Harpsichord News

A harpsichordist in Aeolian-Skinner land:

2012 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 

One recurring category in my performing career has been as a harpsichord soloist for conventions of organists: filling in when the planners wish to utilize an historic space in which the organ is not as interesting as the building (St. George’s Methodist Church, Philadelphia, for the International Congress of Organists, 1977); to showcase a lovely church in which the organ is not playable (New Orleans, Organ Historical Society, 1989); or to feature an orchestra hall bereft of any pipe organ whatsoever (Minneapolis, Twin Cities American Guild of Organists national convention, 1980).

Thus, an invitation to play harpsichord during the 2012 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival (November 12–15) was not a total novelty. The justly famous mid-20th-century Aeolian-Skinner organs in Kilgore and Longview were the primary focus for this second annual gathering of organ enthusiasts, but Kilgore’s First Presbyterian Church organist Lorenz Maycher, the originator and organizational wizard who put it all together and made it run smoothly for the 75 registered participants as well as large numbers of local concert attendees, decided that a quieter musical offering at mid-day on November 13 (my 74th birthday) might serve as a respite for “ears tired of too many mixtures.” While my program in Longview was ultimately scheduled for Trinity Episcopal, a church without an Aeolian-Skinner instrument, the parish’s three-manual organ by Fort Worth organbuilder Ross King was featured beforehand in a stellar morning recital by Jeremy Bruns, who demonstrated the organ and showed it to be a  thoroughly satisfying and versatile musical instrument in a warm acoustical space.

Often the greatest obstacle to a successful harpsichord recital turns out to be the instrument on which it is played, so the decision was made to transport my own 1994 Richard Kingston Franco-Flemish harpsichord for the program. When asked if a concert would be expensive, I responded, “No, but moving my harpsichord will be!” Longview is 110 miles east of Dallas, an easy but time-consuming trek for my local instrument mover, himself a busy professional percussionist. Lorenz solved the transport problem by enlisting the aid of the Rader Funeral Home’s J Mitchell, who agreed to provide harpsichord moving. The Rader firm already had a history of supporting the local organ scene by moving large pipes during installation and recording projects. I was expecting that my nine-foot-long “Big Blue” would be transported in a hearse (reminiscent of at least two harpsichord deliveries from Willard Martin, who customarily bought used hearses, citing the ease of double parking them without penalty for deliveries “even in New York City”)! However, Mr. Mitchell substituted an unmarked white van and also provided its careful driver, Logan Montana, a student at Kilgore College.

Another necessity for a successful recital is the thoughtful choice of an appropriate program. How often have I attended a concert played for a general audience only to be underwhelmed by an overly esoteric choice of repertoire! For this particular outing, I figured that the audience would be appreciative and knowledgeable about organ music, but perhaps somewhat less familiar with the harpsichord offerings. Therefore I attempted to choose some works that might have at least a tenuous connection to the organ. After many draft programs were drawn up and discarded, I settled on one that included works by several composers likely to be known to the festival registrants. From J. S. Bach, two compositions to end each half of the recital: first, a transcription of his profound Chaconne in D Minor (from the Solo Violin Partita, BWV 1004) in an unpublished 1944 arrangement by the American harpsichord maker John Challis (who was also an organist), and, to conclude the concert, Bach’s shortest harpsichord Toccata (in E Minor, BWV 914), which opens with an ostinato figure suggestive of an organ pedal motive, includes a highly dramatic recitative, and ends with a brilliant chromatic fugue.

Additional composers probably familiar to organists included Herbert Howells (represented by three short dance movements from Lambert’s Clavichord) and Gerald Near, whose Triptych for Harpsichord I commissioned in 1982. This work, beginning with an atmospheric Carillon, proved site-appropriate, since the church’s hour chimes struck at two, providing thereby an unforeseen, but appropriate, introduction to the recital.  To these works I added pieces that have been favorites in many of my concerts: Bohuslav Martinu’s Sonate pour Claveçin (1958), and two idiomatic baroque works: La D’Héricourt and La Lugeac by Claude-Bénigne Balbastre. Finally, a rarity newly added to my repertoire this season, Duke Ellington’s unique harpsichord work A Single Petal of a Rose (1965) in my own revision of an unpublished arrangement by Igor Kipnis and Dave Brubeck. It must have worked, for applause solicited an encore, Cantilena (from Trifles) by Texas-born, Denver-resident composer Glenn Spring.

