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Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor of THE DIAPASON.

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Edward L. Kottick: A History of the Harpsichord.

"There may be those whose knowledge of the harpsichord encompasses the whole of its six-hundred-year history, but I am not among them." Thus begins Edward Kottick's 557-page magnum opus, now handsomely in print, courtesy of Indiana University Press. Such modesty, both courteous and engaging, brought an immediate reaction, "If not Kottick, who?" With his outstanding career as music historian and university professor, his successful sideline of harpsichord making, and the writing of two earlier books, one an invaluable guide to the instrument's care and maintenance, the other (with George Lucktenberg) a guide to European keyboard instrument collections, who could be better qualified to write such a comprehensive survey?

And comprehensive it certainly is! Kottick divides his book into five large sections, tracing the harpsichord's story, century by century. Part I: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries mines the distant past ("From Psaltery and Monochord to Harpsichord and Virginal"), introducing the putative (and colorful) "inventor" of the harpsichord, Hermann Poll, Henri Arnaut's manuscript drawing and description of the instrument, and a comparison of  Arnaut's description with an actual surviving instrument, a Clavicytherium now in the Royal College of Music, London.

Part II: The Sixteenth Century deals with the development of the harpsichord in northern Europe, Antwerp harpsichord building between Karest and Ruckers, and early Italian harpsichords, virginals, and spinets. In Part III: The Seventeenth Century the story progresses via the Ruckers-Couchet dynasty of harpsichord makers to those of the later Italian style, the seventeenth-century international style, and the national "schools" of harpsichord making in France, Germany, Austria, and England.

Part IV: The Eighteenth Century, not surprisingly the lengthiest section of the book, has chapters concerned with the decline of the Italian harpsichord, the increasingly-important instruments of the Iberian Peninsula, harpsichord building in France until the Revolution, instruments of the Low Countries in the post-Ruckers era, and discussions of the harpsichord in Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, and colonial America.

Part V: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries details the "hibernation of the harpsichord" in the 19th century, its revival from the 1889 Paris Exhibition until  World War II, and the subsequent period of the "modern" harpsichord from historically informed builders such as Gough, Hubbard, and Dowd, through the introduction of electronic instruments and the popularity of harpsichord kits.

A short postscript ("Into the Future") brings the 470 pages of text to a thoughtful conclusion. The remainder of the volume consists of a glossary, nearly fifty pages of end notes, an extensive bibliography, and the index.

Each chapter ends with a helpful "summing up" of the author's main points. The book is illustrated copiously with black and white pictures on nearly half its pages. There are 23 color plates, each one of a beautifully-decorated historic harpsichord, save for a single 17th-century painting: Andrea Sacchi's Apollo Crowning the Singer Pasqualini. Boxed "sidebars" present detailed information about many topics of interest, allowing the reader to sample various short snippets of engaging history, such as "The Guild of St. Luke," "Goosen Karest the Apprentice," "Italian Roses," "A Digression on Nonaligned Keyboards," "Raymundo Truchado's Geigenwerk," "J. S. Bach and Equal Temperament," "Kirkman's Marriage," or "The Delrin Story."

As if all this rich variety were not enough, the book comes with a companion compact disc comprising nineteen aural examples of plucked keyboard sounds from the Flemish Spinett Virginal by Marten van der Biest [1580] heard in Giles Farnaby's Why Ask You? to Landowska's iconographic performance at her Pleyel harpsichord of the first movement from Bach's Italian Concerto, and Kathryn Roberts playing Louis Couperin on a 1987 John Phillips instrument based on a 1707 harpsichord by Nicholas Dumont. All of these choices are apt; all, except for a poorly-recorded (but extremely interesting) example of a 17th-century German harpsichord transferred from a scratchy Hungaroton disc, demonstrate recorded sound ranging from good to superior. Most of the performances are winners, too, such as the arrangement and playing by Kenneth Mobbs of the 25-second Introduction to Handel's Zadok the Priest, demonstrating the Venetian swell of a 1785 Longman and Broderip harpsichord made by Thomas Culliford.

For anyone wishing to know the particulars of the two Scarlatti sonatas played by Ralph Kirkpatrick (listed only as Sonatas 35 and 36), they are K 366 (L 119)--an Allegro in F, and K 367 (L 172)--a Presto, also in F Major.

I did not find many errors in this extensive volume, but I was surprised to read Kottick's assertion that Sylvia Marlowe had used a blue William Dowd harpsichord for her engagements at the Rainbow Room Night Club in New York (note 51, page 522). This is a minor aberration, for the instrument employed was not a Dowd, but Marlowe's white Pleyel (purchased with funds borrowed from composer/critic Virgil Thomson). These well-received appearances were the real life inspiration for the fictional accounts in Francis Steegmuller's mystery novel Blue Harpsichord, published in 1949--the very year in which Frank Hubbard and William Dowd set up their first shop in Boston. Dowd did not build harpsichords under his own name until 1959.  Late in her career Marlowe did play a Dowd instrument, following many years of performing on her Pleyel and subsequent harpsichords built for her by John Challis.

A History of the Harpsichord [ISBN 0-253-34166-3] is printed on alkaline (non-acidic) paper that meets the minimum standards of permanence for printed library materials. Would that these pages could have been offered on thicker stock, for there is a fair amount of unwanted print bleed-through, especially from the illustrations. This book is priced at $75. It offers a compendium of interesting and detailed information, engagingly presented, and eminently readable. Kottick has produced a winner with this one.

Mimi S. Waitzman: Early Keyboard Instruments: The Benton Fletcher Collection at Fenton House.

Major George Henry Benton Fletcher (1866-1944) assembled a small but significant collection of early keyboard instruments in the early years of the 20th century. From the very beginning he held the view that his instruments should be restored, that they should be available to professional musicians and students, and that they should be housed in a suitable setting.

From 1934 until the building's destruction during World War II the instruments were displayed at Old Devonshire House, Boswell Street, in London. Since the collection had been turned over to England's National Trust, Fletcher's death did not result in the dispersal of his instruments. Five did not survive the war, but all the rest of them had been moved to rural England shortly before the bombing of Devonshire House. After the war Fletcher's instruments were reinstalled in a Queen Anne terraced house at 3 Cheyne Walk. From there, in 1952, the Trust moved them (together with an additional instrument --a 1612 Ruckers harpsichord belonging to Her Majesty the Queen) to Fenton House, a stately Georgian building in Hampstead. At present there are nineteen instruments dating from 1540 (the Italian virginals of Marcus Siculus) to 1925 (a clavichord built in Haselmere by Arnold Dolmetsch). Thirteen are by English builders.

Mimi Waitzman, curator of the Benton Fletcher Collection since 1984, is the author of a new, elegantly produced hardbound volume listing all the instruments, comprising virginals, spinets, harpsichords, clavichords, grand and square pianos. Beginning with a short history of the collection, the Introduction continues with descriptions of the various action types utilized in the instruments, illustrated by line drawings. Each of the instruments is given a full description, followed by listings of case materials and dimensions, compass, disposition, and details of stringing and scaling.

A companion compact disc contains appropriate musical examples played by Terence Charleston on fourteen of the instruments; these tracks are listed within the chapter for each instrument. Lavish color illustrations and high-quality duotone photographs add to the value of this publication, and the whole makes for a satisfactory "self-guided tour" or a private study in early keyboard instruments.

Published by The National Trust [ISBN 0-7078-0353-5], 112 pages, £24.99.

Related Content

20th-Century Harpsichord History: Sex, Recordings, Videotape

by Larry Palmer
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Books about the phenomenon known as the 20th-century harpsichord revival continue to appear. Among recent publications, none is so engrossing as Violet: The Life and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse, written by her great-niece Jessica Douglas-Home (The Harvil Press, 84 Thornhill Road, London N1 1RD; £20). The geneological connection is especially important in this instance, for the author has had full access to unpublished letters and family diaries, enabling her to give full exposure both to the public persona and the unconventional private life of the English harpsichordist and clavichord player.

Mrs. Gordon Gordon Woodhouse (Violet and her husband officially changed their name to become an unhyphenated double one) was placed by author Osbert Sitwell in that company of "human genius who form so rare a race." Critic and composer Kaikhosru Sorabji wrote that Violet's technique and musicianship "are not surpassed by any English-speaking musician whose medium of expression is a keyboard instrument." Various editions of Grove's Dictionary assign her the honor of being the first to record the harpsichord (in July 1920) and the first to play a radio broadcast on the instrument (March 1924).

Drawn to the harpsichord through the influence of Arnold Dolmetsch, she attracted to her musical salon such figures as the artists Picasso and Rodin; the impressario Diaghilev; authors Law-rence of Arabia, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Bernard Shaw, and the three Sitwells--Osbert, Sacheverall, and Edith; and eminent composers Bartok, Delius (who, in 1919, composed his Dance for her), Vaughan Williams, and Ethel Smyth (one of Violet's passionate admirers).

Passion constituted a large part of Violet's intriguing story!  Although she married Gordon Woodhouse, they agreed that the marriage would remain unconsummated, and Violet's friend Adelina Ganz even accompanied the bridal pair on their honeymoon. Four years into the marriage, Violet's lover Bill Barrington joined the household. Subsequently the ménage à trois became a ménage à cinq when Denis Tollemache and Maxwell Labouchère, in love with Violet, also took up lodgings chez Woodhouse.

In addition to this tangled web of male companionship there was a continuing saga of Violet's female friends Christabel Marshal, Radclyffe Hall (who dedicated a book of Lesbian erotic poetry to Violet), Ethel Smyth, and of Dame Ethel's friends Virginia Woolf and the Princesse de Polignac. Scandal was never far-distant from the Gordon Woodhouses, but the most titilating event of all was the murder of Gordon's two maiden aunts by their longime butler, an event that saved the Woodhouse family fortune for Gordon and allowed him to maintain Violet in the extravagent life to which she had become accustomed.

