Pseudo-Bach’ with wrong notes. (Letter dated February 10, 1970)

Cathy Berberian

The visit to Milan also resulted in a second commission: “Hurrah!” wrote Vischer. “Cathy [Berberian] will make for me a piece. I think some sort of moscitos [sic] played with the right hand, and the left has to kill the moscito with claps on my knee!” The “score” of this creation consists of a pre-addressed postcard to be mailed to the composer, with the request for a return message; a table for translating that message into a rhythmic form of Morse code; a sample sketch of how this all works, followed by an outline of a possible performance, illustrating how the right hand begins playing notes at the very top of the keyboard, then descends gradually to the bass register, finally killing the imaginary buzzing mosquito by slapping the right hand with the left and exclaiming loudly “SPLAT.” The title of this “drama in music,” Morsicathy, is a four-way pun: Morsi is the Morse code used for the rhythm; Cathy is the author of the original message and the piece; Morsicat(h)y is the phonetic spelling of the Italian word “morsicati” or “bitten”—the fate of mosquito victims; Mors is the Latin word for death, and also the fate of THIS imaginary insect.

John Cage and Lejaren Hiller

Berberian’s piece is a jolly scherzo compared to the mega-happening created by Americans John Cage and Lejaren Hiller. As early as 1962 Vischer had requested a work from the bad boy of chance music (John Cage), and had been put off with the suggestion that she consider performing a work that already existed: his models of indeterminacy Variations I and II. By 1967, however, Cage was thinking forward to a grand-scale extravaganza that came to be known as HPSCHD (the computer’s six-letter name for the instrument).

While engaged in another of his “chance” performances, Cage typed a letter to Vischer (the amplified sounds of his typewriter forming one strand of the in-progress composition), requesting that she consider a trip to Illinois for the realization of his HPSCHD master plan. Eventually, it all came together, comprising the simultaneous collaboration of seven harpsichordists playing random bits, Mozart excerpts chosen according to patterns from the Chinese I Ching, together with the assistance of 52 tape machines, 59 power amplifiers, 59 loud speakers, 40 projected motion-picture films, 208 computer-generated tapes, 6,400 slides shown by 64 projectors . . . a dizzying and overwhelming four and one-half hour assault on the senses in this May 16, 1969, premiere at the Assembly Hall of the University of Illinois, Urbana. The New York Times described it as “the multimedia event of the decade.”

In a review of the Nonesuch recording of HPSCHD, Igor Kipnis commented that “At first noisy, this ‘experience’ ultimately becomes one of tedium and almost unrelieved boredom. Personally, I find the New York Subway offers as much sonic anarchy, and at least there you are getting from one place to another.” (Stereo Review, May 1970, p. 121.)

The price for this celebrity commission was 1,000 Swiss francs, the same amount paid to Martinů for his Sonate.

Duke Ellington

Another Vischer commission is the only harpsichord-related piece from the great jazz artist Duke Ellington, who at the request of a friend, had sent a copy of his A Single Petal of a Rose to Vischer at Christmas 1965. A longtime aficionado of jazz, Vischer included it on her Wergo recording Das moderne Cembalo, although correspondence shows that she was not certain if this work was dedicated to her, or whether the Duke planned to write something else for her. When at last she had the opportunity to meet Ellington following his concert in Basel, she presented him with a tape of her performance. As she remarked, “The tape fit under the arm more easily than a harpsichord.” Ellington was quite pleased with the sound of the piece on her instrument, but he had to admit that he could not dedicate the work to her because it was “already dedicated to another lady.” “Who might that be?” she inquired. “Why, Her Majesty, the Queen of England,” Ellington responded. 

Györgi Ligeti

When Hungarian composer György Ligeti moved to the West in 1956 he espoused electronic music and the current avant-garde musical scene almost immediately. It was, however, not until 1965 that Vischer contacted him to suggest the possibility of a commission. He assured her right away that he was interested, and that the size of her hands would present no difficulty, since he planned to write something using narrow intervals. Completed in January 1968, Ligeti’s ”four-minute-or-less” composition Continuum is undoubtedly THE masterwork of all Vischer’s commissions. It holds the position, for many of us, as the single most original solo harpsichord composition of the twentieth century.