The four-day festival sported a roster of players that easily might be the envy of most convention planners: evening recitalists included Ken Cowan (Rice University), Richard Elliott (Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City), Thomas Murray (Yale University), and Bradley Welch (Highland Park Methodist Church, Dallas). In morning and afternoon programs the attendees heard organists Walt Strony, Jeremy Bruns, Ann Frohbieter, Charles Callahan, Christopher Houlihan, Scott Davis, and Christopher Jennings. A late evening showing of the silent film Phantom of the Opera featured organ accompaniment by Brett Valliant. Michael Barone, host of the nationally syndicated organ program Pipedreams, recorded all the concerts, and was a familiar and supportive presence throughout the festival. 

A larger-than-expected number of registrants had indicated an arrival well before the official opening recital on Monday evening, so the resourceful Lorenz added a shopping tour of Kilgore antique and specialty stores, lunch, and an afternoon program at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, during which Charles Callahan gave an effective brief improvisation in the form of a stop-by-stop demonstration of  the church’s two-manual Aeolian-Skinner organ (1952) as a musical prelude to an informal conversation between the two of us on our assigned topic “Composers We Have Known.” Charles and I had not met previously, but we formed an instant camaraderie as we reminisced for more than an hour about associations with Leo Sowerby (and heard a recording of his anthem for SAB choir and organ, Jesu Bright and Morning Star), Gerald Near (with brief examples from his three-movement Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings), Daniel Pinkham, Thomas Matthews, Paul Creston, Alexander
Schreiner, Olivier Messiaen, Jean Langlais, George Thalben-Ball, Francis Jackson, Alec Wyton, Calvin Hampton, Herbert Howells, Vincent Persichetti, Ross Lee Finney . . . quite a diverse compilation of memorable luminaries!

Housing in the Comfort Suites at Kilgore was truly comfortable, with a full hot breakfast available each morning at no extra charge, a complimentary late afternoon happy hour (if one happened not to be at a recital), and an “even happier hour” that extended late into the night, where all could mingle to talk of the day’s events, enjoy a libation and snack, or purchase recordings, books, and music presented for sale by the festival artists. What better place could there be to acquire Callahan’s Kilgore Suite or reissues of historic Aeolian-Skinner organ recordings on compact discs produced by Lorenz Maycher’s Vermont Organ Academy?

The festival honored the life and work of Roy Perry (1906–1978), Aeolian-Skinner tonal finisher and Texas sales representative, a much-beloved musician and unforgettable character who served as organist of Kilgore’s First Presbyterian Church from 1932 until 1972. Perry is buried in the private Thompson Family Cemetery, a quiet and peaceful gravesite visited by the bus-travelling attendees on their way to a celebratory lakeside dinner in honor of the Crim family, donors of Aeolian-Skinner’s 1949 opus 1173 at First Presbyterian. Celebrated as well were the musical achievements of the Longview-born organist Alexander Boggs Ryan (1928–1978), who was remembered with a recital at First Baptist Church, Longview, featuring several works he had played there in 1959 on Aeolian-Skinner’s 1951 instrument (opus 1174), an exhibition at the Gregg County Historical Museum, and a gala reception. 

It is this sense of connection, of place, and of gratitude to those whose gifts caused such treasured instruments to be built in these Texas churches that assures the festival’s success not only with those who come from afar, but also for the local residents who attend in generous numbers. All the musical programs are open to the general public at no charge, and it was especially gratifying to see many young people at these recitals, including students from the local college and a group of organ students from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, who had made the long trip to Texas in a van with their teacher Joby Bell.  

It was an honor to be a part of this event, and I felt a great sense of anticipation when informed that my picture (in color) had been published in the Longview News-Journal for Wednesday, November 14. When the festival bus arrived back at the hotel late that evening, I set out on foot to find a copy of the paper, and, after two false attempts, actually found one! And there, at the bottom of page 6A was the photo with the caption, “Larry Palmer performs Tuesday on an autochord at Trinity Episcopal Church.” For years I have collected misspellings of the word harpsichord (and there are many of them that have appeared in print), but here was a totally unique attribution, only one of many pleasant experiences afforded by the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, 2012.