It was this pampered existence which kept her, for much of her life, away from a professional career and the recording studios. Aristocratic women of means did not play concerts for money! But when she did give concerts, Mrs. Woodhouse appeared not only as a soloist, but also with such leading musicians as Sarasate, Casals, and Lionel Tertis. Receiving glowing reviews which were the envy of many other players, she was the only possible rival to the great Landowska, and to many listeners Woodhouse was the finest harpsichordist of her generation. Jessica Douglas-Home's book presents a fascinating picture of English aristocratic and musical life from late in the Victorian era through the second World War. Well-written and beautifully produced, the book features line drawings at the beginning of each chapter, a bound-in purple bookmark-ribbon, and a generous portfolio of photographs. The author claims April 23, 1871 as Violet's birthdate (not 1872, as in Grove's), and she repeats the claim that Mrs. Woodhouse was the first artist to make harpsichord records.

But she probably wasn't. In Claude Mercier-Ythier's coffee-table extravaganza Les Clavecins (Expodif Éditions, Paris) he cites a 1914 cylinder recording on which French organist and harpsichordist Paul Brunold (1875-1948) played pieces by Couperin and Rameau on the 1732 Antoine Vater harpsichord--obviously an earlier entry for the "first to record" sweepstakes.  Mercier-Ythier's 1996 book (which I found remaindered in an Alsacian flea-market sale) carries a hefty price (750 French francs, or about $150), but it is a volume filled with elegant color plates and photographs of harpsichords and harpsichordists, historic and modern. The French text includes chapters on harpsichord history, the various national schools of harpsichord making, the harpsichord revival and modern instruments, decoration, and the recent trend toward more-or-less exact copies of historic instruments.

While coverage of French matters seems to be reasonably gounded in fact, other 20th-century items are treated with a somewhat cavalier attitude toward accuracy. In just five pages (121-126) I caught the following errors:  Landowska was born in 1879 (not 1877); her housekeeper Elsa Schunicke's name gained an extra syllable (and she was promoted to secretary); Dolmetsch did not work at Chickering's in Boston "from 1902 until 1909" (he was employed there from 1905 until 1911); Hubbard and Dowd started their harpsichord-making together in 1949 (not 1965), and Mercier-Ythier does not seem very certain about which one wrote the book Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making. Falla's puppet opera for the Princesse de Polignac (El Retablo de Maese Pedro) dates from 1923, not 1919; Poulenc composed his Concert Champêtre in 1927-28, not 1929; but why worry, it's only "modern stuff," right? Buy this one for the pictures and refer to my Harpsichord in America: A 20th-Century Revival for details!

I've not yet run across Brunold's "first" harpsichord recording, but for many years I have been a devotee of Violet Gordon Woodhouse's artistry, having searched out her too-few 78-rpm recordings. Now the complete recorded legacy is available on one compact disc: Violet Gordon Woodhouse (Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, Volume Three: Pearl GEMM CD 9242). To complete the picture of Mrs. Woodhouse gained from reading the new biography, listen to her supple playing of just about everything on this generous disc, but especially to her remarkable performance of Bach's "Italian" Concerto, made in 1927 (Woodhouse's first electric recordings). Here is music-making that confirms the high opinions of her contemporaries!

The other volumes of this series are also recommended.  Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, Volume One: Pearl GEMM CD 9124) contains 75 minutes of playing by Marguerite Delcour (1924), Anna Linde, Simone Plé; Landowska-students Alice Ehlers and Eta Harich-Schneider (disarmingly called "Harry-Schneider" in Mercier's book); Marguerite Roesgen-Champion, Julia Menz, Yella Pessl, Régina Patorni-Casadesus; and the best keyboard player from the Dolmetsch clan, son Rudolph, recorded between 1929 and 1933.

Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, Volume Two, features the first recordings by Ralph Kirkpatrick, made for Musicraft between 1926 and 1929.  Bach (Partita 5, Italian Concerto, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue), Purcell, the Virginalists, Couperin, Rameau, and two Scarlatti Sonatas are all performed on the artist's 1909 Dolmetsch harpsichord, an instrument which had originally belonged to the composer Busoni. The record producer, Teri Noel Towe, comments, "Some listeners confuse Ralph Kirkpatrick's tenacious and unswerving commitment to the composer's intentions with dullness and mistake his exquisite attention to detail and technical accuracy for dryness.  There is a special beauty and unique warmth to Kirkpatrick's sometimes austere but always direct, 'no nonsense' performances; his interpretations are always superbly conceived, often transcendent, and occasionally hypnotic."

Another recent release is A Recital of 20th-Century Harpsichord Music (Music and Arts CD-977), Kirkpatrick's unique recital at the University of California, Berkeley, given on 26 January 1961.  This unedited concert program features coughing, applause, and the world premiere performance of Henry Cowell's Set of Four, with its typical tone clusters and the specific octave trills for the left hand, so proudly pointed out later by Mr. Kirkpatrick in his introduction to the printed score.  I wish I could be more enthusiastic about this disc, but, unfortunately, I find the performances particularly lacking in suppleness and charm, especially in the decidely "non-grazioso" fast bangup of Delius' Dance, and the startling number of misreadings and wrong rhythms in the first movement of Persichetti's [First] Sonata for Harpsichord (at that time the only one there was). Kirkpatrick played only this one movement at his recital, and his reading sent me searching for my copy of the composer's manuscript to see if it really differed so markedly from the later printed version.  It didn't!

Other works chosen for this program included Lou Harrison's Six Sonatas, Ernst Lévy's Fantasie Symphonique, and works by Peter Mieg, Halsey Stevens, Douglas Allanbrook, and David Kraehenbuehl, whose Toccate per Cembalo, together with Mel Powell's exciting Recitative and Toccata Percossa, are the best-played selections.

What possessed the producers to include Igor Kipnis' fine review of Frances Bedford's Harpsichord and Clavichord Music of the 20th Century as a major part of the accompanying booklet defies logic!  There is no information about the music on the disc, but rather a general background of 20th-century composition for harpsichord and some very Kipnis-specific examples of how Bedford's catalog is useful.  With a full program of music unfamiliar to most players and (probably) all listeners, it surely would have been helpful to provide information about the specific composers and works found on this particular compact disc. All-in-all this release has historic and archival value, but it will not do much to garner general appreciation for 20th-century harpsichord music.

Fortunately that is not the case with Into the Millennium (Gasparo GSCD-331), a brilliant offering of attractive modern works, beautifully played by harpsichordist Elaine Funaro.  It was good to hear again the riveting Raga by Penka Kouneva, Dan Locklair's The Breakers Pound (especially its idiomatic and moving Prelude), and Tom Robin Harris' Jubilate Deo, a Ligeti-inspired two-and-one-half minute minimalist romp which truly is "joyful in the Lord."  (For those who follow the score of this work, Funaro chose not to play the composer's published new ending to this piece, preferring the original one!)  Other pieces on this appealing program from the Aliénor Harpsichord Composition Competitions include Edwin McLean's Sonata [I], Nicole Clément's Covalences Multiples, Stephen Yates' Suite, and two non-Aliénor works by Isaac Nagao and Peter B. Klausmeyer.  Two harpsichords (by William Dowd and Joop Klinkhamer) were lovingly recorded in a resonant acoustic (Duke University Chapel). Exemplary notes and a striking cover photo of  a flower-decorated Reinhard von Nagel harpsichord. Brava!

And the video? Landowska, a Documentary by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, and Diane Pontius (AGP Productions, 16 Levering Circle, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004; 610/664-7316). The great Wanda's life is detailed in a montage of period photographs, films of 20th-century historical events, and interviews with those who knew her well (companion--secretary--student Denise Restout, Polish baritone Doda Conrad, record producer John Pfeiffer), those who heard her play (author William F. Buckley, Jr., French harpsichordist Magdeline Mangin), authors who have written about her (Alice Cash, Larry Palmer), and several other leading figures from the contemporary harpsichord scene (the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Laurence Libin, harpsichord-maker Willard Martin, and star performer Skip Sempé).

Especially vivid are the Restout sequences filmed at the home she shared with the harpsichordist, now the Landowska Center in Lakeville, CT; and the unique anecdotes from Conrad, who first met Landowska in 1912, and Pfeiffer, who recorded her final discs for RCA Victor.  Both of these men have since died.  Conrad's description of Landowska and Restout taking up lodging in a New York hotel best known as a brothel and his reference to Landowska's husband Henri Lew's propensity for visiting such institutions gives a certain added piquancy to the biography.

But, as always, it is Landowska herself who is the star of this feature!  Liberal segments from her only filmed appearance (for NBC Television's Wisdom Series, 1953) document for a new group of listeners and viewers the virtuosity of her music-making, as well as her public persona, a savvy mix of humility and self-awareness.  Responding to Jack Pfeiffer's questions, she recounts highlights of her early career (such as her memorable visit  to Tolstoy to play for him outside Moscow during a Russian winter), her delight in the natural beauty of her Connecticut home and its surroundings, and her love for the music of the past, her love of performing, and her love for her audience.

For all Landowska afficionados, this film is a reminder of her continuing place in our cultural history and in our hearts.  For those who have not yet had the opportunity to experience Landowska's artistry, it should be required viewing. Her role in the 20th-century revival of the harpsichord and early music is so central that every one of her successors owes a debt of gratitude to this pioneering figure.  Besides, her dramatic life-story, played out amidst the upheavals of 20th-century history, is more engrossing than fiction could ever be!

Harpsichord News

by Larry Palmer
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A Bach makes news

 

All Charges Dropped Against Singer Who Threatened Murder

 

My eyes were drawn to a news item from the Associated Press: "charges against heavy-metal singer Sebastian Bach will be dismissed if he avoids trouble for a year. The former lead singer for Skid Row, whose given name is Sebastian Bierk, was charged with terroristic threats and drug possession when apprehended during a bar fracas." (Reported in the Santa Fe New Mexican for July 27).