Some of the composer’s written comments to Vischer are enlightening: “I conceived the work completely from the instrument.” [January 30, 1968.] “It should sound like a Zephyr wind—more like Debussy, had he composed for harpsichord.” [April 11, 1968.] “Play Continuum irrationally fast: even faster than possible.” [February 15, 1968.] Improbable velocity is exactly what Vischer achieved in her recording! That the notes may have been recorded an octave lower and re-recorded at double speed is made clear by Ligeti’s constant urging Vischer to play faster and his additional comments about recording studio manipulation in a letter of June 19, 1968, and by the known fact that Vischer’s virtuosity did not extend to this level of dexterity in any other of her known performances.

It was, as well, an expensive commission for her: Ligeti refused to accept the standard 1,000 Swiss franc honorarium and charged her double that amount, explaining, “I spend much time on small works, reworking them to my satisfaction.” [October 16, 1965.] The sheer physical effort of writing so many notes was certainly worth the higher fee, as was the outstanding masterpiece received. At last a genius had provided a harpsichord work totally without any neo-baroque tendencies or antique references, but one that fit the instrument’s capabilities in a perfectly idiomatic manner by exploiting the trill and tremolando throughout.

Mauricio Kagel

The final work added to the Vischer catalog was Recitative-Varie for Singing Harpsichordist by Mauricio Kagel. This creation is yet another mini-drama in which the female performer makes her entrance very slowly, proceeding with small steps while uttering some German titles from Bach cantatas, the words connected in such non-sequential ways that they become obscene. The vocal technique required is known as Sprechstimme, half speaking, half singing while employing non-specific pitches. The two hands are placed together in an attitude of prayer, these visual requirements all meant to remind an audience of the pre-performance mannerisms associated with Wanda Landowska. After being seated at the instrument, the harpsichordist accompanies herself only with the left hand in “um-pah-pah” bass patterns borrowed from a Chopin nocturne, while continuing her vocal Bach-babbling. At the end, a lethargic exit from the stage completes the choreography.

Vischer never performed this ultimate work. She wrote to Kagel that her voice would not be adequate for the task, and that for someone else to learn the part would take an immense amount of time. He replied that “apparently, she had not understood the humor of the piece, and that a beautiful voice was unnecessary for its authentic performance.” One doubts that a faux-Landowska performance of the Kagel work would have done any damage to Vischer’s reputation, just as one imagines that this “camel” [meaning a hybrid constructed of opposites] was probably much better for her health than the number of Camels [American cigarettes] that she chain-smoked every day.

Vischer died of a heart attack in December 1973, just three months after the death of her father; the only child did not survive for long without family. Her legacy of 44 new works for the harpsichord almost certainly means that she will not be forgotten. Her friend, the distinguished Swiss author and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, contributed these perceptive words to the notes for her first major recording (dated December 24, 1966):

Antoinette Vischer has gone down in the annals of musical history in the most legitimate manner: as patroness. She caused the modern and ultra-modern composers of our time to interest themselves in an old-fashioned instrument—the harpsichord. As a result, an old-fashioned instrument became modern, and its abstract quality suited modern music. By commissioning compositions for it, Antoinette Vischer led modern music on to new paths. The manner in which she did this proves how consciously she proceeded
. . . . She knew whom she was ordering from, and was supplied with what she wanted: musical portraits by composers of themselves, in that they had to occupy themselves with apparently unfamiliar tasks. Thus, through the wiles of a woman once again, something new was born.” [Reprinted in Ule Troxler, Antoinette Vischer: Dokumente, p. 10; translated from the German by LP]

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?

Where next?

So, you have mastered Couperin’s eight preludes from L’Art de toucher le clavecin. What harpsichord repertoire should follow these basic pieces?