For a more detailed account of this festival, see Neal Campbell’s report on pages 22–25 of this issue. For more information about past and future festivals, see www.EastTexasPipeOrganFestival.com. ν

Photo credit: Bill Leazer

The 2012 inaugural meeting of the new Historical Keyboard Society of North America (HKSNA), formed by the merger of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society (SEHKS, founded 1980) and its slightly younger sibling, the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society (MHKS, organized 1984), was an historic event in itself. The late March gathering in Cincinnati included both the seventh iteration of the Jurow Harpsichord Playing Competition and the eighth occurrence of the International Aliénor Composition Competition, plus scores of scholarly presentations and short recitals, loosely organized into ten sessions, each with a general connecting theme.  

For my contribution to Session Seven (The Old Made New) I attempted to craft a title enigmatic enough that it might pique the curiosity of a few potential auditors, but with the higher goal of providing information about some of the earliest and relatively obscure “new” compositions for harpsichord from the early 20th-century. I hoped, as well, to underscore, at least by implication, the major stimulus for a continuing creation of new repertoire that has been provided by the Aliénor’s prizes, performances, and publications since its inception in 1980. 

Woodhouse plays Cecil Sharp

As early as July 1920, Violet Gordon Woodhouse, the most prominent and gifted of early 20th-century British harpsichordists, recorded three of folksong collector Cecil Sharp’s Country Dance Tunes. Thus Sharp’s 1911 piano versions of the tunes Newcastle, Heddon of Fawsley, and Step Back serve as the earliest “contemporary” music for harpsichord committed to disc.¹

These were followed, in 1922, by recorded performances of two more Cecil Sharp transcriptions, Bryhton Camp and the evocatively titled Gathering Peascods.² While the 1920 recordings were already available in digital format, courtesy of Pearl Records’ Violet Gordon Woodhouse compact disc,³ I had never heard the 1922 offerings. Peter Adamson, an avid collector of these earliest discs, assured me that he could provide the eponymous work listed in the title of this article. Both of us were surprised to find that Gathering Peascods was never issued in the United Kingdom, but Peter was able to send me some superior dubs from the original 1920 discs, as well as a few seconds of authentic 78-rpm needle scratching. Combining this acoustic noise with Sharp’s keyboard arrangement, quickly located online via Google search, made possible the restoration of Peascods to the roster of earliest recorded “contemporary” harpsichord literature. It is equally charming, though perhaps less historically informed, when performed without the ambient sound track. 

Thomé

New harpsichord music composed for the earliest Revival harpsichords⁴ actually predates any recording of the instrument: Francis Thomé’s Rigodon, opus 97, a pièce de claveçin, was written for the fleet-fingered French pianist Louis Diémer, and published in Paris by Henry Lemoine and Company in 1892.⁵

The first 20th-century harpsichord piece?

There are currently two contenders for “first place” in the 20th-century modern harpsichord composition sweepstakes. The first may be Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s English Suite, originally committed to paper in 1909 during his student years in Florence, then recreated in 1939 shortly after the Italian composer’s immigration to the United States. That version, sent to prominent harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick in 1940, seems to have been ignored by the artist, but it was ultimately published by Mills Music in New York in 1962.⁶

A second contender (dare we call it a “co-first”?), which is, thus far, the earliest published 20th-century harpsichord work, is Henri Mulet’s tender and charming miniature Petit Lied. Mulet is most often remembered, if at all, for his ten Byzantine Sketches for Organ, a set that ends with the sometimes-popular toccata Tu es Petrus (Thou art the rock). Comprising a brief seventeen measures, Mulet’s “Little Song” is dedicated to fellow organist Albert Périlhou, who was characterized by his more famous contemporary Louis Vierne, as “a composer of the 18th century.” So perhaps this delicate, nostalgic work, published in 1910 “pour claveçin [ou piano]” was intended to pay homage to Périlhou’s antiquarian tendencies.⁷