Bierk's brush with the law recalls an event in the life of "our" Sebastian Bach (as reported by various biographers, most recently Christoph Wolff, in Bach: The Learned Musician (pages 83-84): young JSB appeared before the Arnstadt Consistory on August 4, 1705, to complain about abusive treatment from a certain bassoonist named Geyersbach, with whom the composer had an altercation and street brawl. Bach's cousin Barbara Catharina witnessed the event, and her eyewitness testimony helped clear Bach of responsibility for initiating the incident, but the governing body suggested that perhaps he should have refrained from calling Geyersbach "a greenhorn bassoonist!"

 

Publications

 

Entrancing Muse: A Documented Biography of Francis Poulenc

 

Carl B. Schmidt's 2001 biography of the French composer is both complete and felicitously written. A chronological life story and details about Poulenc's works fill fourteen chapters. Extensive appendices include an explanatory "dramatis personae;" a complete listing of Poulenc's concerts, tours, and broadcasts; his recordings; and a "work-in-progress" list of drawings and portraits of the 20th-century master. (Pendragon Press: Lives in Music Series, number three; ISBN 1-57647-026-1).

The author's retelling of events surrounding the creation of Concert Champêtre for Harpsichord and Orchestra is comprehensive. To flesh out the words, two photos of the composer with Wanda Landowska (from the legacy of Momo Aldrich) are included. There is, however, a misprint in the dating of the photos. Momo's notation on the back of the pictures reads "Eté [19]28"--the season and year of mutual work on the piece (not the published 1918, at which time the composer had not yet met the pioneering harpsichordist).

Contemporary Music Review: volume 19 part 4; The Contemporary Harpsichord: A New Revival

Contemporary Music Review: volume 20 part 1; The Contemporary Harpsichord: New Perspectives

Two extensive and important paper- bound volumes published by Harwood Academic Publishers, edited by Jane Chapman, these books offer much information on the last century's development of the "modern" harpsichord. "A New Revival" comprises writings about compositions recorded on an accompanying compact disc (not sent with my copy). Among the articles are Annelie de Man's "Contemporary Music in the Netherlands;" "Points of Departure: An Interview with Simon Emmerson" (Jane Chapman); "Thoughts Before and After a Sonata"  (George Mowat-Brown and Helena Brown); "Déploration--In Memoriam Morton Feldman" (Brian Cherney, and in conversation with vivienne spiteri [sic]); "One Man's Noise Is Another Man's Music: The Demise of Pitch in Kevin Malone's Noise Reduction" (Pamela Nash); "Karyl Goeyvaerts' Litanie V for Harpsichord and Tape or Several Harpsichords" (Christine Wauters, Mark Delaere and Jef Lysens); and "Instrumentum Magnum" (Caroline Wilkins). Two gaffes noted in Chapman's introduction: "Challice" for "Challis" [p. 3]; and Howard Schott's name listed as "Henry" in her end notes [p. 6].

"New Perspectives" focuses more on the instrument's recent history: articles include "Harpsichord--a Mother of Necessity?" (Jukka Tiensuu); "Major 20th Century Composers and the Harpsichord" (Frances Bedford); "L'Interprète--La Memoire du Compositeur [The Performer--the Essence of the Composer]" (Elisabeth Chojnacka); "The Electroacoustic Harpsichord" (Simon Emmerson); "Notes Inégales in Contemporary Music" (Jane Chapman); "Ligeti's Harpsichord" (Ove Nordwall); "Brian Ferneyhough's Etudes ranscendantales" (Roger Redgate) together with an interview (Jane Chapman); "A Discussion of Overture to Orpheus with the composer Louis Andriessen" (Pamela Nash); "Lavender and New Lace: Sylvia Marlowe and the 20th-Century Harpsichord Repertoire" (Larry Palmer); and "The Harpsichord Works of Iannis Xenakis" (Ian Pace).

 

Early Keyboard Journal

 

Published under the editorship of Carol Henry Bates, this joint venture of the three early keyboard societies (Southeastern, Midwestern, and Western), Volume 19 (2001) is a veritable feast of valuable information for harpsichordists. Included are extensive articles by John R. Watson ("Instrument Restoration and the Scholarship Imperative"); David Chung ("Keyboard Arrangements and the Development of the Overture in French Harpsichord Music, 1670-1730"); the first part of an exhaustive catalog by R. Dean Anderson ("Extant Harpsichords Built or Rebuilt in France During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries--An Overview and Annotated List"); and Cynthia Adams Hoover's report on the extremely successful exhibition PIANO 300 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., together with brief descriptions of its European counterparts in Leipzig, Nuremberg, Berlin, and Prague.

 

Another musical B

 

Franz Benda (1709-1786), Bohemian composer at the court of Frederick the Great, composed a duet Sonata in E-Flat, opus 6, for Madame la Contesse de Hueseler. This pleasant work in two movements (Allegro Vivo; Presto Scherzando) for keyboard, four-hands has been edited by Norman D. Rodger, from an undated print in the Library of Congress. The few errata in the original have been corrected with care by the editor. If played on the harpsichord, several thick passages may need to be thinned a bit (such as repeated thirds low in the bass at measure 4 of the second movement, or the string of successive octaves beginning in measure 20), but, in general, the work sounds well for our instrument, and is a pleasant, charming addition to the repertoire. The score is available from Good Pennyworth Press, P. O. Box 1004, Oak Park, IL 60304 (312/491-0465).

 

Moonspender joins murders with pluck

 

Thanks to reader Michael Loris, we list some musical references in Jonathan Gash's eleventh Lovejoy murder mystery, Moonspender (Penguin Books, 1988). The story includes mention of a Tallis madrigal, the Tantum Ergo, Purcell, Franz Listz [sic], organ, positiv, harmonium, Bach, Boehm flute, and, most welcome of all, harpsichord, which first appears on page 17: ". . .though I like her because she's bonny and plays the harpsichord for Les Moran's music shop in the High Street."

The big moment occurs on page 157: "Not many two-manual harpsichords play during working hours, so the music led me to Dorothy, my favorite witch . . . 'John Dowland?' I guessed. . . 'A pavan from his Lachrymae, Lovejoy. . .' Her instrument was a kit assembly, based on an early seventeenth century Flemish maker called Ruckers.  New, it costs half the price of a new car."

Keep those harpsichord and organ references coming our way, please.

Features and news items are welcome for these columns. Please address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275;<[email protected]>.

 

More than the notes

 

"Beyond Notation" was the well-chosen title for a conference presented at the University of Michigan, September 26-29, 2002. Sponsored by The Westfield Center and the University, the focus was on Mozart--ornaments, improvisation, cadenzas, Eingänge [introductory flourishes and "lead-ins" to the written harmonies] as essential, even compulsory, additions in the composer's keyboard music.

Robert Levin, Malcolm Bilson, Seth Carlin, Penelope Crawford, Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, and Andrew Willis were the presenters. Through their lively and informative talks, as well as their expert playing, ideas for further study were encouraged. Small master classes and participation by the auditors, a welcome feature, afforded an opportunity to put these ideas into immediate practice.

May this conference be the first of many investigations "Beyond the Notes."

--Virginia Pleasants

Harpsichord Playing in America “after” Landowska

Larry Palmer

The Diapason’s Harpsichord Editor since 1969, Larry Palmer is author of the pioneering book, Harpsichord in America: A Twentieth-Century Revival, published by Indiana University Press in 1989 (paperback second edition, 1993). Of six international advisors for the Berlin commemoration, two were Americans: Teri Noel Towe (New York) and Palmer (Dallas). Poster and postcard images for the exhibition featured an anonymous caricature belonging to Palmer, the gift of Momo Aldrich, first secretary to the iconic Landowska.

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The Power of the Press:
“A Living Legend”

Nicholas Slonimsky (1894–1995), writing about harpsichordist Wanda Landowska for the French journal Disques in 1932, introduced his subject with a three-stanza poem. It begins:

Her fingers on the cembalo
Type out the polyphonic lore
Of Bach’s Inventions—and restore
The true original edition
Unobfuscated by tradition.1
Twelve years later, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, habitually cranky New York music critic Virgil Thomson (1896–1989), reviewed the Polish harpsichordist’s Town Hall concert of 20 November 1944 under the adulatory headline “Definitive Renderings”:

Wanda Landowska’s harpsichord recital of last evening . . . was as stimulating as a needle shower. . . . She played everything better than anybody else ever does. One might almost say, were not such a comparison foolish, that she plays the harpsichord better than anybody else ever plays anything . . .
. . . [Her] playing of the harpsichord . . . reminded one all over again that there is nothing else in the world like it. There does not exist in the world today, nor has there existed in my lifetime, another soloist of this or any other instrument whose work is so dependable, so authoritative, and so thoroughly satisfactory. From all the points of view—historical knowledge, style, taste, understanding, and spontaneous musicality—her renderings of harpsichord repertory are, for our epoch, definitive. Criticism is unavailing against them, has been so, indeed, for thirty years.2
It seems that the divine Wanda had accomplished her objective, half a century in the making, of restoring the harpsichord to a recognized place in the cultural consciousness of music lovers, both in Europe and in the western hemisphere. Her personal style, based on an innate rhythmic certainty, a turn-of-the-century impressionistic use of tonal color, and, not incidentally, her careful perusal of historical source materials had made her name virtually synonymous with the word harpsichord, at least in the collective consciousness of the public.