To my ears Domenico Scarlatti was the ultimate artist/composer when it came to varying textures in writing for our instrument. I have advised more than a few curious contemporary composers to consult the 500-plus keyboard sonatas from this Baroque genius and then to emulate his wide palette of various densities of sound: one of the best ways to create a varied dynamic range.

Suggestions: perhaps the most-assigned to first-semester students have been two A-major Sonatas, K (Kirkpatrick) numbers 208 and 209. There are several fine editions from which to choose, but, once again as with my choice for the first Couperin pieces, I have found that another “made in America” publication works well on several levels. The sometimes-maligned yellow-bound Schirmer Editions offer Sixty Sonatas by Scarlatti in two volumes. Chosen and edited by the formidable scholar and artist Ralph Kirkpatrick (he of the most-used numbering system for this composer), these 60 were published as Schirmer Library Volumes 1774 and 1775. (Too bad they could not have waited until number 1776, which would have been even more patriotic!) K. 208 and 209 are found in the first of these collections.

Kirkpatrick, working midway in the 20th century (the copyright is dated 1953), used source materials transmitted to him via microfilm. In a rare misreading of the dim and hazy film, he mistook the tempo indication for K. 208, transcribing Adº as “Andante” rather than the indicated “Adagio,” providing once again a perfect teaching moment when one presents the proof of this mistake. Also, it does make quite a difference: Andante, a moving or walking tempo, is not at all the same as Adagio, which, in the composer’s native Italian, means “at your ease” and thus should suggest more flexibility with rubato and a quieter, more involved personality—perhaps that of a lovesick flamenco guitarist. As for texture: the sonata begins with only two voices, soprano and bass, and adds a middle line in measure three, introduces a fourth voice in the chords of measure seven, and builds a terrific crescendo in the penultimate measure thirteen of the A section, before cadencing on an open dominant octave.

The B section begins with a single bass note, and in its first measure we are confronted with the instruction “Tremulo,” indicating a needed ornament in the melodic line. There has been much speculation and some gnashing of musicological teeth about this particular instruction in Domenico’s works. I have tried various solutions, but fairly late in my career I decided that it might possibly indicate the mordent! My reasoning: the mordent is one of the two most generally prevalent ornaments in Baroque music, but there is no indication of it in Scarlatti’s sonatas; and the mordent seems to be feasible each time a Tremulo is indicated.

Vis-à-vis that other musical ornament, the trill, it was the Iberian music specialist Guy Bovet who, during our one semester as Dallas colleagues, reminded me that the usual starting note for Scarlattian trills should be the main (written) note! I realize that many of us were heavily influenced by our piano or organ teachers who taught us to begin all Baroque trills with the note above; but in actual musical practice, this is rather silly: trills normally do begin on the written note in this Italian-Iberian repertoire, but here, and in general, I refuse to be bound to one invariable rule, and frequently substitute an upper-note trill, particularly in cadential figures that seem to ache for a dissonance (or, occasionally, simply to avoid ugly-sounding parallel octave movement of the voices). My advice is to follow Bovet’s instruction as a general practice, but also to use one’s musical instincts when required: after all, we have yet to hear those “recordings” from the 17th and 18th centuries that would prove once and for all what the local practice was. (Do, please, let me know if they are discovered.)

The paired sonata, K. 209, could not be more different from its shorter sibling: an Allegro (Happy) with some technical challenges (as opposed to the many musical challenges offered by K. 208) should prove again the inventiveness of the composer, especially in his use of varied textures. One spot that particularly delights is found in measure 70, where, after the vigorous cadence begins with two voices, the resolution is one single soprano E, a totally unexpected surprise! Kenneth Gilbert, in his eleven-volume edition of 550 sonatas for Le Pupitre, adds the missing bass note, choosing the reading found in a different manuscript source in which the next iteration of that same figure (measure 147) does resolve with an open octave in the bass. I still prefer Kirkpatrick’s reading for these passages: rather than adding notes in the first example, he does away with them at the second iteration . . . and thereby preserves an equal surprise for the B section.