Busoni

1916 saw the publication of Ferruccio Busoni’s 1915 Sonatina ad usum infantis Madeline M.* Americanae pro Clavicimbalo composita⁸—a strange, but ultimately satisfying keyboard work that, with some imaginative editing, is playable on a two-manual harpsichord, which one assumes the composer did, since he was also the proud owner of such a 1911 Dolmetsch-Chickering instrument.⁹   

Delius

Often described as “unplayable,” the very original Dance for Harpsichord (for piano) by Frederick Delius came into being in 1919, inspired by the artistry of Violet Gordon Woodhouse. Kirkpatrick included it in a unique program of 20th-century harpsichord music presented at the University of California, Berkeley in 1961¹⁰ and Igor Kipnis recorded it in 1976.¹¹ I have occasionally enjoyed playing Delius’s purple-plush harmonies in a shortened version arranged by Baltimore harpsichordist Joseph Stephens. Each time I play the work I find fewer notes to be necessary, and decide to omit more and more of them, often an approach that best serves these piano-centric harpsichord refugees from the early Revival years. Since Delius surely ranks among the better-known composers who attempted to write anything at all for the harpsichord, it seems worth the effort to forge an individual version that serves to bring this quite lovely piece to the public.

Grainger

Inspired by the recent anniversary year (2011) of the beloved eccentric Percy Grainger (he died in 1961), it seemed fitting to rework another of my own arrangements, that of his “Room-Music Tit-Bits,” the clog dance Handel in the Strand, particularly after coming across Grainger’s own mention of the harpsichord’s influence on his compositional career. In a letter to the pianist Harold Bauer, Grainger wrote:

. . . the music [of my] Kipling Settings . . . [is] an outcome of the influence emanating from the vocal-solo numbers-with-accompaniment-of-solo-instruments in Bach’s Matthew-Passion, as I heard it when a boy of 12, 13, or 14 in Frankfurt. These sounds (two flutes and harpsichord . . .) sounded so exquisite to my ears . . . that I became convinced that larger chamber music (from 8-25 performers) was, for me, an ideal background for single voices . . .¹²    

So why not present Grainger’s Handelian romp edited for one player, ten fingers, and two manuals? Grainger’s own arrangement (“dished-up for piano solo, March 25, 1930, [in] Denton, Texas” according to the composer’s annotation in the printed score) provides a good starting place.¹³

Persichetti and Powell

Two major solo works from the 1950s composed for the harpsichordist Fernando Valenti deserve more performances than they currently receive: Vincent Persichetti’s Sonata for Harpsichord (now known as that prolific composer’s Sonata No. One), still, to my ears, his most pleasing work for our instrument, and Mel Powell’s Recitative and Toccata Percossa—another wonderful work included on Kirkpatrick’s contemporary music disc.¹⁴

Duke Ellington

For aficionados of jazz, the 44 measures of Duke Ellington’s A Single Petal of a Rose comprise three manuscript pages now housed in the Paul Sacher Foundation (Basel, Switzerland), available only as a facsimile in Ule Troxler’s invaluable volume documenting the many commissions bestowed on contemporary composers by the wealthy Swiss harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer.¹⁵ About Ellington’s unique work, Mme. Vischer wrote to the composer late in 1965: 

Just on Christmas Eve I received your marvelous piece . . . I am very happy about your composition and I want to assure you of my greatest thanks. . . . could I ask you the favour to give me the manuscript with the dedication to my name as all other composers are doing for me, with a photo from you who always belong to my collection . . .¹⁶  

When Igor Kipnis asked whether I had any idea as to where he might find this score, I shared the citation information with him. Some years later he reciprocated by sending an arrangement made in collaboration with jazz great Dave Brubeck. A damper pedal would certainly make playing even this somewhat more idiomatic keyboard arrangement easier, but the gentle beauties of Ellington’s only “harpsichord” work deserve to find their place in our repertoire. In the spirit of jazz improvisation, I suggest adapting the written notes to fit one’s individual finger span, as well as assuming a free approach both to some of the notated rhythms and repeats, and not being afraid to toy with the tessitura by changing the octave of some notes in order to achieve a more lyrical legato line on our pedal-less instrument.