True Believers:
Expatriated European and Native American Disciples

Landowska’s acolytes dominated those American venues where harpsichords were played: Alice Ehlers (1887–1981), Professor Landowska’s first student in 1913 Berlin, immigrated to the United States and taught for 26 years at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Among Ehlers’s fascinating oral history recorded vignettes she noted that Landowska did not talk much in those early lessons, but she relied heavily on playing for her students. Later, in Ehlers’s own teaching, at least one anecdote retold by her student Malcolm Hamilton (1932–2003) showed that Ehlers was less than impressed at his derivative details copied from Landowska’s style. When Hamilton added an unwritten trill to the subject of a Bach fugue Ehlers stopped him to ask why. “I heard a recording by Wanda Landowska,” he began. Madame Ehlers interrupted brusquely, “Wanda Landowska was a genius. You and I, Malcolm, we are not geniuses—‘spaacially you!”3
Two more Landowska students holding American academic posts were Marie Zorn (b. 1907?), who promoted the Landowskian style in her harpsichord teaching at Indiana University from 1958 until 1976, and Putnam Aldrich (1904–1975), who married Wanda’s own personal secretary Madeleine Momot in 1931 (with a somewhat-reconciled Landowska as witness for the bride). Eventually “Put” settled his young family in northern California, where he established a prestigious doctoral program in early music at Stanford University.
In concert halls, Madame’s final brilliant students, Rafael Puyana (born 1931), a South American of blazing virtuosity, and Texas-born Paul Wolfe (born 1929), both built solo careers in the decade following their teacher’s death.
In 1961 Puyana played a concert at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, during my first year there as a doctoral student. Rafael, the scion of a wealthy family, toured the country with a Pleyel harpsichord (the instrument of choice for Landowska’s students) and a personal driver. His Eastman recital was a dashing and colorful evocation of a Landowska program, including kaleidoscopic changes of registration; a repertoire firmly grounded in the major Bach works; but with at least one non-Landowska addition: his own harpsichord transcription of a Canción for piano by the Catalan composer Frederico Mompou.
Paul Wolfe, not from a moneyed family, set out to make his name through recordings. I came to know him when Nick Fritsch of Lyrichord Records decided to reissue a number of their 1950s vinyl issues on compact discs and asked me to write an introductory article explaining harpsichord pedals. Wolfe’s instruments—a 1907 Pleyel of wooden construct and a large concert instrument completed in 1958 by the young northeastern builders Frank Rutkowski and Richard Robinette—as well as programs that featured 17th-century works by Frescobaldi and the English virginalists, Spanish music, and all eight of the 1720 Handel Suites—presented both facile young fingers and an expanding repertory of early keyboard music to the American harpsichord scene.

A Contrarian’s View of Landowska
During the autumnal years of Landowska’s career, critics of her playing style were not legion. But one composer-critic who did not idolize the High Priestess of the Harpsichord was neo-classicist composer Robert Evett (1922–1975). In a 1952 piece for The New Republic, Evett wrote:

Mme. Landowska has seduced the brighter part of the American public into believing that she offers it an authentic reading of Bach and his predecessors. What this lady actually uses is a modern Pleyel harpsichord, an instrument that she employs as a sort of dispose-all. . . .
After fifteen years of incredulous listening, I am finally convinced that this woman kicks all the pedals in sight when she senses danger ahead. When she sits down to play a Bach fugue, I go through all the torments that a passenger experiences when he is being driven over a treacherous mountain road by an erratic driver, and when she finally finishes the thing it is almost a pleasure to relax into nausea.4
A Different Aesthetic:
Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911–1984), funded by a post-graduate John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University, set off for Europe in the fall of 1931 to hone his harpsichord playing skills. As described in his memoirs,5 the pre-eminent American harpsichordist of his generation had a difficult relationship with the priestess of St-Leu, eventually running off to Berlin for coaching and consolation with another Landowska student, the more congenial Eta Harich-Schneider (1897–1986). Kirkpatrick’s public playing, beginning with concerts and recordings during the 1930s, sounded distinctly unlike Landowska’s in its conscious avoidance of excessive registration changes and its near-metronomic regularity. Teri Noel Towe’s description of Kirkpatrick’s style, printed as a “disclaimer” in the compact disc reissue of these early solo recordings for Musicraft Records, puts it this way:

Some listeners confuse Ralph Kirkpatrick’s tenacious and unswerving commitment to the composer’s intentions with dullness and mistake his exquisite attention to detail and technical accuracy for dryness. These detractors would do well to listen again. There is a special beauty and unique warmth to Kirkpatrick’s sometimes austere but always direct, ‘no nonsense’ performances; his interpretations are always superbly conceived, often transcendent, and occasionally hypnotic. . . .6
For a balanced evaluation of Kirkpatrick the harpsichordist, one needs to sample some later examples from his extensive discography. A 1959 Deutsche Grammophon Archiv recording of Bach played on a Neupert instrument presents quite another aural document of a decidedly non-austere artist. And by 1973 when I experienced Kirkpatrick’s deeply-moving playing of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Rothko Chapel in Houston (Texas), I reported in The Diapason that “Kirkpatrick played magnificently with a prodigious technical command of the work as well as with spacious feeling for the overall architecture . . .”7
At the very end of a more than five-decade career, and now totally blind, the aged master could allow his innate musical sensitivity to triumph. Despite his end-of-career tongue-in-cheek comments about preferring the piano, the Yale professor was the most highly regarded and recorded native harpsichordist in the United States during the period of Landowska’s American residency.
Other noted American players of Kirkpatrick’s generation included Yella Pessl (1906–1991) and Sylvia Marlowe (1908–1981). Marlowe’s first instrument was a true Landowska Pleyel, by this time painted white, the better to be seen on the revolving stage of New York City’s Rainbow Room, where Sylvia played jazz arrangements of classical favorites under the catchy rubric Lavender and New Lace. Deeply influenced by Landowska’s playing, encountered while the New Yorker was studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Marlowe’s 1959 solo Bach recording for Decca demonstrates how much Madame’s long musical shadow dominated the American harpsichord scene.
Eventually Ms. Marlowe chose to play harpsichords built by the American maker John Challis, moving subsequently to those of Challis’s apprentice William Dowd (with lid-paintings by her own husband, the artist Leonid [Berman]). Non-night-club recital repertoire included 18th-century classics, soon augmented extensively by commissions to prominent living composers. Thus, important works by Ned Rorem and Elliott Carter, to cite only two, came into being through Marlowe’s sponsorship. Together with the impressive catalog of similar commissions from the Swiss harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer (1909–1973), Marlowe’s initiatives helped to provide the harpsichord with an extensive, new twentieth-century musical voice.
Influenced by Kirkpatrick during student days at Yale, Fernando Valenti (1926–1990) switched from piano to harpsichord, and also played important new works by Vincent Persichetti (that composer’s First Harpsichord Sonata composed in 1952) and Mel Powell (Recitative and Toccata Percossa). However, Valenti made his name primarily as the most exciting player of Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas and specifically as the first harpsichordist to record such a large number of them—359 individual works performed on his Challis harpsichord in a series of albums for Westminster Records. In 1951 he was appointed the first harpsichord professor at New York’s Juilliard School. Several didactic books, published late in Valenti’s career, are as colorful and insightful as his playing. Who could resist a chuckle at words such as these?

Many years ago I promised myself that I would never put in print anything that even vaguely resembled a ‘method’ for harpsichord playing and this is it.8
One of the best-known harpsichordists to study privately with Valenti was Berlin-born Igor Kipnis (1930–2002), son of the prominent bass opera singer Alexander Kipnis. The family moved to the United States in 1938, where both Kipnises became familiar names in the classical music arena. Igor was particularly noted for his comprehensive and innovative repertory, recorded extensively. His playing was thoroughly representative of a more objective style of harpsichord performance.

Winds (or Strings and Quills) of Change?
One of the great services rendered by Kirkpatrick was his fervent advocacy for the historically inclined instruments of Frank Hubbard and William Dowd. As the years went by, these musical machines emulated ever more closely those from earlier centuries, albeit with some decidedly 20th-century materials, such as the plastics used for jacks and plectra. But with keyboards built to various baroque dimensions; sensitive, light actions; and registers deployed in a way that an 18th-century composer might have expected; together with the absence, for the most part, of the sixteen-foot register and pedals, these light and agile instruments gave the new generation of players sensitive tools for performing the music of the past. Emulating Hubbard and Dowd, a number of builders, in Boston and other American venues, and throughout the world, joined the “surge to the past,” and thereby changed both the dynamic and the expected sounds of harpsichord revival instruments.
Among Kirkpatrick’s allies in promoting these new “old” instruments were two Fullers—his student Albert (1926–2007) and the not-related David (born 1927), and harpsichordist/conductors Miles Morgan and William Christie. As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, nearly every emerging teacher and player in the country seemed to be joining the pedal-less crowd. In 1966 I met Dr. Joseph Stephens and played the Hubbard and Dowd harpsichord in his Baltimore (Maryland) home. Shortly thereafter I ordered my own first Dowd double. It was delivered at the beginning of January 1969. As has happened for so many players in our small musical world, that sensitive instrument taught me as much as had the memorable hours spent studying with two of the finest teachers imaginable: Isolde Ahlgrimm (at the Salzburg Mozarteum), and Gustav Leonhardt (during two memorable July participations in his master classes at the annual Haarlem Summer Organ Academies).