Quite a few other sonatas that serve well as technique-enhancing pieces are to be found in the set comprising the first Kirkpatrick numbers 1 through 30: works published in London (1738) as Scarlatti’s Essercizi per gravicembalo. If your student (or you) want a bit of narrative music, the final entry in this set, K. 30, is particularly fun to play and hear: nicknamed the “Cat” Fugue, it is easy to imagine a favorite feline frolicking treble-ward on the keyboard to create a fugue subject spanning an octave and a half. Several years ago, when preparing a program of Iberian music to play on Southern Methodist University’s Portuguese organ (a single-manual instrument built in 1762 by Caetano Oldovini for Portugal’s Evora Cathedral), I turned to the Alfred Edition print of this sonata, which incorporates some of the quite useful (and interesting) minor corrections offered in a second edition from the year 1739, also published in London by the English organist and Scarlatti-enthusiast Thomas Roseingrave. 

Finally, should one become entranced by Scarlatti’s delightful catwalk, there is a rarely encountered piece by the Bohemian composer Antonín Rejcha (1770–1836) from his 36 Fugues, op. 36, published in Vienna (1805). Fugue Nine is subtitled “On a Theme from Domenico Scarlatti.” In it our musical cat, elderly and more reserved, is heard ranging a keyboard that extends to top F, before settling down, finally, with quiet cadential chords. The score, published by Universal Edition, is found in Bohemian Piano Music from the Classical Period, volume 2 (UE18583), edited by Peter Roggenkamp.

Some contemporary components

It will come as no surprise to our loyal readers that, during my lengthy tenure at the Meadows School, Southern Methodist University, I required at least one 20th- or 21st-century composition to fulfill repertoire requirements during each semester of harpsichord study. Among the most admired of these pieces were the twelve individual movements of Lambert’s Clavichord by Herbert Howells. These, the first published 20th-century works for the clavichord, are true gems, and equally delightful both to play and to hear. Issued by Oxford University Press in 1928, they are not widely available now, but I have been told that they may be obtained as an “on-demand print” from the publisher. Howells’s own favorite of the set was De la Mare’s Pavane, named for his friend, the distinguished poet Walter de la Mare. Indeed, it was a question about one chord in this piece that precipitated my first visit with the composer in 1974. Dr. Howells did not answer me immediately, but before we parted he took a pen in hand and drew in the missing sharp sign before the middle C on the second half of beat two in measure 24. That had been my concern, that missing sharp! Thus, I was relieved to have a correction from the only person who could not be doubted, the great man himself.

Other works recommended for investigative forays into this literature (works offering a great deal of good examples for the development of dynamic, articulate, and musical playing) include Rudy Davenport’s Seven Innocent Dances (which I have dubbed the “With It” suite): With Casualness, With Resolve, With Playfulness, With Excitement, With Fire, With Pomposity, With Steadiness­—available in the Aliénor Harpsichord Competition 2000 Winners volume published by Wayne Leupold (WL600233); Glenn Spring’s Trifles: Suite Music for Harpsichord comprising the miniatures A Start, Blues for Two, Burlesque, Cantilena, Habañerita, Recitative, and Introspection, lovely pieces indeed, as are Spring’s more recent Bartókian miniatures: Béla Bagatelles (2011). Both sets are available from the composer ([email protected]). Finally, from the late British composer Stephen Dodgson, three movements of his Suite 1 in C for Clavichord: Second Air, Tambourin, and Last Fanfare (published by Cadenza Music in 2008) form a delightful group of pieces. Equally effective at the harpsichord, they have proven to be very audience-friendly.

A May reminder

Do not forget Lou Harrison’s centenary (May 2017), the perfect month in which to investigate the American composer’s Six Sonatas, as detailed in Harpsichord News, The Diapason, October 2016, page 10.