Prokofiev (for two)

In 1936 Sergey Prokofiev surprised the western musical world by forsaking Paris and returning to live out the rest of his days in his native Russia. One of his first Soviet musical projects was the composition of incidental music for a centenary production of Pushkin’s play Eugene Onegin. In this dramatic and colorful orchestral score a dream scene is integrated with the house party of the heroine, Tatyana. 

In his recent book, The People’s Artist, music historian Simon Morrison writes,

The party scene opens with the strains of a . . . polka emanating from a distant hall. Aberrant dance music represents aberrant events: much like Onegin himself, the dance music offends sensibility. It sounds wrong; it is a breach. Prokofiev scores the dance (No. 25) for two provincial, out-of-tune harpsichords, the invisible performers carelessly barreling through the five-measure phrases at an insane tempo—a comical comment on the hullabaloo that greets the arrival . . . of a pompous regimental commander. There ensues an enigmatic waltz (No. 26), which Prokofiev scores first for string quintet and then, in a jarring contrast, for the two harpsichords . . .¹⁷   

One wonders just how many provincial harpsichords there were in mid-1930s Russia, but this Polka from Eugene Onegin, played at a slightly more moderate pace, has served as a delightful encore for performances of Francis Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre when that enchanting work is performed as a duo with piano standing in for the orchestral parts, just as it was presented by Wanda Landowska and Poulenc in the very first, pre-premiere hearing of Poulenc’s outstanding score.¹⁸   

The Old Gray Mare, at last

Having fêted a pompous general with Prokofiev’s Polka, it is time to explain the reference to The Old Gray Mare. American composer and academic Douglas Moore composed a short variation set based on the popular folk tune to demonstrate the culminating amicable musical collaboration between the previously antagonistic harpsichord and piano, a duet that concludes the mid-
20th-century recording Said the Piano to the Harpsichord. This educational production has had a somewhat unique cultural significance as the medium through which quite a number of persons first encountered our plucked instrument. While Moore’s variation-finale remains unpublished, it is possible to transcribe the notes from the record, and thus regale live concert audiences with this charming entertainment for listeners “from three to ninety-plus.” 

Other musical examples utilized in this clever skit include a preludial movement, the mournful Le Gemisante from Jean-François Dandrieu’s 1èr Livre de Claveçin [1724]; the violently contrasting Military Polonaise in A Major, opus 40/1 by Fréderic Chopin, in which the piano demonstrates its preferred athletic and happy music and then goads the harpsichord into a ridiculous attempt at playing the same excerpt, sans pedal. That confrontation is followed by Jean-Philippe Rameau’s ever-popular Tambourin, which manages to sound nearly as ridiculous when the piano tries to show that it “can play your music better than you can play mine!”—an attempt heard to be futile when the harpsichord puts that notion to rest by playing it “the way it ought to sound.”

The 2012 Aliénor winners chosen by judges Tracy Richardson, David Schrader, and Alex Shapiro from some 70 submitted scores: Solo harpsichord (works required to emulate in some way the Mikrokosmos pieces by Béla Bartók): composers Ivan Božičevič (Microgrooves), Janine Johnson (Night Vision), Kent Holliday (Mikrokosmicals), Thomas Donahue (Four Iota Pieces), Mark Janello (Six Harpsichord Miniatures), and Glenn Spring (Bela Bagatelles). Vocal chamber music with one obbligato instrument and harpsichord: Jeremy Beck (Songs of Love & Remembrance), Ivan Božičevič (Aliénor Courante), and Asako Hirabayashi (Al que ingrate me deja).¹⁹ ν 

Notes

1. Jessica Douglas-Home, The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse (London: The Harvill Press, 1996). Discography (by Alan Vicat), p. 329. 

2. Ibid. Matrices issued in France with the catalogue number P484.

  3. Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, volume 3. Pearl GEMM CD 9242 (1996).

4. Three newly constructed two-manual harpsichords built by the piano firms Érard and Pleyel, and by the instrument restorer Louis Tomasini, were shown at the Paris Exposition of 1889, and heard in performances at the event. The modern harpsichord revival is often dated from that year.