Influential European
Artist-Teachers

Both of these superb artists made significant contributions to harpsichord playing in the United States: Ahlgrimm (1914–1995) through her teaching in Salzburg, Vienna, and during semester-long guest professorships at Oberlin and Southern Methodist University, as well as several American concert tours organized by managers, but aided and attended by her grateful students. Until recently, Ahlgrimm’s place in the story of the 20th-century harpsichord revival has been little celebrated. With the publication of Peter Watchorn’s major study Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna and the Early Music Revival,9 that deficiency in our history has been rectified!
Leonhardt (born 1928), surely the most recorded of post-Landowska harpsichordists, has influenced virtually every harpsichordist from the second half of the 20th-century forward. His students seem to be everywhere. Even the most cursory of enumerations would include many of the leading teachers in the U.S: Oberlin’s first full-time professor of harpsichord Lisa Crawford; Michigan’s Edward Parmentier; Boston’s John Gibbons; University of New York at Stony Brook’s Arthur Haas; Florida State’s Karyl Louwenaar; Illinois’ Charlotte Mattax; and, particularly during the 1970s and ’80s, my own large group of harpsichord major students at Southern Methodist University. In the spirit of the early music excitement of those decades, SMU conferred his first doctorate on Leonhardt in 1984, citing the Dutch harpsichordist’s advocacy of “performance on period instruments,” as well as his “commitment to both stylistic authority and artistic sensitivity in recreating music of the past.”
To this day, more than 25 years after the conferral of that honorary degree, Leonhardt still refers to me in communications as his “Doktor-Vater.” Whereas Ahlgrimm referred to herself as a biological phenomenon since she “got more children the older she became,” Leonhardt’s humorous salutation presents me with a similar phenomenon: the “son” as father to the “father.” At any rate, I am pleased to have Dr. Leonhardt as my most distinguished graduate!
Ah yes, students—the new generators of harpsichord playing in America. Too many to list, but perhaps one graced with multiple “A’s” may serve as representative—Andrew Appel, American, who completed his doctoral studies with Juilliard harpsichord professor Albert Fuller in 1983, and now carries on that line from his teacher, who had been a pupil of Ralph Kirkpatrick, who was . . . and here we could circle back to the beginning of this essay. May Andrew Appel represent the achievements of so many of our fine young players: the late Scott Ross, the with-it Skip Sempé, the sensitive Michael Sponseller, the delightful teaching colleague Barbara Baird—Americans, all!
Ultimately all of us are indebted to those European “explorers” who have provided our inspiration and training: French/English Arnold Dolmetsch, Austrian Isolde Ahlgrimm, Dutch Gustav Leonhardt: all contributors to the variety and richness of the harpsichord’s presence in our contemporary musical life. And our Polish mother, Wanda Landowska: that vibrant musician who has brought us together for this celebration of her musical legacy.

Some Information about Added Aural Examples
This paper was presented at the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum on November 14, 2009, during a symposium in conjunction with the exhibition Die Dame mit dem Cembalo [The Lady with the Harpsichord], in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Wanda Landowska’s death. The topic was suggested by the museum’s curator Martin Elste, who organized the event. To remain within an imposed time limit, I chose to include only seven short recorded examples, each one a performance of the same final 25 measures from the third (Presto) movement of J. S. Bach’s Italian Concerto (BWV 971)—with an individual duration of between 30 and 40 seconds.
The first example demonstrated one of the most unforgettable of all my musical experiences: Landowska’s unexpected slight agogic hesitation between top and bottom notes of the climactic downward octave leap in measure 199, the last return of that wonderfully energetic opening theme. Taken from her 1936 recording for EMI [reissued in Great Recordings of the Century, CDH 7610082], it served as an aural measuring rod with which to compare the following recordings, made “after” Landowska.
Example Two presented the young Ralph Kirkpatrick playing his early 20th-century Dolmetsch-Chickering harpsichord, captured in a 1939 recording for Musicraft, digitized on Pearl [Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, volume II, GEMM CD 9245]. Example Three: Kirkpatrick again, 20 years later, recorded in a thrillingly theatrical performance played on a powerhouse Neupert instrument for Archiv [198 032] (LP).
Example Four: Sylvia Marlowe, like Landowska, played on an instrument by Pleyel, recorded in 1959 for Decca [DL 710012] (LP).
Example Five: Leading Bach authority Isolde Ahlgrimm, recorded 1975, playing her 1972 David Rubio harpsichord, recorded by Philips [6580 142] (LP).
Example Six: Gustav Leonhardt utilized the sound of an actual 18th-century historic instrument for his 1976 recording on a 1728 Hamburg harpsichord by Christian Zell. Seon [Pro Arte PAL-1025] (LP).
Example Seven: Andrew Appel played a 1966 harpsichord by Rutkowski and Robinette in his 1987 recording for Bridge Records [BCD 9005), concluding the musical examples in just under four minutes! Fortunately for the word-weary, the next, and final, presentation of the two-day seminar was given by British record collector extraordinaire Peter Adamson, comprising a fascinating sound and image survey of early harpsichord recordings.

 

Purcell's Tercentenary in Print: Recent Books - I

by James B. Hartman

Notes

                  1.              A General History of Music, From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (1789), vol. 2. (New York: Dover Publications, 1957), 380. Selections from Burney's essay on Purcell, pages 375-416, are reprinted in Michael Burden, Purcell Remembered, 139-141.

                  2.              See "Purcell manuscript acquired by British Library," describing the only known keyboard manuscript of 20 pieces in Purcell's own hand, and the recording of the entire manuscript of Purcell's keyboard works on three period instruments by harpsichordist Davitt Moroney, The Diapason, June 1995, 6.

                  3.              See also The Purcell Companion, edited by Michael Burden (Amadeus Press, 1995), reviewed by Enrique Alberto Arias in The Diapason, November 1995, 8-9. The book contains 11 essays in five sections: Introduction, Background, A Composer for Church and Chamber, Purcell and the Theatre, and Purcell in Performance.

                  4.              The are some inconsistencies in the end date of chapter 2 and the start date of chapter 3, and between the contents outline and the chapter headings in the text, as well as an inaccuracy in the start date of chapter 5.   

                  5.              The date and location of the first performance of Dido and Aeneas has been a matter of speculation. Recent research supporting the title-date connection is cited in King, 173; the problem is acknowledged but not resolved in Burden's introduction to the contemporary reference (Purcell Remembered, 79); Holman concludes "I suspect, however, that the last word has not been said on the matter" (Henry Purcell, 195).

                  6.              (Richard Goodson, the elder?), Orpheus Britannicus, ii (1702, 1711), cited in Holman, 21.

Default

Henry Purcell, by Robert King. London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994. 256 pages, 103 illustrations, 13 in color. $34.95.

Purcell Remembered, by Michael Burden. Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1995. xxv + 188 pages, 17 b/w illustrations. $29.95 hardcover plus $5.50 s&h, $17.95 papercover plus $4.50 s&h. Available from the publisher, 133 S.W. Second Ave., Portland, OR 97204-3527.

Henry Purcell, by Peter Holman. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. xvii + 250 pages, 42 musical examples. $17.95, paper.

Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814), one of England's earliest and most notable music historians, wrote: "Unluckily for Purcell! he built his fame with such perishable materials, that his worth and works are daily diminishing, while the reputation of our poets and philosophers is increasing by the constant study and use of their productions. And so much is our great musician's celebrity already consigned to tradition, that it will soon be as difficult to find his songs, or, at least to hear them, as those of his predecessors, Orpheus and Amphion. . . ." Burney attributed the disregard of the work of this superior genius, "equal to that of the greatest masters on the continent," to the changeability of taste in music and to "an inferior band to the Italian opera composers, as well as inferior singers, and an inferior audience, to write for."1 Fortunately for Western musical culture, these impediments to the appreciation of Purcell's music no longer exist.

The level of awareness of Purcell's music in recent years has been increased by the discovery of new manuscripts,2 recordings, progress towards the completion of the comprehensive edition of his works, the publication of books, exhibitions, and other special media events connected with the 1995 tercentenary year. The number and diversity of Purcell's creative output--anthems, domestic sacred music, services, catches, odes, secular vocal music, theater works, keyboard works, consort music--present a challenge to complete comprehension.

In recognition of the tercentenary year, eight books have been published between 1994 and 1996; seven of these will be discussed in these pages in two installments.3 The books in the first group, general in outlook, present the historical background of Purcell's time, provide a picture of his life from scattered sources, and establish a credible context for his compositional genres; those in the second group, more closely focussed and which include two edited collections of essays, deal with specific aspects of the development of Purcell's musical style and performance practices, then and now. All of these works contribute much to deepening our appreciation of this 17th-century master from these diverse viewpoints, ranging from the social and musical setting in which he worked to the opinions of critics and musicians across the centuries.

Robert King is one of Britain's leading baroque conductors. While at Cambridge University he founded The King's Consort, a period-instrument orchestra. He has made over 50 recordings; about one-half of these feature the music of Purcell, for which he researched and prepared his own performing editions. His current project is the recording of all of Purcell's odes, welcome songs, secular solo songs, and sacred music. His historically oriented book, Henry Purcell, provides a fitting introduction to this group of tercentenary publications.

The brief Prologue of the book touches upon several themes identified in other books: Purcell's acknowledged genius; the diversity of his compositions for the church, the opera house, the theater, small domestic instrumental forces, and his royal patrons. It also comments on the lack of information about Purcell himself, who left few letters and no personal diaries. Our present picture of Purcell, therefore, is a composite sketch compiled from scanty references in official records set against the wider historical background, which King treats in considerable detail throughout five chapters, each dealing with a politically defined chronological period.

Chapter 1, "A Restoration Childhood, 1659-1668," covers the period from the dissolution of Cromwell's Protectorate parliament to the "Triple Alliance," the diplomatic triumph of King Charles II. In this period Henry Purcell senior was appointed Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey, where he worked with his counterpart at the Chapel Royal on the choral and instrumental music for the royal coronation. Also, Thomas Purcell, young Henry's uncle, received an appointment as composer at the royal court. The catastrophic plague of 1665--the cause of the death of Henry's father in 1664 might have been due to an earlier isolated outbreak--and the great fire of London in 1666 undoubtedly left lasting impressions on the young Purcell. Whether "the wistfulness that is so prevalent in Purcell's music could therefore be seen as a manifestation of a little boy still crying for his lost father" (p. 42) is perhaps an excessive psycho-biographical speculation, however.

Chapter 2, "Learning the Trade, 1668-1677,"4 reconstructs the musical scene at the Chapel Royal from the time when young Henry became a chorister there at the age of eight or nine to the death of the eminent musician Matthew Locke, court composer and also a friend of Henry's father and uncle. As a chorister, the young Purcell's musical education included lessons from John Blow and Christopher Gibbons, son of Orlando. Although the Chapel boys were encouraged to compose, no composition by Purcell has survived. Along with other boys, he might have acted in London theatrical performances--a formative experience for his later influential years in that context. When his treble singing days were over, Purcell became assistant-apprentice to the supervisor of the royal instruments ("regals, organs, virginals, flutes and recorders and all other kind of wind instruments whatsoever"), a position that ensured contact with court musicians. Whether or not Purcell ever was a pupil of Matthew Locke, the latter's influence on the youth must have been great, partly through the composer's association with the Purcell family, but more directly through the court performances of Locke's music, whose style is reflected in the ode Purcell composed on the death of Locke.

Chapter 3, "Rising Star: Purcell at the Court of Charles II, 1677-1685," chronicles the period from the time when the teenage Purcell was appointed court composer, succeeding Locke, to the death of the royal patron. Commencing with this chapter, the author's discussions of Purcell's compositions include comments on their editions, scoring, musical textures, harmonic language, structural devices, expressive features, and general aesthetic characteristics, all of which provide condensed program notes for the works described. Purcell's compositions in this period included church anthems, the first small-scale songs to go into print, odes and welcome songs for royal occasions, verse anthems, and various instrumental pieces, including the Sonnata's of III Parts, published in 1683. His first commissioned work for the celebration of St. Cecilia's Day appeared in the same year. Only a year before, Purcell had received an appointment as one of the three organists of the Chapel Royal, and a year later he assumed the position of full supervisor and keeper of the royal instruments, following the death of his mentor. The infamous "battle of the organs," an acrimonious contest in 1684 between the builders Bernard Smith and Renatus Harris over the contract for a new organ for the Temple Church was resolved in Smith's favor, after much hostility and a mischievous act of sabotage; the players on Smith's instrument at the trials were Purcell and Blow.

Chapter 4, "Changing Fortunes: Purcell and King James, 1685-1688," covers the short period from the coronation of King James II, for which Purcell set up an organ in Westminster Abbey and contributed a grand, large-scale anthem, to the King's flight from England following political upheavals. During this uncertain time Purcell maintained his position as one of the three organists in the Chapel Royal, but the position of official court composer went to Blow; accordingly, Purcell turned his attention from writing anthems to developing the devotional song--his solo vocal writing at its best--and to his first royal ode. As Purcell wrote less music for the church and more secular vocal music, his compositions began to appear increasingly in printed editions. Even so, his financial affairs suffered on account of the King's decision to open a new Roman Catholic chapel at Whitehall, staffed by highly paid musicians imported from abroad. Purcell was among the royal employees who had to battle for payment for their services, but eventually he was paid "for repairing ye Organs and furnishing Harpsichords."

Chapter 5, "Maturity Cut Short: Purcell under William and Mary, 1688 [sic]-1695," opens at a critical point in English constitutional history, the declaration in 1689 of William and Mary as king and queen. Purcell had control of the organ loft for their coronation, and he produced the first of six birthday odes for the new queen in the same year. Although royal patronage in music was diminishing, Purcell maintained a busy schedule at court (still as supervisor of the royal instruments) and the Chapel Royal, in addition to his responsibilities at Westminster Abbey. The production in 1689 at a girl's boarding school of an opera, presumed to have been Dido and Aeneas,5 marked the beginning of his career as the leading composer for the London theater. The sources, production, and musical features of his various works for the genre are supplied in appropriate detail throughout this chapter. About a month after the annual celebrations of St. Cecilia's Day in November 1694, Queen Mary died in the smallpox epidemic that was sweeping London; Purcell composed a march and some vocal music for her funeral service in Westminster Abbey, and later, the music for two elegies. Purcell's own premature death at the age of 36, attributed to tuberculosis, was also marked by a ceremony in Westminster Abbey, when some of the music he had composed for Queen Mary's funeral was again played. A brief Epilogue to the book mentions various persons who paid tribute to England's greatest musical figure and to some significant 20th-century performances of his work.

This elegantly produced and thoroughly researched book successfully interweaves highlights of social and political events with the state of music in late 17th-century England. The numerous graphic illustrations of persons, places, and important events of the period that accompany the text, including a double-page, full-color painting of London in flames, bring a sense of immediacy that transcends the verbal accounts. For these reasons this book provides a stimulating introduction to the study of Purcell for the general reader. A useful supplement is a performer's catalogue of Purcell's works intended to aid performers and scholars as a general reference or for concert programming; pieces in the various genres contain information on titles, authors, occasions, composition dates, first performance dates, soloists, choruses, instruments, timing, and Zimmerman classification numbers. A selected discography and a selected reading list of 48 titles, chiefly historical (only six directly on Purcell), complete the volume.

*   *   *   *   *

Michael Burden is Lecturer in Music at New College, Oxford, and directs the New Chamber Opera. He has written widely on 17th- and 18th-century music and 20th-century musical theater. His book, Purcell Remembered, is a unique assembly of selections from various official publications, notices, public documents, letters, diaries, reminiscences, prefaces and dedications to Purcell's published works, and other sources relating to the composer and his times, spanning three centuries. Much of the material derived from these scattered sources is tangential to Purcell's music as such, but taken as a whole it provides an engrossing and instructive account of life in Purcell's day, and therefore it is a useful supplement to Robert King's historical narrative.

An introductory chronology of Purcell's life and works mentions other musical, political, social, and cultural events, some of which may have impressed Purcell. The selections are presented within discrete sections focussing on Purcell's early life and the Chapel Royal, singers and singing, his Sonnata's of III Parts and a battle for an organ, two coronations and a revolution, publishing and pedagogy, the stage, Purcell's death, the Restoration musical scene, recollections and assessments of Purcell's works by commentators, and similar opinions by musicians through the years.

The selections cover Purcell's life span and beyond. For example, several excerpts from the diaries of Samuel Pepys, England's observant and music-loving writer who wrote during the period 1660-1669, include a reference to a meeting in 1660 with Henry Purcell's father or uncle and the composer Matthew Locke, followed by an account of the activities at the Chapel Royal and vivid descriptions of the plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666. Pepys also remarked on Purcell's first composition, a song included in a collection published in 1667. As for Purcell's death in 1695, his will is reproduced, along with a description of his interment in Westminster Abbey, some letters by his wife Frances and the publisher Henry Playford relating to the posthumous printing of some sonatas, and several odes, including Dryden's praiseful lament for "The God-like Man, Alas! too soon retir'd." The nature of Purcell the man remains obscure, apart from passing references to his "mirth and good humour, which seem to have been habitual to him"; his contemporaries and successors confined their descriptions to his musical abilities as a composer. His adult singing abilities were extolled in 1685 as "wondrous skill" in an adoring ode by Aphra Behn, the first professional writer in England. As an accomplished organist, Purcell often adjudicated the appointments of other organists and advised on the building or maintenance of church organs. Relevant passages are reproduced from church vestry minutes and from the writings of the music critic Roger North (1653-1734) concerning the great battle for the organs between the rival builders Renatus Harris and Bernard Smith, in which Purcell and Blow successfully demonstrated the Smith organ, and Giovanni Battista Draghi played the Harris instrument.

References to Purcell's small-scale vocal works highlight two contrasting subgenres; the high-minded and the down-to-earth. One example of the former was the performance of Purcell's ode for the St. Cecilia's Day celebrations in 1692; his songs, on the other hand, some of the ribald variety with their bawdy allusions, provided communal entertainment in public taverns, alehouses, and coffeehouses. An explanation of the musical structure of catches and glees, and instructions for singing them, appeared in an advertisement to John Playford's 1673 edition and later editions, along with some examples. One entertaining rebus referred to the composer:

His surname begins with the grace of a cat,

And concludes with the house of a hermit, note that;

His skill at performance each auditor wins, But the poet deserves a good kick on the shins.

Glimpses into significant historical events of Purcell's time are provided in eyewitness descriptions of the coronation of King James II in Westminster Abbey in 1685, when Purcell was organist there, and of the joint coronation of King William and Queen Mary in 1689, when Purcell attended to his usual duties at the Abbey, including the provision of a second organ. The last days and funeral rites for Queen Mary, for which Purcell contributed some of the music, are chronicled in several documents relating to the event.

Public awareness of Purcell in his own time and after his death was due in large part to the publishers John and Henry Playford, father and son, who brought out the composer's works. Their artful prefaces and self-effacing dedications--short on content, strong on flattery for royalty and the anticipated subscribers among the public--sometimes featured encomiastic verses on the collections or offered biblical justification for the learning of music. On the other hand, Purcell's opening remarks to his Choice Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinet, published in 1696, were pedagogical in nature, consisting of directions to the performer and "Rules for Graces," a table of ornaments and embellishments. Almost a century later, Charles Burney speculated that Purcell adopted this practice to meet the needs of ignorant and clumsy performers, and that it contributed to the obsolescence of his music.

Today's readers may vicariously visit the productions of some of Purcell's theatrical works over the centuries through the descriptions by witnesses to actual performances, beginning with an account of Dido and Aeneas (?) in 1689; George Bernard Shaw's quirky review of a 1889 production of the same work provides contrast, as do the critical commentaries on later revivals by Gustav Holst and Thomas Beecham. Appropriate selections from advertisements, prologues, reviews, and recollections relating to performances of Dioclesian, King Arthur, and The Fairy Queen are included here, along with several assessments of the state of opera in England through the years. A summing-up by Sir George Dyson in 1932 acknowledged the freshness and beauty of Purcell's music for his stage productions, but attributed their lack of consistent plots and unified design to the entertainment-driven desires of the public.

The assessments of Purcell by musicians, historians, journalists, and other writers over the years consisted mainly of flattering tributes; insightful critical evaluations did not appear until recent times. For example, an unsigned contribution to the Universal Journal in 1734 described Purcell as "a Shakespear in Musick," possessed of "a most happy enterprizing Genius, join'd with a boundless Invention, and noble Design [who] made Musick answer its Ends (i.e.) move the Passions"; William Boyce, writing in 1768, praised him as "a Genius superior to any of his Predecessors . . . . equally excellent in every thing he attempted." Nevertheless, in 1893 C. Hubert H. Parry, while admitting that Purcell was the greatest genius of his age, criticized his excesses in realistic expression and his faulty judgment in matters of choral style that involved occasional lapses into innocent bathos and childishness. Peter Warlock, writing in 1927 about Purcell's fantasias, found their advanced perfection of form and content sufficient to include them in England's most significant contributions to the world's great music. A wide-ranging and perceptive review of Purcell's place in English music, written by Donald Francis Tovey in 1941, opined that Purcell was born either 50 years too soon (to gain access to the resources of Bach and Handel) or 50 years too late (to be master of the Golden Age). Sir Jack Westrup, formerly chairman of the Purcell Society for almost 20 years, writing in 1959, deplored the repetition of the limited amount of Purcell's music performed in inappropriate "realizations" from erroneous copies. Quotations by contemporary British composers Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, and Peter Maxwell Davies reveal their attraction to Purcell that initiated performances of his works--Davies deplores note-perfect but emotionally insensitive "authentic" performances--that contributed to the renewal of interest in the master in England and elsewhere.