5. See Larry Palmer, “Revival Relics” in Early Keyboard Journal V (1986–87), pp. 45–52, and Palmer, Harpsichord in America: A 20th-Century Revival (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989; paperback second edition, 1993), pp. 4–6; page six is a facsimile of the first page of Rigodon.

6. See Larry Palmer, “Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s English Suite for Harpsichord at 100.” The Diapason, December 2009,
pp. 36–37.

7. See these articles in The Diapason: Donna M. Walters, “Henri Mulet: French organist-composer,” December 2008, pp. 26–29; Harpsichord News, August 2010, p. 11; and, for a complete facsimile of the original publication, the issue of January 2011,
p. 12. 

  8. Edition Breitkopf Nr. 4836 “for Piano Solo.”  

9. See Larry Palmer, “The Busoni Sonatina,” in The Diapason, September 1973, pp. 10–11; Palmer, Harpsichord in America: “Busoni and the Harpsichord,” pp. 25–26; the first harpsichord recording of this work is played by Larry Palmer on Musical Heritage Society disc LP 3222 (1975). A fine 2002 digital recording, Revolution for Cembalo (Hänssler Classic CD 98.503) features Japanese harpsichordist Sumina Arihashi playing the Busoni Sonatina, as well as Delius’s Dance, Thomé’s Rigodon, and other early revival works by Ravel, Massenet, Richard Strauss, and Alexandre Tansman.

10. The list of included composers is given in Palmer, Harpsichord in America,
p. 146. Kirkpatrick also recorded this program in 1961. 

11. “Bach Goes to Town,” Angel/EMI S-36095.

12. http://www.percygrainger.org/prog not5.htm (accessed 20 October 2011).

13. Published by G. Schirmer.

14. Persichetti’s ten sonatas for harpsichord are published by Elkan-Vogel, Inc., a subsidiary of the Theodore Presser Company, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010; the First Sonata, opus 52 (1951), was published in 1973. The Powell work remains unpublished.

15. Ule Troxler, Antoinette Vischer: Dokumente zu einem Leben für das Cembalo (Basel: Birkhäuser-Verlag, 1976). Published by Schott & Co. Ltd., London; U.S. reprint by G. Schirmer.

16. Ibid., pp. 99–100. 

17. Simon Morrison, The People’s Artist—Prokofiev’s Soviet Years (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). The quotation is found on page 130. I assembled the two harpsichord parts by cutting and pasting them from the orchestral score of Eugene Onegin (his opus 71).  I am unaware of any other published edition.

18. Personally I find the balances for the Poulenc much better in duo performances than in live harpsichord and orchestra ones. Another interesting possibility, at least as demonstrated by a recording, may be heard on Oehms Classics compact disc OC 637, where harpsichordist Peter Kofler is partnered by organist Hansjörg Albrecht and percussionist Babette Haag in a compelling performance, recorded in 2009 in Munich.

19. For more information about Aliénor and its history, consult www.harpsichord-now.org.

2012 marks the 50th anniversary of harpsichord editor Larry Palmer’s first published writing in The Diapason: a brief article about Hugo Distler in the issue for November 1962. Since those graduate student days he has taught at St. Paul’s College and Norfolk State and Southern Methodist Universities, served as President of SEHKS from 2004–2008, and is a continuing member of the advisory board for Aliénor. At the Cincinnati gathering in addition to “Gathering Peascods” he played Glenn Spring’s Bela Bagatelles at the Awards recital and chaired the Sunday session devoted to “Swingtime—The Mitch Miller Showdown.” 

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]

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.

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.

A posthumous gift from Gustav Leonardt

It is now six years since Gustav Leonhardt departed this mortal coil on January 16, 2012, but his idiomatic arrangements of J. S. Bach’s solo violin and cello suites, partitas, and sonatas have recently been published by Bärenreiter-Verlag. This new volume presents an unexpected New Year’s gift to those of us who had feared that the master harpsichordist’s transcriptions of some of the composer’s most beloved music might have been burned along with the bulk of his personal correspondence.