Michael Burden's three-century harvest of written fragments about Purcell and his times provides in words the same sense of immediacy that Roger King's illustrated historical narrative does in pictures. Purcell Remembered includes a center section of 17 small monochrome illustrations, some of which duplicate the more opulent chromatic pictures in King's volume. A multidimensional understanding of the Purcell could therefore be achieved by reading both volumes in parallel.

*   *   *   *   *

Peter Holman is now Senior Associate Lecturer at Colchester Institute of Music, following a teaching career at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and elsewhere. In addition to writing for scholarly journals, he maintains an active performing career as a harpsichordist, organist, and director of The Parley of Instruments and musical director of Opera Restor'd. His book, Henry Purcell, provides the context for understanding the various genres within which Purcell worked: his small-scale domestic works, both vocal and instrumental, and his large-scale public works in church music, the odes, and theater music.

An opening chapter on Purcell's musical world covers the salient events of his life span: the re-establishment of musical life in the Restoration period, the role of secular musicians and performing groups, Purcell's service as a choir boy at the Chapel Royal and his early musical instruction, his duties as a music copyist, his first post as custodian and repairman of musical instruments, his activities as court composer, his succession to the position of organist at Westminster Abbey, the decline of royal patronage of music, the political accommodations of musicians, and life in the theater. Again, we are reminded that little is known about Purcell the man from direct evidence, but attempts have been made to draw character implications from the handwriting of the person described in a later poetic reference as one whose "Pride was the sole aversion of his Eye, Himself as Humble as his Art was High."6

Nearly all Restoration songs dealt with some aspect of love (usually from the male viewpoint), and Purcell's contributions to the genre--dance songs, declamatory songs, and dialogues--have always been greatly admired. The humble catch, too, was mostly preoccupied with wine and women, although Purcell provided untrained amateurs and off-duty musicians with settings of various topics: politics, loyal toasts, newsworthy events, bell-ringing, and others. The Italian influence in England was felt in both performance practice and repertory, and several ground-bass songs by Italian composers were models for Purcell and his contemporaries. Holman gives some detailed consideration to Purcell's musical language in the songs, such as the affective associations of certain keys, the colors obtained through different keys in unequal temperament, and other melodic and harmonic devices relating words, music, and emotion. Other forms treated in the same chapter include symphony songs (inappropriately called "cantatas") performed in the royal apartments, verse anthems and theater songs, some of which became models for succeeding generations of song writers.

Genre distinctions prevail in the discussion of instrumental music, such as fantasias and pavans in the contrapuntal tradition, and overtures and chaconnes as orchestral forms. Holman draws comparisons with earlier forms by Purcell's predecessors and similar works by his contemporaries, and speculates on Purcell's intentions for them as composition exercises or performance pieces. At the same time, notwithstanding the admiration of English musicians for Italianate sonatas, the relationship between Purcell's sonatas and those by Italian masters remains unresolved, as does the rationale for their sequential order in collections. As for Purcell's keyboard music, recent discoveries of Purcell manuscripts have helped to resolve some questions of Purcell as author or arranger of harpsichord works. Several organ voluntaries are now known to have been falsely attributed to him, and many others undoubtedly never were written down, due their improvisational nature.

Insofar as the tradition of cathedral music was unfamiliar to the generation that had lived through the period of the proscription of singing in church services and the destruction or dismantling of organs, Purcell and his contemporaries had much to do to rescue earlier practices and develop new repertory. Holman's discussion of church music follows Purcell's development from his youthful preoccupation with contrapuntal forms to his later absorption of the melodic, harmonic, and structural features of the Italian style. As a writer of anthems, however, Purcell perhaps owed less to Italian music than to Matthew Locke, whose compositions provided the model for works that synthesized formal counterpoint with expressive, soloistic, vocal writing and daring harmonies, but without Locke's polychoral style. The distinguishing features of Purcell's symphony anthems are discussed in some detail, including the Italian harmonic influences and sense of drama. Some useful background information accompanies the account of Purcell's last church music written for Queen Mary's funeral and performed again at Purcell's own funeral.

Apart from Purcell's three famous odes, Welcome to All the Pleasures; Hail, Bright Cecilia; and Come, Ye Sons of Art, Away, the remainder have been neglected partly on account of the toadying texts of these celebratory or welcoming compositions; besides, little is known about their origins or the circumstances of their performance. Purcell's experimentation in this genre involved contrapuntal and ground-bass writing, along with new ways--including the sophisticated Italian influences--of combining voices and instruments. The superb writing style, controlled structure, and grand scale of the ode on St. Cecilia's Day, Purcell's most popular choral work, inspired Handel to produce a birthday ode; this marked the beginning of the English secular choral tradition, according to Holman.

The reopening of the London theaters around 1660 and the presence of instrumental groups to accompany the plays also offered creative opportunities to Purcell. His first music for the theater was performed in the early 1680s, but he dropped out of the scene for almost a decade for reasons unknown. Equally obscure are the inspiration, circumstances, dating, première, foreign musical influences, and political and allegorical meanings of Dido and Aeneas. The resumption of Purcell's career in the commercial theater in 1690 was marked by the production of more than 40 works in the remaining five years of his life, including the landmark Dioclesian, the first semi-opera, followed by King Arthur and The Fairy Queen of the same genre. Holman's discussion of these and other later stage works touches upon the integration of music and action, in addition to other more purely musical issues.

The discussion of each facet of Purcell's output contains assessments of both its glories and shortcomings, with respectful consideration of unresolved and controversial issues surrounding dating, style, and other historical circumstances. The reader's assimilation of this material, however, could have been aided by a system of subheadings to identify the subtle shifts in focus and subject imbedded in the seamless flow of information within each section. Moreover, the book lacks a concluding chapter that would provide a general assessment of Purcell's accomplishments within his own time and his influence on future generations. Nevertheless, the author's enthusiasm for Purcell's music and his comprehensive treatment of its distinct genres undoubtedly will contribute to the renewal of both scholarly and practical interest in the composer and his music far beyond the heightened exposure both received during the tercentenary year. A bibliography of 204 books, articles, and general reference works; a list of 108 edited music collections; and an index of Purcell's works by genre provide the necessary documentation.      

Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

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Facsimiles from Fuzeau: Sources for Lifelong Learning

Alternately fascinating and frustrating, facsimiles of original manuscripts and printed editions have become increasingly available. For the harpsichordist there is little that is more rewarding than playing from an actual musical “picture” as presented by the composer. Reading from the “original” certainly does not answer all questions, but it does give an unadulterated source as basis for making one’s own musical decisions. For this reason, I heartily recommend playing from facsimiles as a challenging, and often a cleansing, exercise in musical growth.

To utilize these recent scores from publisher Jean-Marc Fuzeau of France, it will help to have an adventurous spirit, as well as a willingness to learn the occasional unfamiliar clef, frequently used in earlier music manuscripts to avoid excessive employment of ledger lines.

Alessandro Poglietti: Rossignolo  [Collection Dominantes Number 5905].

Works for harpsichord or organ by the Italian composer who died in 1683 during his flight from Vienna following the Turkish siege of that city. Three main sources for these pieces are introduced by Peter Waldner, whose notes in French, English, and German include both biographical and bibliographical information and a listing of available modern editions. Fuzeau’s publication comprises three slim paperbound volumes in a folder: an autograph manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna (Cod. 19248), an early edition from the Music Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Marienberg, Burgeis (60/q 366), and another copy of an old source, now housed in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin (Mus.ms. 17670). All utilize the soprano clef (notes written a third higher than the customary G clef) and the familiar bass clef on F. Individual pieces include a Toccata, Canzone, Allemande Amour, Courante, Sarban, Gigue, Ayre, as well as Il Rossignolo Capricio [sic] and a Petitte Ayre gay “in imitation of the Nightingale.”

Johann Kuhnau: Neue Clavier-übung, Partie I (1689) [Collection Dominantes Number 5716], consists of seven short keyboard suites in C, D, E, F, G, A, and B-flat, prefaced by eleven pages of introductory material by Philippe Lescat. Each group of pieces begins with a Prelude (the fourth suite, a Sonatina). The volume is engraved in a large, clear format employing the first line soprano clef and the familiar bass clef on F.

For a modern performing edition of these works (and others, including the popular and appealing Biblical Sonatas) by Bach’s immediate predecessor as Cantor of Leipzig’s  Thomaskirche, consult the beautifully-presented two-volume set of Kuhnau’s Collected Works for Keyboard edited by C. David Harris, available from The Broude Trust, New York (ISBN 0-8540-7660-4).

Christoph Graupner: Monatliche Clavir Früchte (1722) [Collection Dominantes Number 5855].

Not surprisingly, this collection of “Monthly Keyboard Fruits” comprises twelve groups of keyboard pieces illustrating the months of the year. (I suppose one could create a larger work--Seasons--by playing these suites in groups of three!) Graupner, student of and assistant to Kuhnau in Leipzig, spent most of his distinguished career in Darmstadt. Soprano and bass F clefs, notes by Oswald Bill.

Louis Marchand: Pièces de clavecin (Book I, 1699; Book II, 1702), Air (La Venitienne) [La Musique Française Classique Number 5761].

Book One contains a Suite in D minor, consisting of a (measured) prelude and eight dance movements (including an elegant Chaconne with four couplets) engraved primarily in soprano and third line F clefs (with occasional deviations to G and third line C clefs). Book Two contains a Suite in G minor, the prelude of which has some unmeasured passages. Seven short dance movements follow.