Issued in the familiar-looking blue Bach Edition as Suites, Partitas, Sonatas Transcribed for Harpsichord (BA 11820, ˇ39.95) the idiomatic arrangements have been prepared for publication by Leonhardt’s friend and student Sieba Henstra, who has contributed a comprehensive editorial commentary. Skip Sempé’s eloquent preface quotes Bach contemporaries Jacob Adlung and Johann Friedrich Agricola, both of whom wrote about Bach’s own keyboard performances of these works that were originally written for bowed string instruments. Sempé concludes by quoting Leonhardt’s own words from the Dutchman’s notes to a 1976 recording: “I think that Bach would have forgiven me for the fact that I have set myself to making arrangements of his works; whether or not he would have forgiven the way I have done it, remains, of course, a moot point.”

The following 135 pages of music comprise the violin sonatas in D minor, transposed from the original G minor, BWV 1001; in G major, from C major, BWV 1005; three Partitas, in E minor, from the original B minor, BWV 1002; G minor, from D, BWV 1004; and A major, from E, BWV 1006. The cello suites in E-flat, BWV 1010, C minor, BWV 1011, and D major, BWV 1012, are transcribed without a change of key; and two individual movements, an Allemande in A minor, from Bach’s Partita for Flute, BWV 1013, and “Sarabande in C Minor” from his Suite for Lute, BWV 997, are likewise both transcribed in their original keys.

It has been an unmitigated pleasure to play through these magnificent pieces and a special joy to have another musical connection to a great mentor and friend­—the opportunity to play Leonhardt’s harpsichord-friendly version of the extensive D-Minor Ciaccona for Solo Violin (which sounds magnificent in its higher G minor key) and to compare it with the thicker, more pianistic arrangement by John Challis (his 1941 manuscript found at the Library of Congress, still unpublished). I recommend this new volume to all harpsichordists who love Bach’s music, and I wish for each player the unique joy of experiencing yet another addition to our ever-expanding keyboard repertoire.

G. L. dubs me his “Doctor-Father”

An excerpt from a letter received from Professor Leonhardt, dated Amsterdam, June 3, 2003:

Dear Larry,

. . . Fond memories bring me back to Dallas’ SMU [Southern Methodist University]. Do you know that you started my series [of honorary degrees]? Followers were Amsterdam, Harvard, Metz and Padova . . .

With all best wishes,

Yours ever,

Utti L.

A lengthy backstory is involved, the culmination of many years of varied experiences with Leonhardt.  

I first visited Haarlem, the Netherlands, during the summer of 1958 when fellow Oberlin organ major Max Yount and I drove through much of northern Europe following our junior year at the Salzburg Mozarteum. We spent several days in the charming Dutch town, attending events sponsored by its annual Summer Academy. Four years later, after completing doctoral study at the Eastman School in Rochester, New York, I was hired for my first academic position at St. Paul’s College, Lawrenceville, Virginia, a small school where I taught for two years as a replacement music professor while the incumbent was pursuing his doctoral studies. Following that first year of teaching I returned to Europe during the summer break to attend the first of my two Haarlem summer academies. The year was 1964, and my purpose was to join the three-week class of intensive harpsichord studies with Professor Gustav Leonhardt.

Three years later I returned to Haarlem, full of ideas and solutions that had been developing since that first encounter with Leonhardt’s teaching. By this time I was fully convinced that his examples of number symbolism and its hidden truths in many Bach works were indeed correct as well as fascinating. We had a very full repertoire assignment for that summer of 1967, and many of the participants in Leonhardt’s classes were too reticent to volunteer as players. I was not afraid to play for him, so I was invited to do so quite frequently. And, since I was staying with a friend in Amsterdam this time around, it happened that I usually arrived at the train station about the same time as my professor. We would have coffee together as we made the short trip to Haarlem, and I came to know Leonhardt as a delightful travel companion, as well as an inspiring teacher.

After my 1970 move to teach in Dallas there were quite a few opportunities to hear Leonhardt during his various concert trips to the United States. As a member of SMU’s faculty senate for 12 years, eventually I was named chair of the Honorary Degrees Committee. Perusing a list of past recipients I noted that artists, musicians, and women seemed to be few and far between in the honors lists, so I proposed three names to the senate: Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, and Gustav Leonhardt. My faculty colleagues were enthusiastic about all three of them. 

The university president, however, not so much. There was a rule that each honors recipient had to appear in person to receive the degree. Georgia O’Keeffe let it be known that she did not need the honor, but would be happy to accept it if it were bestowed in a balloon over Albuquerque. I suggested that a video could be made of such an event, one that would surely arouse far-reaching interest throughout the entire United States. The president nearly had apoplexy, and that idea was scuttled at once. Leonard Bernstein was already scheduled to be in Dallas to conduct a benefit concert in SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium on the next day following commencement. In this instance I suggested that his degree ceremony be postponed until that evening, when it would make sense to bestow Lennie’s honor during the concert’s intermission. Again, it was too radical an idea, and Bernstein’s honorary degree also was denied.

Leonhardt already had concert commitments on the date of the ceremonies for 1982, but he communicated to SMU’s administrators that he would be delighted to arrange his schedule to accept his first doctorate the following year. Thus it was that on May 21, 1983, I had the proud honor of reading Gustav Leonhardt’s doctoral citation, ending with the time-honored statement, “In recognition of his consummate artistry and service to the world of music, Southern Methodist University is proud to confer upon Gustav Leonhardt the degree Doctor of Music, honoris causa.” 

Shortly thereafter he suggested that, from henceforth, it need not be “Dr. Leonhardt” or “Dr. Palmer,” but, in friendship, the time had come for us to use first names, even the diminutive “Utti” that his close friends were invited to call him.

As part of Utti’s commencement weekend in Dallas he gave a solo recital (which included his transcription of the D-Minor Violin Partita), conducted a harpsichord masterclass for our students, and served as the much-appreciated speaker for the evening ceremony during which each School of the Arts student walked across the stage to receive the diploma signifying a degree that had been granted that morning at the all-university ceremony. Utti had found a 17th-century English poem about a hard-drinking British university student, a word picture that soon had his audience convulsed in paroxysms of laughter. We had many post-ceremony requests for that text, but we never procured a copy of it. I still wonder if, perhaps, Utti, who had a very droll sense of humor, might not have composed the poem himself?

At any rate, I found it amusing, as did he, that a student should become the “Doctor-Father” for his teacher, the whole concept of which has to do with the thesis advisor for the philosophy doctorate in German academia. It has occurred to me that, in writing this long-overdue memoir, my delight at the publication of Leonhardt’s lovely Bach transcriptions may be the final award for such a brilliant “thesis” and should require the time-honored repetition of the words, “Welcome to the company of scholars.” But of course, he had been in that company already for a very, very long time.

2017 Harpsichord News columns: a guide

January: According to Janus: columns published in 2016; the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 2016: two vignettes; possible future topics.

February: The A-Team: Antoinette Vischer and her commissions of contemporary harpsichord music.

March: Lessons from (François) Couperin: hints for harpsichord pedagogy using his L’art de toucher le Claveçin.

April: Where next? More pedagogical repertory suggestions.

May: An Italian Christmas; Paul Wolfe; Glen Wilson’s Froberger CD.

June: Harpsichord maker Richard Kingston: a tribute for his 70th birthday.

July: Celebrating Scott Ross; a performance practice letter from Beverly Scheibert, Early Keyboard Journal #30; remembering Isolde Ahlgrimm.

August: Christmas in August: reviews of J. William Greene’s Christmas Ayres and Dances, Book 2, a new CD of Stephen Dodgson’s Inventions for Harpsichord, and Meredith Kirkpatrick’s book, Reflections of an American Harpsichordist, essays by her uncle, Ralph Kirkpatrick.

September: Recital programming: sample program notes by LP from a harpsichord recital at the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, 2012.

October: From the Harpsichord Editor’s mailbox: four new keyboard scores by Carson Cooman; John Turner’s discovery of a lost cantata (with harpsichord) by British composer Alan Rawsthorne; and Mark Schweizer’s 14th Liturgical Mystery.

November: From A to Z: Aliénor retrospective in May 2018 and SMU’s Meadows Museum Zurbarân Exhibition celebrated musically at the 1762 Caetano Oldovini organ.

December: Remembering Zuzana Ru˚žicˇková by Robert Tifft.