Edited by Thurston Dart, Marchand’s two suites were published by Editions L’Oiseau Lyre in 1960. Dart’s edition does not contain the short Air (printed by Ballard as the character piece “La Venitienne” [in Pièces Choisies pour le clavecin]), included in the facsimile (with easy-to-read G and F clefs). Introductory notes to Fuzeau’s publication include an essay on “French Harpsichord Makers of Marchand’s Time” by Philippe Lescat. An amusing attribution in his Bibliography replaces American harpsichord maker and instrument historian FRANK Hubbard’s first name with the more Gallic spelling FRANCK.

Christian Gottlob Neefe: Zwölf Klavier-Sonaten (1773) [Collection Dominantes Number 5880].

Twelve early classic works for clavichord by Beethoven’s teacher; published in Leipzig with a dedication to “Herr Kapellmeister [C P E] Bach in Hamburg.” The original print featured a clear, clean text (soprano, bass F clefs). The inevitable printer’s errors are noted and corrected in introductory material by Pascal Duc.

Number Twelve in the Fuzeau series Méthodes & Traités  fills two volumes, each containing more than 200 pages. Clavecin presents in chronological order selections from the most important French sources concerning the harpsichord. A reading knowledge of French would be helpful, but for those who are challenged by the language, a great amount of enjoyment may be gleaned from the generous offering of harpsichord-related images, easily-deciferable information, and the many musical examples.

Beginning with tuning and building information from Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle (1636) and Denis’ Traité de l’accord de l’espinette (1650), volume one continues with ornament tables found in the keyboard volumes by Chambonnières (1670), d’Anglebert (1689), Dieupart (1701: a volume dedicated to the Countess of Sandwich), Le Roux (1705), François Couperin (Book I, 1713), Dandrieu (1724), Dagincourt (1733), Michel Corrette (1734), Louis-Claude Daquin (1735), Rameau (1736), Van Helmont (1737), Jollage (1738), and Royer (1746), plus complete facsimiles of Saint-Lambert’s Les Principes du Clavecin, (1702) and Couperin’s L’art de toucher le clavecin (1717). [Consult the original layout of Couperin’s Troisième Prélude (page 175) to substantiate a correct reading of the never-corrected faulty first bass note at the beginning of the last score: the guide (guidon) from the preceding line shows it to be a “C,”  but the engraver actually notated a “B-flat,” creating a chord unidiomatic to an 18th-century piece.]

Also included are two documents including important information for stylistic performance of French keyboard music: a letter by Le Gallois concerning the playing of the prélude non mésurée (1680) and Rameau’s two-page commentary on proper touch at the harpsichord (1724), ending with his intriguing comment that the same techniques are applicable as well to the organ.

Volume Two continues this rich treasure trove with Michel Corrette’s Les Amusemens du Parnasse, a short and easy method for the harpsichord (1749). This includes a simple Suite in C for beginners, with fingerings provided AND utilizing the familiar G and F clefs, followed by an additional twelve pages of easy pieces. At the end of the volume Marpurg’s Art de toucher le clavecin (1797) gives a fin de siècle example of keyboard instruction, concluding with another lengthy set of easier pieces by Mr. Sorge, organist and mathematician of Lobenstein (once again using “modern” clefs).

Other gems reprinted in this second volume include composer Duphly’s handwritten remarks on fingering (1769) as preserved in the copy of his Pièces de clavecin, Book I, belonging to his student, English Lord Fitzwilliam; illustrations of harpsichord construction from Diderot’s Encyclopédie (1751- 1772); Lessons and Principles of Harmony by Bemetzrieder (1771) reproduced from a copy once owned by the important 19th-century musical reformer Choron; and several more enchanting engravings of variously styled harpsichords with other instruments from the Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne by Laborde (1780).

For more complete details, including current prices, consult the publisher’s website: <classical-music.fuzeau.com>. A recent promotional offering, a miniature volume of selected pages from facsimile publications, is offered at this address. Let your discoveries begin!

Send news items or comments about Harpsichord News to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275;

<[email protected]>.

Harpsichord News

by Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

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A work by Dutilleux

It is extremely rare that I come upon a harpsichord-inclusive piece of music that has not been listed in Frances Bedford's Harpsichord and Clavichord Music of the Twentieth Century, but such was the case when I read the Chicago Symphony Orchestra program for concerts played during the last weekend in January. On the program was Symphony Number Two (Le double) by Henri Dutilleux (born 1916)--scored for two orchestras: a chamber group of oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, celesta, timpani, string quartet and HARPSICHORD, plus another complete orchestral force with harp and a large battery of percussion instruments.

Dutilleux' Second Symphony, commissioned by the conductor Charles Munch to celebrate the Boston Symphony's 75th anniversary, resembles a baroque concerto grosso, and is a work lasting approximately 30 minutes. Michael Gielen conducted and Mary Sauer (principal pianist of the Chicago Symphony) was harpsichordist for this set of performances. [With thanks to faithful reader and longtime friend Roy Kehl for sending the Symphony program.]

Violet

The early 20th-century harpsichordist Violet Gordon Woodhouse (1871-1948) is the subject of a dramatic presentation with music, Violet, by her biographer Jessica Douglas-Home. It was performed on December 16 in London's Bush Hall (a 1904 ballroom) by harpsichordist Maggie Cole with actors Maggie Henderson and Robert McBain.

The exotic Violet is surely an apt subject for a drama: drawn to the harpsichord through Arnold Dolmetsch she became a player of exquisite sensitivity, the first to make commercial recordings at the harpsichord. Her intense musicality had its counterpart in her unconventional personal life: married to Gordon Woodhouse, the couple shared a home with three other men in a long-lasting ménage à cinq. Women, too, were passionate in their devotion to Violet, among them the composer Ethel Smyth and the writer Radclyffe Hall. Devotées of her playing included the three literary Sitwells, George Bernard Shaw, T. E. Lawrence, and Serge Diaghilev.

Virginia Pleasants reports from London

The London musical scene has been enriched by the openings of the Handel House Museum (November 8, 2001) and the York Gate Collections at the Royal Academy of Music (February 27, 2002).

To honor one of music's most famous composers the Handel House Trust acquired his longtime residence at 25 Brook Street in central London, the site not only for the composition of several of the composer's most famous works (including Messiah), but also of rehearsals for their performances. Music is again to be heard in regular concerts on two harpsichords: a single-manual William Smith replica of an instrument in the Bate Collection, Oxford, and a two-manual Ruckers-style instrument by Bruce Kennedy. Both commissioned instruments are professionally maintained and are available to students for practice and concerts. A future addition will be a chamber organ, like the harpsichords a replica of an instrument Handel played in these rooms.

Lectures on Handelian subjects, both independently and in conjunction with concerts at nearby St. George's Church, are offered by the Museum. At last London boasts a major tribute to one of its most famous composers! [Contact information: The Handel House Museum, 25 Brook Street, London W1K 4HB; Website: http://www.handelhouse.org;

Email: [email protected]].

The Royal Academy of Music has officially opened its York Gate Collections of Musical Instruments at a site adjacent to the Academy (1 York Gate). There, nine pianos from the collection of Kenneth and Mary Mobbs are on loan. The collection shows the development of the grand piano in England during the first half of the 19th century; it provides a welcome corollary to the Academy's famed collection of string instruments.

Early Music: Chopin (!)

The Oxford University Press journal Early Music (Volume XXIX/3, August 2001) includes Laurence Libin's article "Robert Adam's Instruments for Catherine the Great" and several contributions on the topic "Chopin As Early Music," among them Jim Samson's "Chopin, Past and Present;" Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger's "Chopin and Pleyel;" and Jonathan Bellman's "Frédéric Chopin, Antoine de Kontski and the carezzando Touch."

These articles are highly recommended. I hope our readers will share them with their pianist friends, who, in general, often ignore the gentle sensitivity of Chopin's music and, if one believes contemporary reports, of his own playing.

Some years ago I read with great interest a small volume by Edith J. Hipkins: How Chopin Played (From Contemporary Impressions collected from the Diaries and Notebooks of the late A. J. Hipkins, F.S.A [1826-1903]), published in London (J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1937). In this book the daughter of the harpsichord-playing pioneer relayed her father's observations of the great composer, impressions from very early in Hipkins' career as an employee of the Broadwood piano firm, where Chopin visited in April 1848. Hipkins reported that "Chopin's fortissimo was the full pure tone without noise, a harsh inelastic note being to him painful. His nuances were modifications of that tone, decreasing to the faintest yet always distinct pianissimo." [page 5]

Concerning Chopin's touch, Hipkins wrote "He changed fingers upon a key as often as an organ-player." (A footnote to this statement relates that "At the age of sixteen Chopin was appointed organist to the Lyceum at Warsaw.") [page 5]

Hipkins: "To return to pianos, [Chopin] especially liked Broadwood's Boudoir cottage pianos of that date, two-stringed, but very sweet instruments. . .  He played Bach's '48' all his life long. 'I don't practise my own compositions,' he said to Von Lentz. 'When I am about to give a concert, I close my doors for a time and play Bach.'" [page 7]

[A copy of this book having gone "astray" in our university library, I am doubly indebted to Mrs. Rodger Mirrey of London, who sent me a photocopy of the entire 39-page text.]

Still more from Early Music

The issue for February (Volume XXX/1) includes several items of interest to the harpsichordist: "Keyboard Instrument Building in London and the Sun Insurance Records, 1775-87" (Lance Whitehead and Jenny Nex); "The Dublin Virginal Manuscript: New Perspectives on Virginalist Ornamentation" (Desmond Hunter); "Repeat Signs and Binary Form in François Couperin's Pièces de claveçin" (Paul Cienniwa); plus correspondence about Domenico Scarlatti's 'tremulo' (Carl Sloane and Howard Schott) for erudition. And Howard Schott's lovely obituary of Igor Kipnis, for nostalgia.

[Send items for these columns to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275; email [email protected]]

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